Tag: Poverty

Green Tau: issue 112

“Poor Clare” and the tricky question of wealth

31st July 2025

“Improbably funny US drama about Saint Clare of Assisi’s renouncement of worldly wealth” Time-out (1)

Earlier this week I went to see a performance of “Poor Clare”, by Chiara Atik, at the Orange Tree theatre in Richmond. It was a beautiful production set in 13th century period costume with a wonderful script that was conversely in the idiom of the 21st century. Clare and her sister Beatrice are like two teenagers preparing for a prom night. 

“Okay so for the skirt, I’m thinking like a gold thread and then the cloth would be like … I don’t know, I’m thinking purple … or like … purplish blue…”

“I like that ‘cause it’s like … deferential.”

“What for you mean?”

“Blue is like, modest. It’s what Mary wore”

“For the bodice … like I want it to go to here-ish – very covered up, very classy.”

“K”

“In red”

“No”

“Just like, a cute lil’ red bodice.”

“Red? Mom would never let you!”  (abridged) (2) 

We see how theses two sisters are ensconced in the world of wealth, how wealth and class shapes what they can and can’t do. We see their acceptance of the status quo as they happily allow maids to do their hair and wash their feet. 

Francis on the other hand we see as the born again idealist who is so caught up in his utopian dream of embracing poverty, that his thoughts run faster than his feet. Francis is acutely aware how wealth and the privilege both inflicts pain on those who don’t have it,  and  blinds those that do. He sees wealth and privilege as so utterly opposed to what God desires that he cannot for a second be compromised by living within its structures. As the story unfolds, he is casting aside piece by piece every part of his life that undermines his vision. 

Francis of course is – or rather was – himself a rich young man. Is his decision to renounce the world something that only someone who is rich can do? We see Clare’s two maids debating the impracticality of doing away with wealth and class – Maybe if the poor had just a little bit more, then they wouldn’t be quite so poor? We also see the homeless ex-soldier and the down-and out beggar giving their take on the issues of redistributing wealth – Does a second hand doublet really fit the bill?

Piqued by Francis, Clare begins a journey of self exploration – does she truly deserve the wealth she has? Does it make her happy? Can she reconcile her good fortune with the plight of those she would rather avoid? Can she justify being wealthy if she were to be a bit more generous? 

Clare’s mother understands the dilemma having travelled to the Holy Land many years before. There, she tells Clare,  however much food they gave to the starving children that swarmed around, there always seemed to be more at the next pilgrim site. Her mother commends getting pregnant: Clare will be able to pour out all her pent-up love and devotion on her children; she will never need have a conscience about anything else.

Step by step Clare follows Francis’s example, divesting herself of the world. But of the two, I think she has greater certainty, greater confidence that she is doing the right thing. She has thought through each issue and knows that she cannot remained within a system which perpetuates such injustices and suffering. 

The play left me feeling challenged: how can I be part of a system that I believe to be flawed? And yet how can I not be part of that system when there seems to be no realistic  alternative? And that challenges me to look again at my vocation as a Franciscan tertiary and how it can enable me to live within but contri to the system of worldly wealth. 

(1) https://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/poor-clare-review

(2) https://www.dramatists.com/previews/6322.pdf

NB The first tertiaries/ secular Franciscans where in fact given their particular vocation and lifestyle by Francis himself in response to the large numbers of married couples who wanted to follow his example. They were to continue living in their own homes and yet still devote themselves to living according to the principles and objectives that Francis taught.

There are different groups of Franciscan tertiaries (Anglican) and seculars Franciscans (Roman Catholic) across the world.

I’m part of the Third Order of the Society of St Francis – https://tssf.org.uk/

Fifth Sunday in Lent

6th April 2025

Reflection with readings below

In John’s account of the woman anointing Jesus’s feet, the event takes place in the home of the three siblings – Mary, Martha and Lazarus. It occurs after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead -and it is repeated a couple of times, that it was this action of raising Lazarus that is both attracting the crowds and causing the Jewish elders to plot to kill Jesus. Placing the story here draws attention to this earlier sign that Jesus had performed. And that sign echoes Jesus’s telling of his role as the Good Shepherd in which he says “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Jesus is the one who protects the vulnerable, who lays down his own life for them, so that they may abundant life. 

