Deserting the Poor – Proverbs 19:4,6,7

My friend emailed me, “my husband and I participated in the Accessible Hope International online gala called the Luke 14 Feast.  Registration was free, and they gave all registrations a food credit to be used for food delivery service Grubhub from area restaurants.”  Every year Accessible Hope holds a fund raiser called a Luke 14 Feast, seeking to live out Jesus’ teaching in Luke 14:12-14.  They minister to people with disabilities, people whom many will ignore or not allow to work.

[4] Wealth brings many new friends, but a poor man is deserted by his friend.  [6] Many seek the favor of a generous man, and everyone is a friend to a man who gives gifts.  [7] All a poor man’s brothers hate him; how much more do his friends go far from him!  He pursues them with words, but does not have them. (Proverbs 19:4,6,7, ESV)

Is the reason we fear or hate poor people that we fear they will drag us into their whirlpool?  Do we fear we will be expected to spend our own money to help them and so become less wealthy ourselves?  Or are we angry that they let themselves get into this predicament through their own foolishness?

Is it as simple as we selfishly want to be with those who can enrich us and we do not perceive poor people as being able to do that?

I recall a fellow Sunday school member who used to invite us to dinner and paid for it, even some really nice places.  His business was doing quite well.  Strangely, it was hard to get to know him and no sense of being real friends with him carried the relationship.  As soon as his wealth left him, though he was by no means in poverty, his means of bringing fellowship around him failed.  I felt somewhat guilty about this.  Was I a poor friend to him?  I had built very little real relationship with him.

Jesus told the Pharisees,

“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.  But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,  and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:12–14, ESV)