Is It Cool To Be Poor?

There are two groups of people that are opposed to one another in this world.  The two groups are the poor and the rich.  Defining these two groups can be slightly problematic.  What is poor for one person is considered rich for another. But for the purposes of this post we are going to consider the poor and the rich in the United States of America. 

In the U.S. there is a sharp divide between those that have and those that have not.  A janitor in a company will work for minimum wage while the CEO of the company will work for a couple of million dollars a year. If the janitor does a bad job or the company wants to "downsize" he or she is fired and sent away with little thought. In effect he is told, "good bye and good luck, keep warm and well fed." On the other hand if a CEO does a bad job, the board of directors suggests that maybe he should retire. So, he "retires" taking his golden parachute with him so that his life is not disrupted by the inconvenience of his forced retirement.  Here we have on the one side a man who will have to depend on social services, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and maybe relief money to keep his family fed, clothed, and sheltered.  On the other hand the CEO will take his family to Disneyland for a couple of weeks of fun in the sun before taking on the task of maybe getting another job, no hurry though. 

You could say that the work that the janitor does is not as important as the work the CEO does for the corporation.  This is obviously true. The more keys you carry around in the corporate world, the less important is your work. But the fact remains that in spite of the circumstances that the two men find themselves in, their basic needs are exactly the same.  Each of these men (or women) have to provide the basic things that a family needs. The difference is simply that the CEO is empowered to do these things without surrendering personal dignity while the janitor has to surrender his and prove to government mandarins that his worthy to be given some assistance while he is out of work. 

Pope Francis in a comment he delivered this week said that those that mistreat their employees by paying them so little while making themselves rich are leaches and their behavior is a mortal sin. Those are very strong words of warning indeed.  But we can look to the Bible to see that Jesus Himself gives us the very same warning in Luke 16:20 where Lazarus hoped for the scraps from the rich man's table and got nothing.  We read where Lazarus died and was carried to his reward in heaven with Abraham. We also read that the rich man died and was buried.  The rich man ended up in a place of torment and begged Abraham to send Lazarus with a drop of water for his tongue. Abraham told the rich man that he had received his reward in life and besides it was not possible to travel from heaven to hell as there was a vast chasm between them and you could not cross from one side to another. 

Also in Matthew we have the story of the goats and the sheep where the goats are taken away for eternal misery and punishment because they did not recognize Christ in those in need while the sheep did and helped those around them.  In Matthew 19:24 Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to gain heaven.  This is a curious thing to say.  When we think of a needle we thing of sewing and the little hole at the top where the thread goes.

 But that is not the eye of the needle that Jesus is speaking of. The eye of the needle is a gate in a wall that was put there to slow people down.  They would get there and then they would have to remove all of the freight they were carrying, lead the camel through, then bring the freight through. This gate made it very hard for an enemy to attack the city.  I have always thought that this is the way Jesus is telling us to not be so attached to material things because we cannot take them with us.  

So, is it better to be rich or to be poor?  I think that God loves the poor. But what makes a man poor is not what he has in the bank, it it what he has in his heart. A person that has access to fabulous wealth has access to all of the wonderful things of this earth. There are cars, electronics, jewelry, everything that you could want to make your life one of comfort and ease. Unfortunately the shininess and glitter can blind the owner to the plight of the world around him and he looses sight of the people in need.  On the other hand a poor person who depends on God not only will feel sympathy for his fellow paupers but with the right attitude will share what he has with those around him. 

Do you see here an irony?  A person rich in the goods of this world can make himself a pauper by sharing what he has with those less fortunate. For a rich person the attachment of the goods of this world is a danger.  If he does all he can to keep what he has in the end he looses everything.  Further a poor person that holds everything closely commits the same sin as the richest man on earth. The secret is to share what we have no matter what our state is in life. So being poor is not only cool, it is required. The things we have are not ours. We will leave them behind for others and they in turn will leave their riches behind for others.  In the end everything we have belongs to God, we are only entrusted with it and expected to use it for good. 

No one ever said following Jesus would be easy. Let's say for example you own a gas station.  You pay your employees minimum wage and they take their money and use it the best way that they can to make a life for their family.  Out of the money they get they have to provide shelter, food, medical care, schooling etc to their family. On minimum wage this is a very hard life. But say you are the owner of a gas station and you pay over the minimum wage and you provide medical insurance. Your gas station does not make as much profit as the one on the next corner but because you share what you have, you get more loyal employees and you store up for yourself treasure in heaven. 

So is it cool to be poor?  What are your thoughts?