Who does God love?

The Poor, the poor, the poor! God loves the poor!! That is good news!! And as much as it is good news, sometimes it feels like old news. Granted, much of that is based on your physical and social location, and I'll explain a little why. Right now, I live in Durham, NC, a move I made from Asheville, a place I dearly loved and would have happily lived out my life until I was ready to be buried, but I made the move in response to God's call to be a reconciliation person. (Disclaimer: Sometimes answering that call is to stay EXACTLY where you are--just go pray about it if you're confused). I came here to learn how to love the poor and disempowered in better and more meaningful ways. In my Methodist upbringing, I heard that message a lot from the pulpit, saw it in action from hippies and the like in Asheville (Christian or not and most often not through the Church), and then in both Mainline and Evangelical churches I saw mostly rich people in church claiming God's grace. And it is weird, lately my time in Durham I've seen a lot of people who claim to love the poor (and they do), but yet have deep contempt for the rich (yet of course, that's not them--they aren't rich, they are poor and at most "middle class" or in debt--but never do they lump themselves in with the rich).

So who does Jesus love? Does he love the poor or the rich people on the pews? Over the past few years I've come to realize that He equally loves both, yet he shows more active concern over the poor more or less as an equalizer and also as a realist, knowing full well that money can distract people who have already hardened their hearts and chosen their own god.

Much of my story growing up in L-town gives me this hybrid identity: a born-and-bred white person going to a predominately multicultural school where I was the one who had to learn the art of acculturation to a certain extent; an AIG/AP kid and considered a "prep" without ever truly feeling that I belonged to the incrowd; yet when I explain where I went to school I was told that I was from "the disadvantaged parts" yet I would simultaneously rub shoulders with prominant North Carolinians and attend all the social functions of the Old South.

As the children's book I have on Barack Obama says: In a world of separation, "being both, [you can] not take sides." For a good chunk of my life, I tried to pick sides. Am I going to be the outcast or the socialite? I spent a number of years trying to be totally one or the other. It was torturous living in a world where I didn't totally fit into either category. I wouldn't say that either one is better than the other, but I can say that I'm learning that God can use and redeem both parts of me. And when I'm operating from the place of not choosing sides and letting God both use me and transform me (and of course repeat the process again), then I feel that I can obey both the parable of the talents and the parable about giving up all for the Gospel.

To me, this is part of what reconciliation means. It isn't about an outside force arbitrarily trying to give justice when they can't do it (because they represent a certain "side"), but it is about Jesus. Jesus was the epitome of what it means to experience both sides, "fully God and fully man." Jesus is able to re-establish relationship because He can't take sides, but he can arbitrate justly from both.

Yes, I've been in those churches that says God wants to make you wealthy and prosperous (and not so much in the Joel Osteen way, but just really emphasize that Scripture is talking about spiritual conditions and not physical) and I've also been to the ones who encourage you to give all to the poor. I find that in both extremes, people lose parts of the Gospel--Jesus LOVES lost, messed up, screwy, hypocritical and screwed over people. He doesn't pick sides. He does some radical things. Extremely radical things for the poor, disempowered, ethnic and gender issues, etc. But he also didn't turn away Nicodememus the Pharisee or the Rich young ruler. He lauded the man who had many talents and multiplied them and punished the man who had little and didn't squander it but rather saved it--a 100% return investment.

I'm not saying that I know how God works, because as much as I love Him and as much as I come to know how amazing God is, the more I have to admit that I don't understand. We must be careful in how we love and attempt to love people--and who we say that Jesus loves. For if you are like me, saying that God hates the rich means hating people like me. Seriously, are you going to hate on Bono for using his celebrity to draw attention to Africa and AIDS? Are you going to hate on his Product Red campaign which uses capitalisim and consumerism to save lives? Are you going to hate the three American cowboys who on a whim went to Uganda and started the Invisible Children project, using their privilege to truly change things on the ground--even helping to stop a war that lasted for decades?

Reconciliation (to me) is about what God has first done for us in Christ. Where God reaches down to us who have wronged him and yet also have nothing to repay their debt, and all of it is taken care of (painfully so) through Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection. That Christ did not see equality with God something to be held on to or merely thrown away, but to bring restoration. For us to mimic this is not only to recieve this grace, but for us to equally love those Christ died for (which Romans says for is the ungodly)...and uh, yeah, last time I checked that would be all of us.

**Disclaimer: This does not mean go and make lots of money. It means that money can actually translate into change. I believe God calls us to use our material blessings well. I used to think all people who aspired to be doctors and lawyers were scum of the earth who couldn't really love God; and then I learned about how God's calling is purposeful, and it is simply our human designation of salaries that causes discrepencies in professional wealth (ie. think teachers). Yet that doesn't mean that someone couldn't equally serve God all day in their work environment and then give a large portion of that away through tithing. Even when I lived on a teacher's salary, I found that I had (as a single person) waaaaayyy more than I needed to live on and could lavishly give when anyone had a need. I could have chosen to buy a new car instead, or upgrade other parts of my material life, but through growing me in contentment, God helped me to give and to give cheerfully. I then taught at a non-profit boarding school where all of my living expenses were met on a very very low salary (below minimum wage), yet I did just fine. I didn't have as much freedom to give, but I experienced life on the recieving end and I never had a need.