If you hang around here a lot, you’re probably familiar with verses like these:

“He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” – Proverbs 14:31 (NIV)

Or one of my personal favorites: 

“‘He defended the cause of the poor and needy… Is not that what it means to know me?’ declares the Lord.” – Jeremiah 22:16 (NIV)

There are so many verses that demand we deal kindly with those in need around us. But here’s another little nugget from the Bible: 

“Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.” – Leviticus 19:15, NIV (emphasis added)

Do not show partiality to the poor? The first thing that my mind jumps to is, “God, is this really a big problem? People being too nice to the poor?” This verse is from the chapter that also instructs the people of Israel not to wear clothing woven of two kinds of materials, so is this one of those verses we kind of shrug our shoulders at and move on with our day? Well, if it’s in there, it’s in there for a reason. 

If I were to hazard a guess, I would think that showing favoritism to the great is the bigger issue in the world. But if there were people out there who leaned too far in showing partiality to the poor, who might those people be? Hmm?… Perhaps those engaged in speaking out for the poor, who read lots of blogs on helping the poor, maybe? (Said in my best Dana Carvey Church Lady impression.)

Truth is, it would probably be me … and maybe you (but I’ll let you be the judge of that). If it is true of you, in what ways do you think you might be showing partiality in your own life? For my own life, what I’m immediately convicted of is my sometimes judgment of the rich. I see a person with a big house and fancy car and think, “The nerve of some Christians!” (Without knowing their heart or their checkbook or their history of giving.) That’s yucky. 

What God wants from me (and you) isn’t to become judgmental of the rich and syrupy sappy with the poor. What he wants is JUSTICE, as this verse and so many others make clear. He doesn’t love Sally in Ecuador more than Sally in Virginia simply because of their incomes. What the Lord does love is justice. What a great God we serve. 

So, what little conviction is God worming out of your heart?

Last week, I was able to attend the Willow Creek Association Leadership Summit at a satellite location here in Colorado Springs. It was so encouraging to hear many of the speakers talk about the need to lead people toward answering the Biblical mandate to speak up for and care for those in need.

Something Wendy Kopp said at the Summit struck me about how we approach leading others toward caring for those in need.

Wendy Kopp is the founder and CEO of Teach for America, a non-profit that asks college graduates to commit to two years of teaching in under-resourced schools.

She was asked how she approaches asking these graduates — some of who could otherwise accept six-figure jobs — to sacrifice so much, putting aside wealth and “success” to teach in schools many would avoid. She said (and this is paraphrased, as my little hand could only scribble so fast as she answered):

You’re giving people an opportunity to be part of something larger, and of significance — people want that … are we afraid to ask people to sacrifice and set a high bar? Your own personal conviction about the work makes it easy to ask others to sacrifice because you’re giving them a gift that will change their lives.

When we tell others about the opportunities to care for those in need, we might feel like we’re putting a burden on them, but far from burdening them, we’re giving them a gift. We’re giving them the opportunity to enter into another aspect of our relationship with Jesus as we follow him.

Several times when talking with someone who has come across the book I wrote about responding to poverty, they say they’re scared to read it. So many are scared of this issue of poverty, and understandably so — it’s big and hairy and complicated. And God might ask us to do scary things.

But I think there’s a third reason people are afraid of poverty — they’re worried a big, fat load of guilt is going to be placed on their shoulders. We’ve been bombarded by so much guilt when it comes to poverty, seeing so many images that evoke guilt and being told “shame on you for drinking that Starbucks instead of caring for a baby.”

Are we guilty for not responding to God’s mandate to care for those in need? Yes, but God hasn’t appointed us as judges of others. He has appointed us as messengers of his grace. And I think when we do approach others not with guilt but with grace, they grasp that helping those in need isn’t about checking off a requirement on our good-Christian to-do list so that we can not feel so guilty. It’s about our relationship with Christ — about following him, obeying him, and knowing him all the more as we become like him in our service to others.

“He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 22:16, NIV, emphasis added)