10 More Reasons The Gospel That’s Good News for the Poor is Good News for the Rich

by Margot Starbuck Monday, March 21st, 2011

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Today’s RLC Blog Challenge: It would be super-easy to skim this Top 10 list and then leave a snarky comment at the end about all the ways the author is so naïve.  You can do that if you want.  (She actually could, too.)  OR, exercise a little more creativity and share with this community one reason why you think that the gospel of Jesus is good news for the poor and the rich.  That’s today’s RLC Blog Challenge.

Ten ways the gospel that is—obviously—good news for the poor is actually also good news for those of us who are affluent….

1. When the rich eat less extraneous food and get healthier, faithfully stewarding our excess resources—to Blood:Water Mission—the poor eat enough and get healthier
2. When the rich skip an episode of Desperate Housewives, besides gaining an extra hour of life, the typically-induced envy and greed that ensue—the kinds that impact the lives of the poor who make our stuff—is squelched.
3. When those of us who are affluent limit our requisite shopping errands to one day a week, we’re liberated from the exhausting obsessive consumption that drives us and we consume less of the resources which impact the lives of the poor.
4. When the rich take a refreshing Sabbath from facebook, we get an opportunity to connect with the ones God loves on the margins who aren’t on facebook.
5. When the rich make the time-consuming effort to get off of the catalogue mailing lists that jam our mailboxes, and overwhelm us before we even step in the door after work, fewer forests are stripped in developing countries.
6. When the rich knock out all of our birthday-gift shopping at one convenient Ten Thousand Villages fair-trade location, the poor earn a living wage.
7. Similarly, when the rich do our Christmas gift shopping by donating goats and chickens through World Vision, the poor gain a viable livelihood.  (Totally convenient, too, right?)
8. When the rich exercise the ridiculously convenient practice of either fasting or sharing a simple weekly meal of rice and beans to remember the poor—using our weekly savings to sponsor a child through Compassion International—children are released from poverty in Jesus’ name.
9. When the rich decide to forgo traveling sports leagues for six-year-olds, the poor (and rich) are less likely to suffer from our pollution and the ones who live near us are more likely to find us playing in our yards.
10. When the affluent decide to kick our pricey oral addictions to tasty food and drink we don’t really need, resources are freed up to keep some protein-rich peanut butter in the car to share with those we meet who are in need.

I’m telling you, people, the same gospel that is great news for the poor truly is great news for the rich.  Where are you seeing it being fleshed out?

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Margot Starbuck is a communicator who writes and speaks about kingdom living, God’s heart for the poor, body image, edgy love & other fresh ideas.  She’s convinced that because God is with us and for us in Jesus Christ, Christians are set free to live love that is for others, especially those who live on the world’s margins. This is kind of Margot’s big thing.  Margot lives in the Walltown neighborhood of Durham, NC, with her husband, Peter, and their three kids by birth and adoption.  At Reality Ministries, she shares life among friends with and without disabilities.  A graduate of Westmont College and Princeton Seminary, Margot is ordained in the Presbyterian Church USA.

Click here for more information on Margot Starbuck and the work she is doing for the Kingdom.