The following was originally presented as a sermon. We've left intact some elements of oral delivery.-Editors.

HAT DOES THE Bible have to say about poverty? And what is to be our response as Christians?

I have to tell you that I'm very troubled by the standard reactions of many Adventists and other Bible-believing Christians in the Western world when faced with poverty statistics such as those listed in the sidebar (p. 30).

Yet as Seventh-day Adventists, shouldn't we be leading the way in the opposite direction?

Two Excuses
Let's consider two objections some Christians raise against concerning themselves with the poor, objections they use to pacify their conscience and evade their responsibilities.

The first is that "the poor are lazy." Their plight, these Christians say, "is mainly their own fault. Help them, and you'll only increase their dependence. Let them give up scrounging and stand up on their own two feet."

I hear this from Adventists, and it makes me angry. And I hope it makes you angry too-with Christian anger. I correct many papers in ethics, both in the traditional program at Columbia Union College and that by correspondence through Griggs University (Home Study International), in which students express themselves in very negative ways about the poor. They call them thugs, and suggest it's their fault they're in such a predicament. When I ask the question in class as to whether we in the West are in any way responsible for the poverty in the world-or whether we have any responsibility to the starving people in the developing world-students stare at me in disbelief. They don't understand what I mean. Why would I even ask such a question? Of course we have nothing to do with the starving millions on the other side of the world, their stares suggest. "Are we our brothers' keepers?"

The Bible, realistic book that it is, concedes that there is a small minority of people who are lazy. The book of Proverbs talks about "sluggards." Sleeping when they ought to be working, they're told to go learn wisdom and industry from the ants (Prov. 6:6). The Bible also teaches that constant dependence is usually a mark of immaturity.

But the same Bible goes on to insist that the great majority of the poor are not scroungers on other people's charity but victims of other people's injustice. Our responsibility, then, is not to condemn the poor (except perhaps for the small minority who are scroungers), but to support them.

The second excuse Christians make for noninvolvement with the poor is to say that the poor are a perennial and insoluble problem. And since the problem can't be solved, why try? Didn't Jesus teach that the poor will be always with us (Mark 14:7)?

It's very easy to twist and manipulate Scripture by quoting passages out of context. When Jesus said the poor will always be with us, He was quoting from Deuteronomy 15, the only context in which to understand what He said.

Two important references to the poor appear in that chapter. One comes in verse 11: "There will always be poor people in the land"-the verse Jesus quoted. *But seven verses earlier, in verse 4, we read: "There should be no poor among you"! And why? Because God has given sufficient resources to feed the poor and hungry.

So how to reconcile these two verses? One says, "There will always be poor people"; the other says, "There should be no poor among you." How do you bring together the will-be and the should-not-be?

There's only one way to reconcile them: There should not be poor, because poverty is not God's will; There will continue to be poor, because of the continuance of human injustice. The will of God says there should not be any poor. Human injustice ensures there'll continue to be poor. Thus the continuing existence of poverty in the world mentioned in Deuteronomy 15 is not as an excuse for inaction, but as an argument for generosity.

Three Verses Packed With Power
I want to bring to you three little-known verses from the book of Proverbs. Together they give us what I'd like to call "the biblical profile of the poor." They tell us how we ought to think of the poor.

1. Proverbs 14:31: "Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him" (NRSV).

Striking, isn't it? We must never think about the poor without thinking about God, their maker. Our attitude toward God is reflected in our attitude to the poor. If we think of the poor in the light of their relationship to God, it will revolutionize our understanding and attitude toward them.

We have to learn to look behind the poor-beyond the poor-to the God who created them.

That does not mean, of course, that God created their poverty, nor that He is responsible for it. No. It simply means that the poor, because they were created as human beings by God, have an intrinsic value and an intrinsic dignity that is our responsibility to recognize. They have this dignity because God made them in His image and likeness. "To oppress the poor is to despise God!" "To honor the poor is to honor God!" That should be enough to change our attitude toward them.

There is another implication from Proverbs 14:31. The same God who made the poor made those who are well-to-do. That is to say, we who have more share the same Creator with those who have less. We're equal bearers of the divine image. Some Adventist Christians echo Cain's question "Am I my brother's keeper?" expecting the answer "No, you're not!" But the correct answer is "Yes, you are!"

