Prosperity meets Poverty in Hackensack
Monday Ministerial Musings
By Rev. Mark William Ennis
2024 Blog #09
March 3, 2025
Prosperity meets Poverty in Hackensack
I’ve always had a relatively easy life. As crazy and dysfunctional as my family of origin was, we did not live in poverty. We were abusive, but we were not economically deprived. As a student, and as a pastor for forty years, I have never been wealthy, but I was never impoverished, hungry or homeless. I am grateful to God each and every day for the life that I have led.
There were times when my daughters were growing up that they felt poor. The grammar school that they attended was composed of many people with greater incomes than our family had. Sometimes they did feel poor, or at least relatively poor. Our cars, clothes, and vacations were less fancy that the families of other students. If one only looks at people wealthier than you, one might feel poor. If, however, a middle-class person looks at people in real poverty, the middle-class person must feel rich. It all depends on what, and who, we compare ourselves to.
Our perspective in these matters can be tainted. Most of us interact with people with similar lifestyles. There is a bit of truth behind the saying “birds of a feather flock together.” Most of us, if we only stay with people of our own economic circumstance, might not realize how well off we have it. This is especially true among those of comfortable levels of wealth. This is true of people who live in the town where I live. It is a prosperous town, with prosperous neighbors. We might not realize how well we have it.
Yesterday, some of us, including our high school youth, realized how comfortable our lives are. Members of the Community Church of Glen Rock, shopped, cooked, served, and ate dinner with people who eat at the River Mission at the Second Reformed Church in Hackensack, NJ. This is a mission for people without homes, and for people who have homes but are very food insecure. We served, we interacted with people of different living circumstances, and we all worshipped together. Most of all, we all learned about how other people are forced to live. Most importantly, we learned how fortunate we are as we live our lifestyles.
I do hope that we will learn that these people, who most of us never meet in our daily lives, are not so different from the people that we are. At times people are impoverished because of poor choices but in many cases, it is a matter of bad circumstances. Most of us also are where we are because we were born in fortunate settings.
Most importantly, I hope that we all learned that we who have much are obligated to help those who have little. I hope that we heed the words of Jesus who instructed us that everyone in need is our neighbor, and we are obligated to help that neighbor. I hope that we learn that these people we met are not “them” but are our brothers and sisters, and what happens to our family members must be important to us. I pray that we all will learn, and remember, this lesson.