Mary seems to be particularly in tune with Jesus, seems to know that Jesus is facing the imminent ending of his life. And she is determined that this should not happen without some acknowledgment  that a) she is aware of his impending death and b) expressing physically her love for him.  

In Jesus’s telling of the Good Shepherd, we hear of the hired hands – the paid shepherds – who don’t stay the course, who value their lives more than the sheep in their care and who, at the first sign of danger, run away. And Jesus’s audience then and the gospel readers since, understand that those hired hands represented the Jewish religious leaders – those very same ones who now feel threatened by Jesus and find it easier to kill him that to try and understand  his message. 

As we hear Judas criticising Mary, we sense again the presence of a hired hand, of someone whose heart is not committed to the business of Jesus’s life-giving gospel. 

Who are the poor? The poor are those who lack sufficient resources for daily living. In the first century regions of Judea and Galilee, they were the shepherds, the hired labourers working someone else’s land, the fishermen, the carpenters, the slaves and the beggars. They were not the middle class small farmers or the local business men nor the scribes nor the priests nor the Pharisees. The poor were the lowly and the humble. They were the ones forced to depend upon others. 

Yet the poor were also those favoured by God. Time and again God – and God’s prophets – speak up for the poor. Time and again, God’s law calls on society to care for the poor – for the widow, the orphan and the alien. 

“For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.” Deuteronomy 15:11

“Vindicate the weak and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and destitute “ Psalm 82:3

“When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien. I am the Lord your God.’” Leviticus 23:22

“When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them.” Isaiah 41:17

Time and again, it is the poor who receives God’s message, it is the poor who know their need of God, it is the poor whose love for God is strongest. 

Jesus’s own teachings highlight the importance of giving generously to those in need, of giving and not counting the cost, of repaying what we owe, of giving all that we have. Maybe we all need to become poor to enter the kingdom of heaven? For if we become poor, we will not be fixated on wealth that rusts and decays. If we become poor we will learn to give and receive the little we do have. If we become poor we will learn to live with the sufficiency we have. If we become poor we will learn to live lives dependent on God. If we become poor we will be creating a counter cultural society – a society in which even the king will ride a donkey. 

However let’s not forget that poverty is an unasked for state of affairs for many millions of people; that poverty exposes people to pain and suffering at level that we can not imagine. Poverty is corrosive of many people‘s lives and such poverty is contri to God’s will and desire. The growing differential between those who are wealthy – and getting wealthier by the minute – and those who are not, both globally and in individual countries is wrong. Poverty and greed lead to conflicts and wars, to social unrest and unease. Greed is creating the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, whilst the resulting suffering is being felt more strongly by the poor. 

I would suggest that as followers of Jesus, we would be using our counter cultural life style to challenge this corrupting status quo and working to effect real change in people’s lives. I don’t think it is an easy task. It is certainly not one we can attempt on our own. Rather it is a task where we must work cooperative with each other and with God.

Isaiah 43:16-21

Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,

who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;

they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:

Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

The wild animals will honour me,
the jackals and the ostriches;

for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,

to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself

so that they might declare my praise. 

Psalm 126

1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, *
then were we like those who dream.

2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, *
and our tongue with shouts of joy.

3 Then they said among the nations, *
“The Lord has done great things for them.”

4 The Lord has done great things for us, *
and we are glad indeed.

5 Restore our fortunes, O Lord, *
like the watercourses of the Negev.

6 Those who sowed with tears *
will reap with songs of joy.

7 Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, *
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.

Philippians 3:4b-14

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

John 12:1-8

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

Proper 7: 

19 June 2022

Reflection 

We may not believe in demonic forces nowadays but we are certainly aware that there are many  things that have an unhealthy level of control over our lives. Social media, diets, cars, pollution, throw away convenience, anxiety, fashion, alcohol, gambling, climate change, elitism, poverty, oil, tax evasion, futures markets, housing costs, racism, low wages, depression – the list goes on. For all our progress, life is still tough for many people. 

