Honoring the poor

Anchoress has a story on her blog,

I have a cousin who is a priest. He has worked in some absolute hellholes and he’s also rubbed elbows with the very privileged. He notes that it’s only the very rich who want to strip down churches into bare halls, or who want to serve Communion in wicker baskets because “that honors the poor.” The poor don’t really appreciate the wealthier folks deciding what “honors” them, he tells me. Condescension, for example, doesn’t do it.

I wondered about that the Sundays we visited and worshiped at our Hilltop campus. Our UA members and song leaders would wear jeans and try to imitate their culture in the songs. The locals would wear the best they had and were such a mix I think our folks might have seemed a bit condescending in music choices. Were we honoring them with some sort of false identification with what we thought they should look like? Is there anything wrong with being just us for justice?