The Poor You Will Have With You Always - The Hole in Our Gospel

The poor are not lab rats on whom we can experiment with our pet theories; they
are human beings with rich cultural and personalstories of their own. They have
hopes, dreams, tragedies, triumphs in their lives. They need us to love them
first and listen to them. They need us to see their assets and their God-given
abilities. When we see them as God sees them, we will glimpse His image in their
faces - Christ in His most distressing disguise.

And...

... we must never see poverty or injustice as "issues" that need solutions;
rather we must see the human beings at the heart of those issues as people who need and deserve our love and respect.

The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, pages 130, 162-163.

This book is hammering home the truth of the statement made by Jesus in Mark 14:7.