It was to such people, those who were finding life tough, those on the edge of society, the sick and the vulnerable, that Jesus brought his message of good news, of salvation. Here in today’s gospel we have just such an encounter. Jesus is able to break through the barriers that have prevented Legion from communicating with his fellow countrymen. He has been able to get to heart of Legion’s problem and together they removed the burden, the barrier of his illness. Jesus stays with him until others come who will continue the healing process, reintegrating Legion back into the community. Jesus leaves Legion with a task, a reason to carry on. 

The reading from Isaiah describes the frustrations of a prophet trying to speak to a ‘rebellious people’ – by which I think is meant people who rebel against God’s ways. The passage tells how these people are living their lives, with the traditions and routines of their daily life that keep or distract them from God, things that entrap them, snaring them in unholiness.  (The effects of these entrapments are probably not much different from those things blight our daily lives). Yet the prophet’s persistence – a persistence that comes as a gift or a power from God – reflects God’s ongoing concern and desire that the all humans should be encouraged and enabled to live according to God’s values, and that creation should be healed and humanity restored to its right mind. The last few lines add a measure of hope, that there will be found sufficient goodness in humankind to achieve God’s vision for the world. 

Who are our prophets today? Are they people like David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg, George Monbiot and Jack Munro? Are they groups like Extinction Rebellion? Groups like Amnesty, 38 Degrees, and  The Trussel Trust? Do we take time to listen to their messages, to measure and explore what is being said, to discern where God’s will may lie? Equally are we ready to hear God’s message, are we able set aside some of the barriers that trap us and weigh us down? Like Legion can we break free from our past and find renewal and healing?

Paul, writing to Galatians, remind us that for all of us our baptism represents a new beginning, a fresh start. In baptism we are all one – baptism is the ultimate In levelling up! What ever our past, where ever we have come from and however we have come – raised and bred as part of the establishment, or refugee fleeing a hostile environment, someone who has pulled themselves up by their boot straps or someone who has never managed to hold down a job – we are all equal as ‘children of God’. Like Legion, our restoration is shown in that we have all been clothed with Christ. And, like Legion, we are all commissioned to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to our own communities.

As we look around the world – like the prophet Isaiah – we see the threats and obstacles that block the freedom of life: heat waves that are keeping one third of US citizens confined to their homes; 7.1 million people displaced by fighting in Ukraine; a third of people in Sudan facing starvation; 3.9 million children living in poverty in the UK; half the population of Chile living with water shortages. Are we sufficiently enraged as Christians, sufficiently enraged as were the prophets, sufficiently enraged as humans, to stand up and say this is not how God wants the world to be? How are we to bring Good News to our communities and to the world?

Isaiah 65:1-9

I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask,
to be found by those who did not seek me.

I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
to a nation that did not call on my name.

I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people,

who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices;

a people who provoke me
to my face continually,

sacrificing in gardens
and offering incense on bricks;

who sit inside tombs,
and spend the night in secret places;

who eat swine’s flesh,
with broth of abominable things in their vessels;

who say, “Keep to yourself,
do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.”

These are a smoke in my nostrils,
a fire that burns all day long.

See, it is written before me:
I will not keep silent, but I will repay;

I will indeed repay into their laps
their iniquities and their ancestors’ iniquities together,

says the Lord;

because they offered incense on the mountains
and reviled me on the hills,

I will measure into their laps
full payment for their actions.

Thus says the Lord:

As the wine is found in the cluster,
and they say, “Do not destroy it,
for there is a blessing in it,”

so I will do for my servants’ sake,
and not destroy them all.

I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
and from Judah inheritors of my mountains;

my chosen shall inherit it,
and my servants shall settle there.

Psalm 22:18-27

18 Be not far away, O Lord; *
you are my strength; hasten to help me.

19 Save me from the sword, *
my life from the power of the dog.

20 Save me from the lion’s mouth, *
my wretched body from the horns of wild bulls.

21 I will declare your Name to my brethren; *
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.

22 Praise the Lord, you that fear him; *
stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel;
all you of Jacob’s line, give glory.

23 For he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty;
neither does he hide his face from them; *
but when they cry to him he hears them.

24 My praise is of him in the great assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.

25 The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
and those who seek the Lord shall praise him: *
“May your heart live for ever!”

26 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, *
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him.

27 For kingship belongs to the Lord; *
he rules over the nations.

Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Luke 8:26-39

Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me” — for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.