"Ah, but the poor are not my brothers and sisters in Christ," someone says. Not correct. On the contrary, large numbers of the poor are Christian men and women, our sisters and brothers in the family of Christ. And though the rest may not be our brothers and sisters in redemption terms, they're our brothers and sisters in creation terms. That's what Paul meant when, talking to the philosophers in Athens, he described us all as God's children, God's offspring (Acts 17:28). (Paul used a special word here, a word that points to God as Creator rather than as intimate Father of all.) We're brothers and sisters, all related to one another. On that account we have a responsibility to the poor. And in expressing our solidarity with them, we honor their Maker.

2. Proverbs 29:7: "The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern."

This text provides an addition to the biblical profile of the poor: they are human beings, with human rights. And justice is about human rights. It isn't just sympathy that the poor need; it's justice.

So how are we to understand justice for the poor? In 2 Corinthians 8:13, toward the end of his statement encouraging the Corinthians in generosity, Paul says: "Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality." Then he goes on: "At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality" (verse 14).

The Greek word isoteis (used there for equality) can also mean justice or fairness. Justice demands a certain degree of equality.

But what is this equality that justice demands? Here we should think very carefully. Our goal in seeking justice for the poor is not what's commonly called egalitarianism. Egalitarianism suggests a drab, colorless uniformity.

Take the following example: Last November I had opportunity with 35 American philosophers to spend almost two weeks in the People's Republic of China. We visited the nine largest and most important universities in four cities and met with our counterparts-professors and academics-in the field of philosophy. The most striking displays at some of these institutions were statues of Chairman Mao Tsetung. And we were reminded of Chairman Mao's "cultural revolution," through which he attempted a Communist version of egalitarianism. All people were to look the same, to dress in the same clothes, live in the exact same type of housing, equipped with the same furniture. Most important, they were to all think the same. (Incidentally, modern China proves that Chairman Mao failed to a large extent.)

But that's egalitarianism, a drab, colorless uniformity. It wasn't what Paul had in mind when he spoke about equality. We know that is so because God the Creator is not egalitarian. To be sure, God made us equal in dignity, equal in value. But God did not make us equal in gifts. Some people He made more intelligent than others; some more handsome than others; some more healthy than others; some are tall, others are not; some are thin, and others are not. He has made us all different. Our doctrine of creation is about an equality of value with a diversity of gifts.

So what, then, is the equality that biblical justice demands? The answer is: an equality in opportunity. Christian men and women should be at the forefront of those who are calling for equality of opportunity for everybody throughout the world. That should mean, first of all, the equal chance to hear the gospel. Isn't that a form of justice? We want everybody to hear the good news, to have a chance to respond to the gospel.

We want everyone to have equal access to the good earth. God created the planet for all its inhabitants, not just for a few. And the resources of the earth, of which He made us stewards, are meant for everybody.
Then there should be an equal chance to enjoy access to health-care and food and water and education. That last item, education, is most important. Education helps the young to develop their human potential. It draws out what God has placed in them, enabling them to become fully what He has made them to be. Adventist Christians should be in the very forefront of promoting education. More than 50 percent of people in the developing world are illiterate. Millions have never had an opportunity to learn to read and write, let alone develop their full potential as human beings.

The text before us in this segment (Prov. 29:7) says that "the righteous care." They're a caring people, but "the wicked have no such concern." Did you notice the words care and concern? These words belong to the vocabulary of love. Love cares. Love is concerned. And that teaches me that love and justice, which are very often put in antithesis to one another, actually belong to one another. Love and justice are not alternatives. Love seeks justice for the oppressed. We need to care, to be concerned.

One more thing before I leave Proverbs 29:7, and that is its reference to the righteous and to the wicked. The Old Testament wisdom literature (Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon) all have a lot to say about the righteous and the wicked. They set the righteous and the wicked in contrast to one another: The righteous set God always before them; the wicked neglect God and don't think about Him at all. The righteous meditate on the Word of the Lord; the wicked neglect it. The righteous obey the law; the wicked disobey.

