In my own defense, though, I struggled a bit with Blackberry ownership. I’m kind of the budget watcher in our house, so I wanted to make sure we could afford it, and that we would actually use the extra features, and that it wouldn’t take away from the necessities of our family or our desire to be generous in our giving to add on this expense. It was a luxury, not a necessity, and I felt relatively good about my spending knowing at least that I could see it that way.

But I have to tell you, a couple years ago, when I saw one of the inner city homeless kids Bud Ogle brought down with Good News Partners from Chicago whip out a Blackberry to text a message home before leaving our parking lot, my chin must have dropped nearly to the ground. Bud must have noticed it too because he pulled me aside to tell me that for those who have no home, it becomes a priority to stay in touch no matter the cost, and that the phone had likely come from a drug dealer known well by the girl’s family. I have to say, that really didn’t take away my offense at the situation. Liz Herbes and I have often commiserated about the difficulty of trying not to judge an ADFAC client or someone who shows up at the church to ask for help with heat or electricity and yet pulls the latest and greatest cell phone out of his or her pocket. Thank God, I am not in the position to judge as God judges, and yet as a follower of Jesus Christ, I end up making decisions every day about how I will treat each person who crosses my path whether they are rich, or poor, or somewhere in between.

In this James text, and frequently through the words of Jesus, we learn that God has a special place in the divine heart for the poor. In The Message, we read that God “chose the world’s down-and-out as the kingdom’s first citizens.” And in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the first blessing is doled out to, who else, but “the poor.” I absolutely believe that God is angered and saddened by the terrible injustices that widen the gap between the rich and poor. I also trust that God is present with and caring for the working poor in this country and the starving poor of the Third World, even in the times when it seems like poverty couldn’t get any worse. What to do about “the poor” was an issue thousands of years ago, and it continues to be an issue now. Amazingly, technological advances are such that I can use that same crazy phone to take a picture of my daughter and email it to my parents in Maryland who will see it in about a second, and yet out there somewhere another child will die from hunger or from drinking polluted water.

But even if I gave up my Blackberry tomorrow and gave that money to “Bread for the World” or “Living Waters,” would it really make a dent in anything? I wonder what it would take to make a real difference, to have real understanding between rich and poor, to have full wallets and checkbooks that would always be open for the greater good and to have those with nothing have enough to pay their bills on time. But the problem is not one of having the right technology or even necessarily figuring out a fair distribution of needs verses goods. There are a thousand and one things that contribute to the cycle of ongoing poverty in our world today. Whether you believe that poverty is learned through family values that transmit from generation to generation, or whether you believe that societal policies and pressures create an underclass of the poor is really not all that important to what we can learn from reading these texts from scripture.

The solution, from God’s vantage point, has very little to do with money or things. Instead it’s about relationships. The rich and the poor shake hands as equals – God made them both. Don’t treat the rich better than the poor. That’s not how God looks at things. Clothes do not make the person. We are known not only by our faith, but by our works. The “for instance” makes all the difference in the James text:

For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup – where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

It is true that in scripture that the rich don’t get very good press. They are the ones who will exploit you, or rob you blind – according to this text. In other places, they are extraordinarily unlikely to be able to unburden themselves from their belongings enough to taste the free grace of the kingdom of heaven. You know – it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. The rich young ruler who comes to Jesus for advice is perplexed that he would be asked to give up so much – just to follow Jesus. It isn’t easy to have it easy – by scriptural standards.

And yet, Paul -for sure, and likely Jesus too, were able to build the church and spend so much time teaching and training their disciples because of generous donors, the people who gave of their wealth to support their religious cause. Carpenters and tent-makers wouldn’t have been known for fabulous amounts of disposable income. In reading this text, I am stunned by the amazing contemporary feel of the book of James – and you can hear it ring even more clearly thanks to this particular translation. We all know times in which we have, literally or figuratively, given the best seat in the house to the person who “looked like” they belonged there. We all know times when we have ignored the person who was poor, or crazy, or smelled bad, or whatever – you get the point. We navigate our relationships based on faulty maps. We judge by the way of the world, the way that rewards success and a certain look. We have failed to see how God judges our worth. The rich and the poor shake hands as equals. Wow. That could be equally as offensive on either side. The poor don’t want to be equal to the rich. The rich are arrogant, self-serving, and make money by unjust means. The rich don’t want to be equal to the poor. The poor are lazy, unmotivated, and never think about the future. I guess all of us want to think of ourselves as somewhere in the righteous middle, and yet, that doesn’t help us any either. We lean to the side that suits us best at the time. We’re poor when we’re applying for financial aid for the college student in the family; rich when it comes time to celebrate with a family wedding. The Bible makes no mention of the middle class whatsoever. Rich or poor – God made them both!

The understanding that God made both rich and poor is not easy for us to grasp. We may prefer to think of money as our own. Or we may prefer to think of money as bestowed by some principle or power out there – the “system” as it were. Thinking that God determines what’s in our bank accounts seems rather odd, and yet we often thank God for what we have. We proclaim God’s goodness for all God has given us. The risk is this – thinking that somehow we deserve it.

I really couldn’t tell you for sure if God set me up in an environment so that I would be particularly blessed, Blackberry and all, and then for some reason unbeknownst to me God sets other people to struggle so mightily with financial concerns. That thought is actually pretty disturbing. And yet, I am inclined to say that God has a sense of our true worth that has nothing to do with how much money we have or don’t have. In God’s eyes, we are equal, equally blessed, equally tempted. Kindness toward our fellow human beings is what’s expected of us, regardless of their worldly worth. Love others as you love yourself. That’s the rule of judgment. When we treat others kindly, kindness is ours in return, but when we treat others harshly, no good can come of that. Kind mercy wins over harsh judgment every time.

Now I dare say that these passages go beyond just an understanding of rich and poor. They speak to us about our human sense of judgment and remind us that God’s judgment is different from our own. God’s ways are not our ways here. We see only a minor glimpse of any person that we encounter. To judge a person knowing only that she’s homeless and has a Blackberry, well, that doesn’t show my sense of mercy in a very good light. Someone else may think a Pastor with a Blackberry is not a very good role model either. But fortunately, God knows us and values us for something far deeper than any snap judgment of ours can determine. God counts our true worth not in what we have or don’t have, but in who we are. Jesus experienced the whole range of human emotion and understanding, not as our ultimate judge, but so he could be our ultimate healer. In that we all are equals. Rich or poor, let us learn to value each other