Choosing the poor

Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? – James 2v5 

I come across these verse and they keep reminding me that something is really wrong with the Church in some parts of the world. When we read about the early church we find a people who had nothing. They met in homes or in hired rooms at the Temple (before they were run off). Everything we read about them speaks of poverty and doing without. The church at Laodicea thought they were rich, but God told them they really had nothing. Here in James God talks about how God has chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith. Jesus taught early on the difficulty of a rich man finding his way to heaven. 

Yet, in pockets around the world we find churches which exude wealth. The buildings are like palaces. They go far beyond comfort to the point of luxury. The members compete to have the best car, the fanciest clothes, and the nicest homes. Christians make decisions based in how it is going to affect them materially. Some of these churches have millions of euro worth of cars in their car parks alone. 

James says that we are not to look down on the poor because it is them that God has chosen to make rich in faith and the heirs of His kingdom. 

How do we reconcile the two? Do we just assume that the rich are not spiritual? No, that would be showing partiality. But there is something here that does not quite match up, isn’t there?