On the poor

So there's a new late afternoon radio host on conservative talk radio station WBT, Vince Coakley.
He's not the snarling, foaming-at-the-mouth, rabid conservative mouth that they had with Tara Servatius or her predecessor (can't remember his name). No, Coakley is soft-spoken. BUt he might be more dangerous.
He more readily wears some kind of ID on his shoulder that he is a Christian, but I'm not sure what variety. Certainly not mine.
While attacking something Nancy Pelosi said, he made a statement that, to my ears, said, she wasn't a Christian. But he said more than once, she was a Catholic. It was almost a direct statement, this "Catholic" isn't a Christian. I didn't listen much longer, but nobody seemed interested in correcting it. Well, we are in the South, and it's a Protestant Bible belt.
But again, caught it a little later, and I heard an exchange that went something like this, beginning with a caller who related, in brief, this parable:

Matthew 25:14-30: New International Version (NIV)
“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.
The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!
“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’"

OK, that's the whole verse. Now, the caller summed it up, condensed it. But his takeaway was this -- The lazy poor people who are gobbling up government benefits need to be tossed out. They are dragging us all down, and God wants us to take care of ourselves and make MONEY.
The "Christian" host, Mr. Coakley, agreed.
And there you have it. To live their lives, to set their attitude about everything, they depend on just one parable in a book filled with dozens. Some of the other parables have the direct opposite meaning. Some direct quotes of the Jesus both these men purport to follow contradict, absolutely, the message they took away.
The message they heard, the guiding principle they seem to want to apply is, "Fuck the poor."
Hate to use the language, but that's what it boils down to.
Jesus Christ never, ever said, "Let the poor fend for themselves."
Jesus spoke against the rat race when he said God takes care of the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. "How much more are you than they?" he said.
But he never said make money. He never said screw those less fortunate than you. 
Jesus said, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." 

Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus said, "... when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. ..."

Back to the parable of the talents, and why both the caller on the show and the host were blindly ignorant to take that meaning away from it.

The rich man gave his wealth to his servants. He expected them to make use of the wealth that they had been given. 

But what exactly did he give them? If you reduce this to just money, how much was it worth. One website says this --

Standard talent is equal to seventy-five pounds. The price of gold as of April, 2009 is approximately $900 dollars an ounce. There are 16 ounces in a pound. That means a talent of gold would be worth $1 080 000.

Another says -- 

From the Wikipedia atricle on the gold Talent:
The talent (Latin: talentum, from Ancient Greek: τάλαντον "scale, balance") is one of several ancient units of mass, as well as corresponding units of value equivalent to these masses of a precious metal. It was approximately the mass of water required to fill an amphora. A Greek, or Attic talent, was 26 kg, a Roman talent was 32.3 kg, an Egyptian talent was 27 kg, and a Babylonian talent was 30.3 kg. Ancient Israel adopted the Babylonian talent, but later revised the mass. The heavy common talent, used in New Testament times, was 58.9 kg. 58.9 Kg is 1893.9 Troy ounces of gold. That is about US $1,700,000

Either calculation suggests that the "lazy" servant is given, in the equivalent money of his day, from $1 million to $2 million.
None of the poor, today, are just handed a million bucks.
The people who are on public assistance have no "talents."
Those to whom God, or life, has given something, sure. Something is expected. But the people on public assistance are those whom life, or God, has given nothing. That's the basic misconception Coakley and the caller have. This parable on which they base their view of the poor actually has nothing to say about  the poor in that society ... or our society. They aren't mentioned.
In today's world, the poor are those on public assistance, and they are also the nearly "50 percent" who pay no income tax, according to too many conservatives. They believe it is OK to discard such people, or not think about them at all, or, if you do think about them, deride them and scorn them.
Jesus didn't say, "Fuck the poor."
When he talked about them, he talked about caring for them.
But also, the fundamental misunderstanding held by the host and the caller was that Jesus was actually talking just about money. I don't know when the double entendre became real for the word "talent," but it now also means gifts, skills, abilities.
And that is what Jesus was really talking about. Jesus was not a stock broker or a financial consultant. This was not his "Get rich quick, -- 10 easy steps" program.
If the parable had just its basest meaning, well, then tell me where I can go to get my talent. I am sure  if I were handed $1 million, I could make a run at doubling it up.
On the radio and on Fox News, you hear it said that for Obama to propose taxing the rich is "class warfare." But you hear those same people spout off, time and again, about the "lazy" poor who pay nothing.
The rich can take care of themselves. But the rich, or those who have enough, too often in our society, still either attack the poor or nod or just let it go without challenging it. Deluding oneself about what the Bible says is an insidious sign of how deep this goes.
I doubt if anything else can correct someone who does distort the Bible's message. But I'll give it a try.

"I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a - a little lookin' out for the other fella, too. ...That's pretty important, all that. It's just the blood and bone and sinew of this democracy that some great men handed down to the human race, that's all."

And

"All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for, and he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them: Because of one plain simple rule: Love thy neighbor. And in this world today, full of hatred, a man who knows that one rule has a great trust."

-- Jefferson Smith

Anyway. It's been months since I heard that, and it's been stewing at the back of my brain ever since.
Hey, Vince. Next time, correct your caller.
Jesus did not say screw the poor. He did not tell us how to make money.
Take care of the poor.