helping the poor – Somerset Church of Christ

The silence on the other end of the phone was crushing. A desperate young mother, Nikalie Monroe, was out of formula for her hungry baby, and in a recent viral social experiment, she called the institutional Church for help. Over and over, the answer she heard was a bureaucratic, hardline “No.” Isn’t that a devastating indictment of our priorities? At the very moment the church was locking the door, we witnessed the beautiful contrast of a Pittsburgh father, AJ Owen, who simply partnered with his two young children to build a free food pantry in their front yard. No committee, no budget approval, no bureaucracy, just an immediate, personal “Yes” to the needs of his neighbors. Over 18 million people viewed his TikTok video and many started pantries of their own in the past two weeks. This contrast forces us to confront a vital question: Which example truly reflects the heart of the Father we claim to follow?

This tension between the “No” of the institution and the “Yes” of the individual is woven all through Scripture, proving this struggle isn’t new. 1 John 3:17 says, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” Remember the priest and the Levite who walked on the opposite side of the road of the man who’d been beaten? It was the Samaritan who cared for the man. Jesus replied to the lawyer, “‘Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You go and do likewise'” (Luke 10:36-37).

The challenge for us today is clear: Will we allow our systems to harden our hearts, leading us to say a collective “No” to the desperate pleas of our community? Or will we empower the individual, immediate, compassionate “Yes” right where we live? Our mission is simple: to see the person in need and care for them. The Apostle James reminds us, “If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” Let’s commit to being the unexpected Samaritans our neighbors desperately need.

James, the brother of Jesus, wrote at length about partiality. Perhaps this was partially influenced by intimately knowing Jesus, and how he went out of his way to minister to the poor, the lame, and the blind. Whatever the reason, James is clear: “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” (James 2:1 ESV). Then he gave an example of two people coming into the assembly; one wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, and the other poor and wearing shabby clothing.

James says that it is wrong to put the rich man at a seat of honor while telling the poor man to “sit over there.” James went on to say: “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” (vs. 5). But, in this example, the church chose the rich man who oppresses over the poor man who is an heir of the kindom.

He warns the Christians of walking a fine line to the point that he says, “If you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (vs. 9). Partiality is a sin, and the Lord’s church has no room for it. If the church is going to grow, we need to embrace people of all kinds of backgrounds and show hospitality. When we do this, we become the hands and the feet of Jesus!

Tag: helping the poor

Be the “yes” in a world of “nos”

The sin of partiality