I am the person at church who cannot afford the meals out or the trips away. I feel like I am on the edge of everything, and ashamed of it. Does God see it differently?

“He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the LORD'S, and he hath set the world upon them.”

Hannah prays this after years of humiliation over her childlessness, and the song she sings is not mainly about her son. It is about a God who reverses the order of the room, lifting people out of dust and ash heaps and seating them among princes. She had known exactly what it was to be the person others pitied. Her song insists God's arithmetic is not the room's arithmetic.

“Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?”

James writes to churches where wealthy visitors were being given the good seats while poor believers stood at the back. He does not soften it at all. He tells them God has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith, and that they are dishonouring the very people God has honoured. The letter takes seriously that a congregation can quietly copy the outside world's hierarchy.