The poor you wil always have with you (some provisional thoughts)
Peter Rollins is so articulate and right on target here:
There is an intriguing verse in which Jesus is recorded as having said, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mark 14:7). Upon first looking at this one could ask, “is Jesus being portrayed here as complacent and pessimistic, as saying that no matter what we do we can never abolish poverty”? The verse would initially seem to play into the hands of those who would claim that the world is in terminal decline and can only be redeemed at the end of history. At the very least it would seem to hold a negative view concerning the possibility of ever distributing the wealth of the few among the many.
