Who Are the Most Imortant People?

Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come.  It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.  So watch yourselves.

“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.  If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

(Luke 17:1-4)

In chapter 17, Luke seemingly broke away from the subject of povery and wealth, when he told his disciples that it was imperative to keep from offending the least important people.  But when Jesus said this, he qualified the least important to "these least important," which refers back to Lazarus.  The context here is important, because in the least important people would be people like Lazarus who were no more than simple beggars. They were the ones for whom the kingdom of God was prepared.  They were the ones (like Lazarus) who would be sitting in the highest places in eternity.

So how do we hurt the least imortant?  The rich man ignored Lazarus.  Could this be offensive?  Or could the rich man's arrogance in life's standing be offensive? 

Again, looking at the context, a big part of the solution in keeping from offending the least was to forgive over and over.  Why would anyone need to forgive the least important?  In particular, why would the rich man need to forgive Lazarus during his lifetime?  Was it because Lazarus was poor?  Was it because Lazarus legally sat in front of the rich man's house and that bothered Lazarus because his property value was going down?

Our societies have heaped blame on the poor for their poverty, laziness, crime, violence, and taking advantage of the system (something that every level of society does).  Forgiving the poor for their poverty and for their offenses is an interesting concept.

Forgiveness is letting go, and those feelings that we have about people lower than us need to be let go.  When we forgive, we do not excuse bad behavior by the poor or by the rich, we simply do not let their bad behavior lead us into offending the lower levels of society, by arrogance or neglect.

Finally, Jesus never differenciated between deserving and undeserving poor.  In other words, there were poor who were taking advantage of the system who deserved to be poor (I believe the lame man in John 5 was one), and there were those who were poor because of life situations that went wrong.  Jesus ministered to and gave to both types of poor people.