Ripe for Harvest

166 • R IPE FOR H ARVEST

B. Expectation: the poor as actors rather than acted upon.

Poverty is not so much the absence of goods as it is the absence of power – the capability of being able to change one’s situation.

~ Robert C. Linthicum. Empowering the Poor: Community Organizing Among the City’s ‘Rag, Tag, and Bobtail.’ Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1991. p. 10.

The Church must be the place where the poor are expected to take leadership. We must know this about the poor even before they know it about themselves. We must ensure that the require ments that are established for leaders are fully biblical but are not expressed in middle-class cultural forms. Paternalism can take two equally deadly forms: not expecting the poor to lead or simply giving leadership that a person is not equipped for as a kind of tokenism.

1. The Upside-Down Kingdom

Ps. 18.27 – For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.

Isa. 23.9 – The LORD of hosts has purposed it, to defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth. Ezek. 21.26 – thus says the Lord GOD: Remove the turban and take off the crown. Things shall not remain as they are. Exalt that which is low, and bring low that which is exalted. Luke 6.20, 24 – And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. . . . [24] But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” James 1.9-10 – Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, [10] and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away.

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Luke 1.52 – . . . he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.