Dear friends, don’t you know that we who trust in Jesus are family? Don’t you know that every family member matters; there’s no way to say that one member is better than another. So let’s not play favorites.
Someone shows up at church driving a new car and wearing new clothes. Someone else takes the bus and smells like he hasn’t had a bath for a few days. Which one will be your friend? Which one gets invited to your house for lunch? Which one becomes a “ministry project” and which one do you secretly hope invites you into his circle of friends?
Come on! Do you think God measures value like that? Let us never dishonor a brother or sister in the faith by measuring his or her worth by worldly possessions. Remember, things are not always what they appear. Often the poor have the real gifts from God—gifts of faith that make them heirs to heaven’s riches. So don’t cozy up to the rich because they are rich. Remember, among the rich you will find those who dishonor God by exploiting those who have nothing. / James 2:1-7 The Easy Bible®

To me this is one of the most sobering passages in the Bible. Again and again, I have pondered these paragraphs. I’ve thought about my own attitudes as well as the treatment I and my family have received at different times depending on where we were financially.

I’m writing today because I am troubled by the state of relations between the rich, the poor and the middle class here in America, and in the church.

How we treat each other matters. Our inner attitudes and prejudices define our character. Jesus felt so strongly about this that He made it a standard on Judgment Day. Jesus expresses it like this:

I was hungry; you fed Me. I was thirsty; you gave Me something to drink. I was homeless; you found Me a home. I was exposed; you gave Me clothing. I was sick; you visited. I was in prison; you remembered Me. / Matthew 25:35-36 The Easy Bible®

In other words, when we talk to the needy, we are talking to Jesus. When we help the poor, we are helping Jesus. When we befriend the destitute, we are befriending Jesus.

With this in mind, I would like to suggest that the poor need three things from the rich and the middle class.

First the poor need respect. They need the kind of dignity that comes from being listened to. Had I never been poor, I would have gone through life with the mistaken, arrogant notion that poor people are either lazy or stupid or both. Most of the time they are neither. As a rule, the poor work hard. Often they work multiple jobs desperately trying to make ends meet. Surviving below the poverty line takes creativity, resourcefulness and intelligence. People in poverty can’t afford to make mistakes. The poor face challenges daily that would devastate many other people; but, for the most part, they soldier on, doing their best with the cards they’ve been dealt. Does this mean they’ve never made any mistakes? Of course not. All of us have made mistakes. All of us are living with consequences of poor decisions. Most of us have been spared from paying the full price for our own stupidity. We must understand that we can all learn from one another. Each person has something to teach us no matter what their income or financial status. Remember also that assumption is the lowest form of knowledge. When we make assumptions about the poor, we dishonor people. We need to learn to listen.

On this note, I want to say this. The people operating government and private assistance programs show a wide range of respect and disrespect to the poor. Walk into a typical welfare office and the atmosphere reeks with hopelessness and bureaucratic disdain for the people being served. On the other end of the spectrum, Andy and Jenny Czerkas have worked hard to create a family atmosphere at the award-winning River Food Pantry in Madison, Wisconsin, by serving meals to members of the community, inviting those they serve to serve with them, and treating people with dignity and respect.

Second, the poor need relationship. We need to stop excluding people from our circle of friends simply because they make less money than we do, or they don’t wear nice shoes, or they drive a rusted-out automobile. All of us—rich, poor and middle class—need each other. We need to find each other, learn from each other, care for and about each other. Yes, some people will make us feel uncomfortable. But isn’t that part of growing up? Isn’t stepping out of our comfort zone part of the growth process? Could it be that the rich have something to teach the poor about making money, and the poor have something to teach the rich about the things money can’t buy? Suppose we could make friends with each other, mentor each other, give each other that powerful human experience that takes place when two people from different planets enter each other’s world.

Third, the poor need opportunity. Much of the Bible’s Old Testament was written to an agricultural society. Landowners were commanded to leave a portion of their crop unharvested to allow the poor and needy an opportunity to glean or harvest those crops. The Old Testament book of Ruth is based around the story of what happened when a destitute widow went to glean in the field that belonged to a good man named Boaz. It’s a powerful story; you’ll enjoy reading it.

Obviously, we no longer live in a subsistence agricultural society. Giving the poor opportunity will look a little different in 21st Century America. How it will look is limited only by our creativity and imagination. But here are a few places to start. The government needs to relax its laws governing barter. Poor people may have limited money, but barter creates opportunities that might not otherwise be there. We need to pursue practices and policies that allow the poor to purchase life’s necessities at the lowest possible cost. We need to give the poor power over their own lives. Recently people on both sides of the political aisle have been talking about introducing regulations that prohibit people from buying desserts or certain other foods with food stamps. This is crazy. The more the government treats the poor like little children, the more poor people are robbed of their dignity and the harder it becomes to climb out of poverty. We must create opportunities that preserve the dignity of the poor. We must stop doing social experiments at the expense of the poor. This is why increasing the price of gasoline so that people will be inspired to buy electric cars is such a horrible idea. Poor people cannot afford to spend thirty thousand dollars on an electric car, nor can they afford to pay $4 or $5 per gallon for gasoline. If we’re serious about alternative energy, we need to rethink how we make this opportunity available without harming the poor. And offering opportunities doesn’t just take place at a governmental level. Private and faith-based initiatives are just as important, or more important. In addition to food pantries and church benevolence programs, I’ve known landlords who have made space available to the poor in exchange for maintenance or other services. Grocery stores that offer wide selection at rock bottom prices are a great step in the right direction.

While some poor people have given up hope, most want to find their way out of poverty. Let’s create opportunity for them to do that, and not penalize them when they try.