My Tuesdays nights in April were spent on Zoom with a group of 15 or so friends, new and old, considering Ron Sider’s – Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (RCAoH). It is a book I have read and re-read several times over the last 25 years – the first version came out in 1978! I was not quite reading then, but found a later edition in college while I lived and worked in DC and was learning about the intersection of my Christian faith and doing justice. Sider’s book laid a foundation for me that I continue to build on. It led to a deeper understanding of the issue of poverty and the call of my faith to do something about it.

“Millions of people die unnecessarily every year because rich folk like you and me have ignored the Bible’s clear teaching that God measures the integrity of our faith by how we respond to the poor.” Preface to 6^th edition xvi

The book is broken up into 4 sections and this division helped our group focus on a specific element of the issue of poverty and to construct a thicker story of not only what poverty looks like in the world today, but of the ways we participate in it and are complicit in its continuation.

Part one: Poor Lazarus and Rich Christians

Part two: A Biblical Perspective on the Poor and Possessions

Part three: What Causes Poverty

Part four: Implementation

“Possessions are dangerous because they often encourage unconcern for the poor, because they lead to strife and war and because they seduce people into forsaking God. Even more, they put people in the never-ending loop of covetousness.” – page 103

Each Tuesday after we checked in – sharing our highs and lows from the previous week – we considered that week’s chapters asking the question – what encouraged, provoked or challenged you?

“What we need is a biblical worldview – a genuinely biblical view of persons, history, and the material world. Then we will treasure material possessions without worshipping them. We will seek justice for all because every person bears the divine image.” – page 131

We watched this video during our first meeting – it is a stark but helpful illustration of wealth inequality – which was a topic we returned to frequently.

We also watched this video together. In it Jim Wallis talks about the Biblical call to love our neighbors and do justice. He shares a prayer offered by a volunteer who helped with a food distribution program that really impacted us: Lord we know that you’ll be coming through this line today so help us to treat you well. Help us to treat you well. (he also shared that this volunteer prayed like someone who knew to whom she was talking!)

“We have become ensnared by unprecedented material luxury. Advertising constantly convinces us that we need one unnecessary luxury after another.” – page 184

Some of the questions we asked ourselves and one another that I found hard and important were:

How willing are we to be disrupted?

How have we bought into the affluence rationalizations discussed in the book?

How do we affect personal, communal and structural change?

What is enough?

What is a luxury vs. a necessity?

How can we maximize the impact of our giving?

What produces greed in me?

“The church should consist of communities of loving defiance. Instead it consists largely of comfortable clubs of conformity. A far-reaching reformation is necessary if the church is going to resist the materialism of our day and share God’s concern for the poor.” – page 206

It was both comforting and challenging to be in community with other believers who wanted to think more deeply about poverty and the ways our own choices affect the lives of others. I am grateful for the opportunity to be vulnerable with one another and to learn from the many different perspectives and experiences of the group.

“If you want to a member of God’s generous minority, I invite you to do one simple thing each day. It will only take a minute, but it might change your life. Daily, stop for a moment, look into the face of Jesus Christ, and whisper softly, “Lord Jesus, teach my heart to share your love for the poor.”” – page 272

Two quotes shared by participants that impacted us all were:

“Poverty exists no because we cannot feed the poor but because we cannot satisfy the rich.” – Anonymous

“He who strips a man of his clothes is to be called a thief. Is not he who, when he is able, fails to clothe the naked, worthy of no other title? The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.” – St. Basil

My next books to read are a book Ron Sider mentions in RCAoH, Passing the Plate; Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money and one that mentions him and RCAoH frequently – Christian Consumer: Living Faithfully in a Fragile World.