Proverbs 17:5 - Homiletics

Mocking the poor

The terrible inequality of human lots was never more apparent than it is in the present day. England is renowned for her wealth; yet England is a haunt of hungry misery. It is nothing but selfish hypocrisy to justify this condition of affairs by quoting the words of our Lord, "The poor always ye have with you" ( John 12:8 ). If they are always with us in abject need and distress, so much the worse for the condition of society. The statement of a distressing fact is no justification for it. Meanwhile, if the huge evil of pauperism cannot be abolished at once, it is our duty to lessen, not to aggravate it.

I. CONSIDER IN WHAT WAYS THE POOR ARE MOCKED .

1 . When their condition is disregarded. There are thousands of people living in affluence who simply ignore the fact that they have needy brethren. Dives at his feast does not give a thought to Lazarus pining at his gate. Surely it is a mockery to the awful misery of the East End that the West End feasts and fetes itself with undisturbed complacency.

2 . When their rights are neglected. This happens in many ways, even in an age and a country that boasts of its administration of justice.

3 . When their deficiencies are ridiculed. The poor man is generally illiterate, his "speech bewrayeth him." He has never learnt the manners of good society. So the classes above him put up their eyeglasses to inspect him, as though he were some strange, repulsive animal.

4 . When their merits are ignored. There is honest, poverty. There are brave men fighting against adverse circumstances with the courage of heroes. Are these people to be mucked at simply because they cannot put money in their purses? The kindness of the poor to the poor is a rebuke to the cynicism of the rich. Yet how difficult it is for poor men to be duly recognized! Dr. Johnson spoke from experience when he said—

"This mournful truth is everywhere confess'd

Slow rises worth by poverty depressed."

The world mocks the poor when it judges people by the fashion of their clothes and the size of their houses, instead of looking to their character and lives.

II. CONSIDER THE GREAT SIN OF MOCKING THE POOR . He who does this "reproacheth his Maker." For the God who made the rich man also made the poor man. The reproach of the child is a reproach of his Father. We do more than wrong our brethren when we treat the unfortunate with contempt; we insult our God. He is the God of the poor, and he takes their wrongs as injuries to himself. This is no slight, shadowy offence. It is an awful sin in the sight of Heaven. The only reason that is suggested why Dives should be writhing in torments of fire is that he was a rich man who gave no heed to the misery of his neighbour. Here is an awful prospect for the careless comfortable classes of England! The evil is aggravated with us, because we profess that religion which preaches a gospel to the poor. In the Church of Christ rich and poor meet together. For the rich man to despise his fellow Christian, then, is for him to deny his Master, "who had not where to lay his head." Let it be remembered that Christ, who was rich, "for our sakes became poor." He is the Friend and Brother of the poor.