Tuesday, May 7, 2024

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READ: Proverbs 22 (yes, read it again.)

Rich and poor have this in common:
the Lord makes them all.
Proverbs 22:2 (CSB)

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The first church, I worked at was located in a very affluent part of Winnipeg. While we had kids from all sorts of socio-economic backgrounds, lots of our youth came from decidedly wealthy families.

While at Eastview I became friends with an amazing guy who had a huge heart for the poor. After a few years, he left Eastview and planted a house church close to the inner city where his family would regularly bring the poorest of our city into their home to experience the Gospel through hospitality.

I admired him, but he became increasingly critical of my ministry. He would tell me that Jesus’s ministry was among the poor implying that I wasn’t doing real ministry because of the affluence of the youth in my church.

One day I looked at him and said, “You know, the unsaved rich kids in my youth group are going to the same hell as the unsaved poor kids in yours.”

We’re still friends, but the path our lives took was very different, and I think that’s great!

It’s great because rich and poor people just express their brokenness in different ways and need Jesus. I remember hearing that the number of domestic abuse calls police were getting in our affluent neighbourhood was skyrocketing. Drug abuse was out of control; it’s just that the drugs that rich kids could afford were abused in the privacy of a million-dollar home. The precious souls my friend ministered to couldn’t afford to hide their addictions. They couldn’t afford designer drugs so they bought rags soaked in gas on the street to snuff their inner demons.

I memorized Proverbs 22:2 in Bible School and it was one of those verses that impacted me deeply.

Rich and poor are both broken.

The God of the poor equally loves the rich.

Rich and poor have this in common, the Lord makes them all.

The rich need to remember this as they thumb their noses at the addict sitting on the street or as they cautiously make sure the car door is locked when the lady with the cardboard sign asks for money at the red light.

So too, however, it is important for the poor to remember that the rich have brokenness too. There isn’t a “poor man’s Gospel” and “rich man’s Gospel” there is just the Gospel, given to people made in God’s image – inherently sacred, and scarred by every manner of sin, evil, and fate.

This Proverb is simply a reminder that God plays no favourite. The Gospel plays no favourite. Pain plays no favourite. So let us love our neighbour today.