Show Me the Money!

I've been thinking a lot about wealth recently, and not just because newspeople keep talking about the disappearance of it.  Mostly my oldest son has started to ask a lot of questions, "Are those people poor?" "Why are they poor?"  "Are we poor?"  My favorite was what he said when he saw the empty fridge before grocery shopping--"We are so poor now, Mama!"

I also overheard, a few months ago, someone who owns a multi-million dollar house, and a vacation home, and takes trips all around the world, call themselves "middle class."  If that's middle class, than what are the rest of us?

The last thing, the one that really got me going, was listening to presidential candidates go on and on about who would do the best things for the middle class.  I realized that a huge change had happened, and only since I was a kid (I think).  Political candidates, especially Democratic ones, used to talk about what was best for the poor.  I'm not saying that they, in actuality, did anything to help the poor, but they at least thought that's where their priorities should lie, and it was what people wanted to hear.  

But now, even the most liberal man ever elected president only talked about what was good for the middle class.  He was arguing with the Republican candidate over who was going to do more for the middle class!  Once I realized this change, I began to think about the wealth categories that the Bible has.  Jesus often talks about the "poor" and the "rich," but "middle class" is never mentioned.  The apostles also talk about rich and poor, and the Old Testament law is filled with exhortations to think of the poor.  

Now, does a truly middle class American look more like a poor person or more like a rich person?  I would say rich.  In fact, I think "middle class" could even be defined as "rich, but not as rich as that guy."  We're always told that it's healthy for societies to have a large middle class, but what this really means is that there is not such a striking difference between the rich and the poor, and this is (thankfully) what we mostly see in our country.  

The saddest thing that happens when we only care about the welfare of the middle class is that we've put ourselves in a position to ignore a huge portion of the Bible.  The rich are repeatedly warned and exhorted not to forget the poor.  Well, if we're middle class, then that doesn't mean us--it means that rich guy over there!  

So ends the explanation as to what I answer my son when he asks if we're rich, "Of course we are!"  I say.  God has blessed us with so much--so much, in fact, that we have enough to share with the poor.  If that's not the definition of rich, then what is?