Reflections on God and Money: Was Jesus Poor? (1)

On the Sabbath [Jesus] began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, ‘Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’

Mark 6:2-3

Some years ago, a Christian who was already working fulltime for a church mentioned to me, in passing, that he was attracted to the sort of work done by a particular missionary organisation. When I asked why he did not look into joining the organisation, he replied that it did not pay its workers but expected them to fund their own activities from a network of supporters and he could not ask his wife to live in poverty.

The answer stumped me. I was at a complete loss for words and the conversation ceased abruptly. Did he really believe that God, when left to himself to supply our needs, will give us only the essentials? Actually, I am sure that he did have a better view of God than that. But the comment provoked me to look afresh at the assumption many Christians hold that poverty is the ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ situation for Christians and that Jesus was himself poor. While God can and does, from time to time, expect his people to live one day at a time, expecting their ‘daily bread’ and no more, there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that this is normal, usual or common.

At the start, I am sure that Jesus’ family were poor at the time of his birth. They had travelled to Bethlehem for the Roman census and so Joseph was cut off from his usual means of earning a living; they were cut off from their extended family and their network of friends. When they attended the Temple for the traditional purification ceremony for Jesus, eight days after his birth, they therefore took the offering allowed for a poor family – a pair of doves or young pigeons – not the more usual offering of a lamb.

I think it most likely that the Magi arrived in Bethlehem sometime after this ceremony – perhaps as much as two years later. This would also explain why King Herod ordered the slaughter of all the children there aged two years and younger. Their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh would have sustained the family during their exile in Egypt and may have helped establish the family business when later they returned to Nazareth.

Before Jesus began his public ministry, he worked as a carpenter and, if it were also correct to assume that Joseph had died by this time, then Jesus would have run the family business, aided by his younger brothers. A carpenter in First Century Israel was a skilled tradesman who would build anything up to an entire house and Jesus may therefore have employed people to help from outside his immediate family. It follows that Jesus’ family would probably have been relatively well off and financially stable, at least by comparison with many of his neighbours in a poor district like Nazareth.

When I explained this at a church seminar a few years ago, the minister was appalled by my depiction of a ‘middle class Jesus’! How do you feel about it?

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Friday 22 February 2013

Was Jesus Poor? (1)