What a man desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar (Proverbs 19:22).

The 19th chapter of the Proverbs has a very strong sociological feel to it.  It examines a lot of the relationships between people and money.  Verse 1 and verse 14 point to the fact that financial prosperity and moral righteousness are completely independent variables, yet verse 8 suggests that there can sometimes be a causal relationship (wherein wisdom leads to prosperity)... Verse 10 points to the unbearable tensions that are created when socio-economic factors are suddenly inverted (truisms that have been painfully illustrated through hundreds of years of history)... Verse 15 goes into some of the issues surrounding work ethic and the downward spirals of apathy and poverty... And verse 17 says that God values generosity and charitable giving... But I personally think it's most fascinating to examine some of the things that Proverbs 19 has to say about the relational dynamics of socio-economic disparity.

Verses 4 through 7 are particularly interesting in this regard:  "Wealth brings many friends, but a poor man’s friend deserts him.  Many curry favor with a ruler, and everyone is the friend of a man who gives gifts.  A poor man is shunned by all his relatives -- how much more do his friends avoid him!  Though he pursues them with pleading, they are nowhere to be found."  It seems to me that this Proverb is saying that one's social class serves as something of a magnetic phenomenon -- either strongly attractive or strongly repulsive.  We tend to stick to people in our own social class, and this only changes if there is an opportunity to move up in social class.  As I reflected on this theme from the Proverbs, and as I compared it to real-world interactions that I've had or observed, I noticed that this is very much true... even if it might be somewhat unfortunate.  It works this way in city neighborhoods, in schools, in businesses, and in social circles.  It's extremely rare for someone to have friends who are of a different social class!  Think about this with yourself:  How many friends do you have who you could say are from a markedly different social class (either significantly richer than yourself or significantly poorer than yourself)?   My guess is that it's not that many.  On an intellectual level, our culture has grown to value diversity and an evaluation of someone on their inherrent qualities and not just their level of wealth -- and we may pay lip-service to the ideals of Horatio Alger and the "American Dream"... But seriously, on a practical level, we just don't mix with different social classes very much.  Our world is sharply segregated in a way that's not so dissimilar to the Hindu caste system (even if we're not readily willing to admit it).

One of the rare exceptions I can think of is the church.  Well, maybe not "The Church" on the global level -- which is just as badly segregated (if not more so) than the rest of the world... But on the local level, considering the church with which I'm involved in central Amsterdam, our hodge-podge of social classes is one of the aspects of our faith community that I prize the most.  Within our church, we have highly-educated professionals with numerous advanced degrees (MDs, PhDs, MBAs, etc.) -- but we also have immigrants of questionable legal status with low levels of literacy.  We have investment bankers who worship directly alongside street-fighters and squatters.  We have people who come from "old money" in Europe, and we have people who come from abject poverty in the developing world.  It's quite the hodge-podge, and I've recently realized just how exceptional it is that we've been able to build a community with such socio-economic diversity!

How did it happen?  Honestly, I can't provide a perfectly insightful answer.  God's the one who's made it happen.  But I do have to wonder if this extraordinary blend of social classes within our congregation has something to do with a special value on "unfailing love."  Of course, as humans our love does sometimes fail.  But we have developed a keen appreciation for the way that God loves us with a truly perfect, unconditional love -- and I dare say that we've developed a strong culture of acceptance, loyalty, grace, and love.  We keep having to learn these lessons again and again, but it feels to me like we've managed to forge some kind of family out of all these different people.  And even though we can really annoy each other sometimes (oh, can we annoy each other!), we can extend love and grace to each other in a way that expresses something of God's unfailing love, just like it talks about in 1 John chapter 4, verses 7 through 12:  "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."  At the end of the day, this is really what we all want.  But God is the only one who's able to help us actually make it happen.