The early Church took seriously this responsibility to take care of the poor. In fact, many understood care for the poor as an extension of its worship, or liturgy.
Liturgy (leitourgia) originally referred to work on behalf of the public, e.g., the wealthy would pay for public works and public religious festivals. In the New Testament, Christ is referred to as performing a leitourgia: “Christ has obtained a ministry [the Greek word is leitourgia – liturgy] which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant it mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises” (Hebrews 8:6). Christ’s life of obedience, death on the cross, and resurrection is the Christian liturgy. It is public work done for the benefit of the people. The early church adopted the word to refer to its worship understood as participating in the one liturgy of Jesus.
But that worship was not understood as only what happened at church on Sunday morning. The public works funded by the wealthy in the pagan Helenistic context was not about caring for the poor. Nor was care for the poor connected to pagan worship. But for Christians, the liturgy of worship, which participated in the liturgy of Jesus Christ, led to "liturgy" on behalf of the poor. In her book, The Hungry are Dying, Bishops and Beggars in Roman Cappadocia, Susan R. Holman shows that in the early church, "Almsgiving is regarded early as a redemptive leitourgia." p. 54.
Holman refers to Basil the Great who assures his audience that almsgiving is
the one action that would open to you the doors of heaven . . . .
Do you realize that in giving your gold, your money, your fields, that is to
say rocks and earth, you acquire life eternal? . . . . I know many who fast,
pray, mourn and practice admirably the gratuitous forms of piety, but they do
not give an obol to the outcasts. What good do the other virtues do them? They
will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. p.108
Basil also asserted that, "as Adam brought in sin by eating evilly, so we ourselves if we remember the necessity and hunger of a brother, blot out his treacherous eating." p. 83
Here are two quotes from a sermon ‘On Famine and Drought, in which Basil pressed the point:
When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.
Whoever has the ability to remedy the suffering of others, but
chooses rather to withhold aid for selfish motives, may properly be judged the
equivalent of a murderer.
He elaborated on the theme in another sermon that can be found in a collection of sermons, ‘On Social Justice’:
If a physician promised to cure some bodily defect, arising either from birth or as a result of illness, you would not lose heart. But when the Great Physician of souls and bodies, seeing your deficiency in this vital area, wishes to make you whole, you do not accept the joyful news, but rather turn sad and gloomy. . .
If you had truly loved your neighbor, it would have occurred to
you long ago to divest yourself of this wealth. But now your possessions are
more a part of you than the members of your own body, and separation from them
is as painful as the amputation of one of your limbs. Had you clothed the
naked, had you given your bread to the hungry, had your door been open to every
stranger, had you been a parent to the orphan, had you made the suffering of
every helpless person your own, what money would you have left, the loss of
which to grieve? Had you determined long ago to give to those in need, how
would it be unbearable now to distribute whatever was left? At festival time,
people do not regret parting with what they have at hand in order to gain
whatever is necessary for the feast; rather, the cheaper they are able to
purchase valuable commodities, the more they rejoice at receiving such a
bargain. But you lament at relinquishing gold and silver and property – that
is, stones and dust – in order to obtain the blessed life.”
And in a sermon ‘To the Rich’, Basil observed:
I know many who fast, pray, sigh, and demonstrate every manner of
piety, so long as it costs them nothing.
For Basil, as with many of the early Christian theologians and saints through the ages, the liturgy of worship cannot be separated from the liturgy of caring for those in need. Both are necessary aspects of the redemptive ministry of Christ.
Make Friends for Yourselves – Thoughts on Luke 16:1-15
Money: Intoxicant or Eucharist
Becoming a People of God's Mercy and Delight, Part 1
Becoming a People of God's Mercy and Delight, Part 2
More Mercy and Delight
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