Virtues of Rich and Poor

This week we have three proverbs offered to us about the rich and the poor.

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.

The rich and the poor have this in common: the LORD is the maker of them all.

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.

The psalmist declares that it is he who trusts the Lord who abide forever unshakeable.

James warns us that we should not favor the rich, honoring them and cowing to them for their continued tithe, attendance and patronage. “Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?” How many a church treasurer has become the church dictator? How many a power-player leverages their bedraggled minister by threatening to withdraw? Isn’t it the respectable that more often show themselves least worthy of respect?

Instead of taking the respectable as favorites, James challenges us to favor the down-and-out. Not a very practical way to run a ministry, I know. Yet, James makes it a matter of faith. If we had a faith-full heart, it would bubble out with action. We would not say to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet not supply their bodily needs. No we would do… compelled by faith—compelled by heart, driven to act, meeting the needs. We don’t show partiality, meet the needs of the rich and poor a like.

Faith without works is dead. In verse 26 James says it again, “The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.”

God as doer

Over and against James do we see Jesus showing favoritism to the Chosen people over the Syro-Phoenician woman? Is it a matter of election? As the psalmist says, “The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.” God is in charge, he chooses.

But Jesus chooses to heal. The psalmist also says

“Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.”

And this Almighty God of the Election also told Isaiah,

“Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you." Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped…”

The voice of the Lord rolls down through prophesies of the ages declaring I will heal. The voice rolls off the tongue of the God’s own Anointed in response to the Woman, and flows in his saliva as he touches the tongue of the deaf man. His stopped up ears hear the voice. Ephphatha!