One of the primary themes of the psalms is God’s care for the poor. He is their judge and defender. But the bond between God and the poor is extends beyond mere compassion, and into identity. God will not—indeed, he cannot—forget the poor any more than he can forget himself. God is poor and he is inviting us to share in his poverty that we might be rich as he is rich.

Herbert McCabe makes just this argument in a wonderful little essay titled “God and Poverty.”

I want to suggest that there is something godlike about being able to live in poverty; so we shall have to think about the poverty of God. And I want to suggest that there is something less than human about needing to live with riches. And the movement from riches to poverty, from having to not having, can be a movement not only to being more human but to being divine. In a way, the success story for Christians is from riches to rags…Riches and poverty in themselves represent two extremes, two directions we might aim at. Riches represent the ideal of taking the world for your own use; poverty represents the ideal of complete freedom from possessions. Whichever we aim at we could never attain for ourselves. But poverty we can in the end be given. Sometimes we think of that as death, the cross, and sometimes as resurrection, new life.

I would like to contrast possessions and being. We take possession of things. Even if they are gifts we can either take them or refuse them. Taking is essential to possessions. Being or life, on the other hand, cannot, in this sense, be taken. It can only be sheer gift.

No one can take upon herself life; nothing can bring itself into existence. Always we receive being from another or from others. To aim at riches is to aim at taking possession of things, even, perhaps, taking possession of people. To aim at poverty is to aim at the giving of life, and this comes from gratitude for receiving life ourselves. And giving life is a specially godlike activity.

It is simply not possible for God to be like someone who aims at riches. We cannot speak literally of the riches of God, for he has not, and could not have, any possessions. It is true that often enough, in the psalms for example, we speak of God as though he were a landlord of the whole earth: ‘In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also; the sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed’ (Psalm 95:4–5). But these are images to be offset by other images, just like the images of God as a warrior or a rock or an eagle. We have, and we need to have, hundreds of images of God, incompatible with each other and not to be forced into some system, not to be taken literally. The image of God as a wealthy landowner holding court amongst his tenants is one of these. We cannot speak literally of the riches and possessions of God for he could not take anything to use for his own purposes. He can only use one creature for the sake of another, for the benefit of another. Nothing is or acts for the benefit of God.

We cannot speak literally of the riches of God. But I think we can speak literally of the poverty of God. Of course, his poverty is not the same as our poverty, as his wisdom is not the same as ours. But he is literally poor because he simply and literally has no possessions. He takes nothing for his own use. He only has life and being. And, if you want to press the point, he does not even have life, as he does not have wisdom or have goodness. In God, being alive or being wise or being good are just simply being God and nothing more, nothing extra he has. So for us to aim at poverty is for us to aim in the direction of the simplicity and poverty of God—a direction away from possessing to being.

God’s creative act is an act of God’s poverty, for God gains nothing by it. God makes without becoming richer. His act of creation is purely and simply for the benefit of his creatures. We are sometimes tempted to ask what motive God had for making the world—meaning ‘What did he hope to gain by it?’ But, of course, this question is absurd. It is only creation that gains by God’s act. It is a purely gratuitous act of love, that characteristic act of love which is the giving of life.

The beauty of creation adds nothing to the beauty of God, as the light of the moon adds nothing to the light of the sun but simply reflects it. And God’s delight in his creatures and their beauty is not something extra to his delight in the beauty of his creative divinity itself—the delight that we call the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is just God’s delight in his own life as he contemplates it in conceiving his Word. Or, as we say more formally, the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Word. This eternal delight is the joy that belongs to aiming at poverty, as sorrow belongs to possessions…

The gospel does not tell us to have no possessions. It tells us to aim at poverty, to move towards it, and certainly not to aim at riches. We cannot serve both God and riches.

Diagrams from Class

Diagram 1: “Riches” and “Poverty” are two extremes, two directions we might aim at in life. “Riches” represents the ideal of taking/possessing the world around you. It is marked by sorrow (Rich Young Ruler). “Poverty” represents the ideal of giving/receiving the world around you. It is marked by joy (Widow’s Mite).

Diagram 2: We need to break the equivalence in our minds between good fortune and blessing. This is at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. Blessing can be present in both bad fortune and good fortune. In fact, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor” or “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” To be “poor in spirit” is to recognize and accept that you have limitations, that you are dependent, that you are called to live a life of giving/receiving rather than taking/possessing. In truth, everyone is poor in spirit. But it is harder for those with good fortune to see (hence, the distance). As we see throughout the Gospels, poorer people (people experiencing bad fortune) have an easier time accepting that they are poor in spirit. But it is possible to be poor in spirit in both bad and good fortune. As Paul says in Philippians 4:12—13, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in lack [good fortune or bad fortune].”

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