Blessed are you who are poor...
The Greek word for poor is ptochos, people who are destitute, people who are so poor that begging and stealing become options for them to survive. They are drowning in misery.
One way to become destitute in the first century was to lose land and one's place in their family. For most people, land was not just property; land was life. Family identity was exceptionally important in the ancient world. People were known as the "son of" or "daughter of" their father, or mother, or clan. War, slavery, and indebtedness left people widows and orphans and strangers. War, slavery, and indebtedness left people destitute, displaced, and dispossessed.
The Hebrew Bible, over and over and over, challenges the Israelites to care for widows, orphans, and strangers. War, slavery, and indebtedness were all part of the structures and systems of evil that made the rich richer and the poor miserable.
During the time of Jesus, the 1% owned and controlled the land and practically everything else. Half of the population was slowly starving to death. Life expectancy was 28 years.
When the gospel of Luke talks about the poor, it does not mean the rich who are spiritually poor. It does not include the wealthy who live in poor relationships nor the powerful who feel poor. It does not include the rich who think they are poor compared to other rich people.
The poor that Luke talks about are people who have to beg God in prayer to give them today the food they need because that's how they get to tomorrow.
There are people who love to pray this prayer while they have cupboards--or even storehouses--of food enough for a week, a month, a year, or longer. These people are not poor.
*art, "The Sermon on the Mount," JESUS MAFA (from the vanderbilt diviniyt library digital archives).
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