The Rich and Poor Have One Thing In Common

“The rich and the poor have this in common: the LORD is the maker of them all.” (Proverbs 22:1-2) Yes, we all have one thing in common and that changes everything else. The rest of this passage gives us an idea how our common creation and common Creator affect (or should, or could, or can) how we live and how we see others.

"Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail.Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor. Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate;for the LORD pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them." (Proverbs 22:8-9, 22-23)

If the Lord is the maker of us all, then all are affected by what happens to the other. The world is in the middle of a major refugee crisis, a major migration crisis. People from the Middle East are doing their best to get to Europe to escape violence, death and injury caused by terrorists and by evil governments alike.  In the West, people are coming from Central America and Mexico, running from the dangers of drug cartels, human trafficking and poverty. Some are coming legally and others illegally. 

As we look closer to home we also see those in our own country who live in rural areas or inner cities with poor school systems, few job possibilities, the resultant unemployment and often serious drug problems.  The problems can be huge and the solutions allusive. Often good people, ourselves included, frustrated by the difficult situations give up and settle for finding blame instead: “people are lazy, the just want a handout from the government, I worked for mine, they can work for theirs.” I understand the frustration, I understand the anger, though I also understand that there are those in our nation, including some of our politicians and some of our news media, who foment this anger.  I also live in Alabama, less than eighty miles from Wilcox County which is one of the poorest counties in the United States, with over 16% unemployment, so I have some sense of the challenges some people face in overcoming poverty.

What are we to do? Remember most of us are good people; most of us really do care and do want to do what is right. As Christians we are called to welcome the stranger. To care for the hungry, the homeless, the orphan and the widows. 

I don’t have an answer to that question. Well, actually I do. I have an answer, but not a solution. If the Lord is indeed the maker of all of us, then any injustice or bias we demonstrate toward the poor because they are poor is unacceptable. We must also think get the facts and consider them seriously before blaming the poor for the economic problems of our society, or blaming them for being poor and unemployed and hungry.  This demands that we give the best that we have. Any solution demands serious thought, prayer and study on our part, as well as cooperation with other people of good will.

As I struggle with these questions, I reflect on Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, who said before he was assassinated while celebrating Holy Communion, “when I feed the poor, people called me a saint. When I asked why so many people were poor, they called me a communist.”

As human beings, we truly are tribal creatures. We care first for our families, and then for those who look and act and think as we do.  This is good and important, but at times we are blinded to the biblical reminder that the “Lord is Maker of us all.” It is important to remember that Jesus, himself, was also limited by his human vision to a narrower understanding of the scope of his life and ministry.

It took the Syrophoenician woman, whose story we read in Mark 7:24-37, to teach Jesus that all of God’s people are connected.  When she approached Jesus and asked him to heal her daughter of demon possession, he told her that “it is not fair to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs,” pointing out to her that she, as a Gentile, was not worthy of the blessings God had sent him to bring to the Jews.  As she pointed out to Jesus that “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table,” I can almost see the “scales” fall from Jesus’ eyes. Later, as recorded in the Gospel of John, Jesus, in talking with the Samaritan woman at the well, a person a Jewish male should never interact with, shared with her that the “day is coming, and now is, when true worshipers will worship God in Spirit and in Truth.”

Yes, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, male and female, immigrant and native, Muslim or Christian, all are reminded, that “the Lord is the maker of us all.”