1. God’s Poor: Their Religious History And Their Message
The future of the people of God of recent times, that is, the true people of God, was first identified with a poor people by (Zephaniah 3:11-13). The historical period of this text takes us back to 640-630 BC, that is, before the great Babylonian exile. In this text the term “lowly” indicates a person who is physically bowed because he is afflicted, resigned in spirit, because he is poor; afflicted and burdened by his own social situation which has taught him the secret of life and thus made him humble and devout. This describes the lowly person’s basic attitude which identifies him at the religious level and is concentrated in his sense of radically belonging to God. A truly poor person comes to realize that nothing counts here below, everything is transitory, everything precarious.
A poor man or woman whom we are talking about is that one who accepts his or her situation, not through fatalism but because he has understood through life’s experiences that earthly things are not worth much, that they count for little, that they are ephemeral. He or she has learned to rely solely on God. The person of this kind therefore experiences great inner liberation. He or she is someone who experiences deep feeling of belonging, who basically cleaves to God which is why s/he is “bowed or bent”, yes, not in the sense that he is resigned to his situation, rather, in the sense that he bows before God, recognizes his dependence on him, and accepts that he belongs to and depends on him, and accepts that he becomes synonymous with a religious person.
The Babylonian exiles of 558 BC, but 712 Assyria had already occupied the North, then Samaria, so Israel had been completely destroyed, but the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the king of Judea remained intact. Taking this political situation prophet Zephaniah told his people that they should make themselves lowly before God just as they were humble before foreign power- Assyria, before all great international powers of the time. Material poverty should lead to spiritual poverty that consists of authentic faith. Even if poverty in its outlook is a negative condition, it has meaning in human life if it only leads to spiritual poverty. If it brings the person to discover the authenticity of his own faith. The authentic faith that takes on the shades of abandonment, humility and absolute trust. In this sense the poor man’s faith will be one that is colored and shaped by trust, abandonment and confidence. (Zeph 2:3). The poor man is one who does what God decrees and wills, who surrenders himself to him, who accepts him. Seek justice, seek humility, seek this resignation, this surrender to God and perhaps you will shelter on the day of Yahweh’s anger. In (Zeph 3:11-13), we have Poverty not as opposed to riches, but as opposed to pride.
The future will consist of people of God who are poor because they are humble, not of poor people in the purely social sense, but people who are humble and so poor, since they are set against the proud. The spiritual attitude that brings with it overall moral rectitude. It will only happen however, in the climate of the Covenant and so in a religious perspective. Note. “They will do no wrong, will tell no lies; and the perjured tongue will no longer be found in their mouths. But will be able to graze and rest with no one to disturb them.”
A century later the south of Israel also crumbles and they also go exile. But God has made a promise to David and they will be everlasting: the message of Psalm 88, which we pray daily in our liturgy of the Hours. The exile represents the breakaway of Israel from their way of doing things, mythicized or interpreted in an exaggeratedly human perspective. The exile showed that God is above our history and is not overcome by our religious ideologues. Israel stripped naked, began to understand. It is in exile that it experiences the direst poverty because, in addition to material poverty, it also suffers spiritual poverty; it has lost the temple, it has lost its creed, it has lost monarchy, it only has prophets, who administer the word which furthermore is fragile, although very much alive. But Israel understands, comes to and redeems itself, so that from the ashes of exile of true Israel is born.It is in fact the book of songs of the so called second temple, that is, the temple to be built after the exile. For this reason, we shall dwell above all on the Book of Psalms, in order to examine the prayer of “God’s Poor.”
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