Barbara Essex Leads Us in
Start of Year-Long Bible Study of Poverty

Barbara Essex, Minister and Coordinator of Community Life at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley , CA led us in Bible study on Saturday and Sunday, helping us see how poverty and poor persons are depicted. She cautioned us that the Bible was written "in another world", yet it speaks to us today.

In Luke 4:14 -21 we hear Jesus say, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Barbara took us back to the time of Moses in Exodus 3:1-12 where God defines our Beloved Community as a place of justice, a place where there is loyalty, kindness and mercy, a place where we make a covenant with God and a covenant with one another.

"For the poor shall never cease out of the land; therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide to thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land" - from Dueuteronomy 15:11 . This verse is part of the explanation of "The Sabbatical Year of Release": every seven years all debts are to be forgiven. Barbara pointed out that in all times God is the champion of the poor; God's first priority is protection.

Then came the time, as described in I Samuel 8:4-9 when the Israelites insisted that they have a king - "now make us a king to judge us like all the nations". They got a king, and with the concept of a king came a widening gap between the haves and the have nots. Poverty began to grow as the rich protected their own wealth.

We gathered at Bowne Street Community Church for Bible Study with Barbara Essex before worship.

And so it is today.

Barbara reminded us that the poor need to hear the good news - and God expects us to spread that news. May it be so.

New York Conference Minister Geoffery Black promised us that additional Bible study from Barbara would appear on the Conference web site, www.uccny.org, in the period between the 2004 and 2005 Conference Annual Meetings.

Reported by Lucy Werner