Here in Proverbs 29:7 is a mark of the righteous we often forget-and a mark of the wicked as well. The righteous care about justice for the poor. The wicked have no such concern. Not to care about the poor is to be numbered among the wicked. I just wonder how many of us who come to worship here might be numbered among the wicked on the basis of our attitude to the poor? You and I may need to revise our understanding of the categories of righteous and wicked, and reevaluate where we belong.

The Face of Poverty More than 1 billion people in the world, approximately on fifth of the world's population, live in absolute or abject poverty (meaning that they lack basic necessities for survival). One fifth of the world goes to bed hungry every night. One third of all the children in the developing would are undernourished. One fifth of the human population owns four fifths of the world's wealth. Less than 50 percent of the population of the developing world are literate. More than 80 percent in the industrialized nations are literate. Only 50 percent of the developing world's people have access to clean, safe water.

3. Proverbs 31:8: "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy."

The third feature in the biblical portrait of the poor is that they are powerless . . . and voiceless. In the biblical understanding right through the Old Testament particularly, poverty and powerlessness are closely related to each other. The worst plight of the poor is not so much their inability to survive, but that they lack the ability by themselves to change their situation. Consequently it's the duty of those who are neither poor nor powerless to speak up for them.

God describes Himself again and again in Scripture as the God of the poor, the friend of the weak, the Father of the fatherless, the defender of the widows, the judge of the oppressed, the protector of aliens. Listen to this in Psalm 146: "[The Lord] upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free. . . . The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. . . . The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow" (verses 7-9).

This is the kind of God He is. And since this is the kind of God He is, this is the kind of people we should be. We have got to imitate Him in His care for the poor and the powerless. The biblical character Job was like this. He was righteous, truly righteous. "I rescued the poor who cried for help," he said, "and the fatherless who had none to assist him. . . . I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban. . . . I was a father to the needy; I took up the case of the stranger" (Job 29:12-16).

What About Today?
One of the most lamentable examples of the church's failure to be the voice of the voiceless and the power of the powerless was that of the so-called German Christians at the heart of the Nazi regime. According to Richard Gutteridge, they compromised with Adolf Hitler, attempting a theological defense of the dictator's myth of racial purity, and turning a blind eye to the Holocaust.†

Gutteridge traces the complicity of the Christian church in Germany back to the middle of the nineteenth century. He points out that there were only a few brave leaders who protested against the growing anti-Semitism of the National Socialist Party. (Karl Barth was an exception. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was another.)

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute" (Prov. 31:8). Christians should have done that in Germany (and in Yugoslavia and Rwanda). The Second World War possibly would never have taken place if they had. Those Christian churches were guilty of silence when they should have spoken.

To recapitulate, the biblical profile of the poor is that they are human beings created by God in His own image, deserving our respect and service. The poor are human beings with human rights; therefore we must seek justice for them-especially in regard to equal opportunity. The poor are powerless and voiceless, so we should speak up for them and defend them.

Recently I took on photography as one of the hobbies I'd loved as a youngster. And when I took my daughter Natasha to the airport a while back, I snapped a number of pictures. But when the film window started showing numbers 37, 38, and 39, I felt that something was seriously wrong with the camera. Finally gathering enough courage, I opened the film compartment, only to find that I'd forgotten to put any film in! I'd actually taken 39 blank shots over a period of weeks, and now all those memories remained unrecorded.

I could have gone into depression over the lost opportunities and become angry with myself. And that's how we could feel after seeing hundreds of lost opportunities and moments when we could have made a difference. But there's no point in thinking about the could-have-beens.

I finally put another roll of film in my camera and started clicking while Natasha was still around. I took advantage of new opportunities. And if I missed some before, I surely was not going to miss them from now on.

And that, friends, is what we need to do. Let's load our cameras and go out to make a difference.

God of the poor, friend of the weak, give us compassion, we pray. Melt our cold hearts. Let tears fall like rain. Come, change our love from a spark to a flame. Amen.

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* All scripture passages are taken from the New International Version unless otherwise indicated.
† All this is carefully documented by historical scholar Richard Gutteridge in his book Open Thy Mouth for the Dumb! (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976), the title of which is a quotation from Proverbs 31.

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Zdravko Plantak chairs the Religion Department at Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, Maryland, and is an associate professor of religion.