If you know anything about King Solomon, he was the wealthiest man in all of Israel. He lived in a palace, had armies and servants in abundance and was the envy of other world leaders. There’s even a story in the Bible about the Queen of a place called Sheba who traveled to Israel just to see for herself how magnificent Solomon’s Kingdom was.

As wealthy as Solomon was, he also recognized that wealth could be dangerous and lead to pride which can do great spiritual damage to a person. Solomon cautiously warns his readers not to look down on people who are poor or to take advantage of the poor.

The rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the Maker of them all. (Proverbs 22:2).
Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor. (22:9).
Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty. (22:18).
Do not rob the poor, because he is poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate for the Lord will plead their cause and rob of life those who rob them. (22-23).

Solomon gives some heavy-duty warning here. Many cultures throughout human history have looked down on the poor or otherwise economically challenged. In some cultures, the Hindu culture of India, they believe that poverty is simply Karma, the poor person is being punished for sins committed in a previous life (they believe in reincarnation of the dead, rather than sleeping till resurrection as the Bible consistently teaches). So that poor person is poor because they are bad. You can see how this attitude might breed a certain attitude of superiority. They are poor because they deserve it. On the other side, many think, I am rich because I am being rewarded for being a good person. In actual fact, more often than not the reverse is true. Many very poor people are actually very caring and loving people. Their poverty has nothing to do with their character or their sins. Poverty has many causes. There are all kinds of factors in society that can affect a person’s ability to acquire wealth or even a subsistence level of economic resources.

Consider a community where most laborers work in a factory. In some cases, several generations of their family worked in that same factory. What happens when suddenly the new CEO of the company decides that the shareholders will make more money if they can cut manufacturing costs by outsourcing production to a country with much lower labor costs. They can produce the same goods at lower production costs and sell them for the same amount resulting in greater profits and more dividends for the shareholders, and a nice healthy bonus for the CEO. Everybody wins, right? Wrong. The people who worked at the factory for 30 years suddenly find themselves unemployed. How will they feed their families? What happens to the town when suddenly a large part of the population are unemployed? I think you get my point. Suddenly you have poor people who are now poor through no fault of their own. They are victims of the wealthy people who are now even wealthier at their expense.

In our society, it is tempting to look at those kinds of situations as the result of our system but trusting that the system will balance itself out. But does it really? Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not advocating for communism or socialism as a better alternative to capitalism, but we must acknowledge that there is a moral component to wealth and we should not blind ourselves to the reality that there are systemic elements in society that do contribute to poverty and we need to be aware and mindful of ways that we contribute to that.

It is easy to look at poor people and blame them for 'being too lazy' or 'on drugs.' Sometimes that is no doubt true. But we don’t necessarily know that. We don’t know how lack of educational opportunities, racial inequalities, generational poverty and many other factors may be contributing to their situation. Sometimes substance abuse is the cause of poverty, but other times it is a symptom of one who has lost all hope for economic success and has given in to apathy and hopelessness and now is self-medicating. Poverty can also come as a result of mental illness. Many unhoused persons suffer from severe mental illness and most states lack sufficient resources to treat and support them, so they end up living lives of unmitigated poverty and misery.

Mindlessly throwing money at problems is not the solution, but neither is blame or even worse, intentionally taking advantage of the poor to make ourselves richer. Every day I get spam calls and texts from people who are phishing for my data so that they can access my bank account and take my money. They often target elderly people, try to scare them, or confuse them into sharing their personal information, so they can steal from them. In the same way, a predatory lion will look for the weakest gazelle in the herd to take down, predatory people often do the same. Solomon knew back then how the poor were often victimized by the predatory rich and he warned against it. Not much has changed.

When Jesus says that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, he includes the poor. The person who wants to flourish spiritually will be intentional in how they treat everyone, especially those who are economically challenged and most vulnerable.