As we wrap up our contemplation of not spiritualizing the material, again, we need to hold this in tension with the versions of Jesus we encounter in the other canonical gospels. In those gospels we encounter a Jesus who wants his followers to work for and pray for our material world to match the heavenly world:
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)
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(Read this series from the beginning at Part 1 and Part 2.)
We encounter a Jesus who holds up the material, concrete, and not spiritualized liberation that people were experiencing as a result of his work and that testified of his slegitimacy:
“The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Matthew 11:5)
Our daily bread wasn’t spiritualized. That every person would be able to have and eat their actual, material, daily bread was something his followers were to work and pray for:
“Give us today our daily bread.” Matthew 6:11
Not spiritualizing but alleviating people’s material suffering was also lifted up as the litmus test in these gospels’ descriptions of a final judgement:
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me . . . for whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:34-40)
Caring about our and others’ material needs, especially others who were oppressed, was rooted in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets:
“If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” (Isaiah 58:10)
Again, the picture of a God who was concerned with supplying people’s material needs rather than spiritualizing them away is rooted in the soil of the Jewish wisdom that the Jesus movement grew out of:
“He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.” (Psalm 146:7)
And when we consider the early Jesus movement located in Jerusalem as contrasted with the Jesus moment of the Johannine community two generations later, we see resource-sharing, mutual aid, as well as hunger and poverty elimination as a central characteristic of how the early movement followed Jesus:
“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”(Acts 4:33-35)
Outside of the gospels, my favorite New Testament book is the book of James. Here too we see the material contrasted with the spiritual. But James explains that if we focus on the spiritual to the exclusion of the material, it makes our focus on spiritual realities absolutely not good.
“Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15-16)
What can we take away from this? Today, some Christians contrast saving souls with the work of social justice. There is no reason to pit the saving of souls against social justice work. Saving bodies is just as much a part of the Jesus tradition as savings souls is. In fact, in the synoptic gospels, social justice is a requirement for genuinely following Jesus. How is social justice still a requirement for you?
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