The Poor Can't buy a Friend

  Read Proverbs 19

Solomon spends some time on a dichotomy that he has only touched on briefly thus far.  It is the rich and the poor, with greater emphasis on the poor.

Have you ever heard someone say they couldn’t buy a break?  Let me abuse that figurative language a bit and say the poor can’t buy a friend.  The wealthy always have plenty of friends.  Are they true friends?  That’s still up for discussion but those with wealth have plenty of people lining up to be their friends.

The poor can’t buy a friend, pun intended. Solomon says that even the poor man’s friend deserts him.  Does that mean that if you are poor then you have no friends?

No.  It means that the worldly attraction to be someone’s friend is not there.  A real friendship can still exist, but the shallow and transient connections passed off as friendship are finished when they find out that you have no worldly wealth.

Those ego-boosting friendships will evaporate. I will steal Zac Brown’s lyrics: The senoritas don't care-o when there's no dinero.

Everyone is a friend of the gift giver.  That’s just human nature.

In a similar vein, Solomon said that a poor man is shunned by his relatives and even more by his friends.  It doesn’t matter how hard he tries; the poor man gets kicked to the curb time and again. It seems that the poor man can’t buy a friend.

I think if I was a poor person in Solomon’s day, I might be drifting towards that whole crushed spirit thing.  C’mon Solomon, give a poor man a break. He does.

He begins this chapter saying,

Better the poor whose walk is blameless

    than a fool whose lips are perverse.

It’s better to be a poor person who seeks God and his kingdom and his righteousness than a fool, who by definition declares there is no God. 

Better to be poor than a fool.

In a strange pairing of verses, we get another comparison where the poor person is better off than others.

What a person desires is unfailing love;

    better to be poor than a liar.

We get the first part, though topically, it is a tangential fit, but it is the latter half of this quip of wisdom which makes comparison with the poor.  It is better to be poor than a liar.

So we are better off being poor than being a fool or a liar.  Being poor is not desirable, but it is better than those who rebel against God.

Do you remember:

Better a dry crust with peace and quiet

    than a house full of feasting, with strife.

It’s better to eat a poor man’s meal and enjoy your family than to have everything  except peace and quiet.  God grants peace without regard to our personal financial status.  Sometimes there is liberty in having less.

This is an interesting message as it is delivered to people who are not poor.  You might be thinking, “he hasn’t seen my bank account.” The fact that you have a bank account is an indicator that you are not poor.

There are no poor people here.  Some have more than others, but none of us are poor.

When we covet the wealth of others, we may deceive ourselves into thinking we are poor, but we are wealthy in terms of the world’s population. 

We all live indoors.  Ok, some of you guys may have spent a few days out in the weather because you didn’t read the whole chapter but just kept rereading verse 13 aloud, but otherwise, we all have shelter.

We have food and water.  We have clothing.  Most of us have a vehicle or access to a ride when we need one.

We have phones and smartphones.  I can go to my son’s house and tell the refrigerator to play a song and it will.  We have a public pool in our little town and a basketball court.  There is even a golf course.  We are blessed to have public schools through grade 12 and even a technical school within our small community.  You don’t’ have to drive very far to find a college.

If anyone tells you that you are poor, they are lying to you.  Would we like to have more?  Sure.  We can seek more without being greedy and losing sight of God’s kingdom and righteousness.

Zig Ziglar said that money can’t make you happy, but everyone wants to find out for themselves.  We get that.  We might like to have more, but we are surely not poor. I remember hearing him say one time that you can get by with less money but life seems better with more.  We get it.

But do not be deceived.  You are not poor.

So why study these quips of wisdom about being poor?  Why?

Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,

    and he will reward them for what they have done.

Does the Lord need a loan?  No. Exhibiting kindness to the poor is like a loan for it will be returned, most often not by the people we help but by the Lord.

We know this thinking and mindset. Jesus said that whatever you have done for the least of these you have done for me.

We are to help the poor.  Sometimes that is with money or food or clothing or something tangible, but what did Solomon say the poor lack?

Friends.  The poor can’t buy a friend.  The poor need our friendship as much as they need money and things from us.

If we truly are a friend to someone who is poor, we don’t want to leave them where they are and we don’t want them to be reliant upon us.  We must speak the truth in love to them and show them—not just tell them—a better way.

Show them our work ethic.  Show them our husbandry.  Show them our discipleship by following the Lord and his teachings. 

Walk with them.  Tell them, I will show you how.  I will pray with you.  I will help you with your resume.  I will practice an interview with you.

But what if someone is poor because they are lazy?

A sluggard buries his hand in the dish;

    he will not even bring it back to his mouth!

You’ve got to love this language—the sluggard, the slothful, the lazy. You don’t have to worry about spending all of your time helping the poor who are poor because they are lazy.  They won’t show up.

But some people are poor and are not lazy.  They may have made bad decisions but they are trying to do better.  They want to learn.  They are poor, not fools.

We help them.  Sometimes that help is money, food, clothing, or something else that we would give out of our wealth, but often we give of our wisdom and if we stay the course here, we can count that as part of our wealth as well.  We show people how.  We help make a budget.  We help them overcome obstacles.

If they are lost, we lead them to God. 

If they are seeking God, we walk with them and follow Jesus as brothers and sisters.  What is it that the poor lack?  Friends.  We can be a friend.

We may or may not make much difference in their lives.  That might be out of our hands, but delivering kindness to the poor is well within our capabilities.

Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,

    and he will reward them for what they have done.

We should have no metrics on whether the poor pay us back or not.  The Lord will reward us.  Some will want to repay as part of their growth, but our reward is from the Lord.

Being poor is not the worst thing in the world, but all things considered, I like being blessed.  I like seeking God first and being blessed with material things. That’s win-win.

I won’t make money or wealth my god, but I will receive the Lord’s blessings with joy and thanksgiving.  The Lord wants to bless me because I seek him first.  He wants to bless me even more when I truly help the poor.

We don’t help the poor so we get more blessings.  We help the poor because we seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness, then God adds blessings to us that the godless people seek as their gods.

Money and food are helpful, but the poor have a dearth of friends.  Be a friend as well. A true friend will speak the truth in a spirit of love and walk with their friends as we follow Jesus together.

Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,

    and he will reward them for what they have done.

Be kind because we should be kind, but get ready to realize even more blessings from the Lord.  Be kind.

Amen.