I hate today’s lections! I don’t want to preach on them! Do you even want to hear their message? As rich Americans, don’t we wish that the Revised Common Lectionary had chosen some other readings for today? Wouldn’t we rather hear about how God loves us, and how we’ll all get to heaven if we just believe the right things?
God loves us, all right, and Jesus has shown us the way to eternal life. Even so, today’s lessons sternly warn us that there is more to following Jesus than reciting the Nicene Creed. Can you hear God addressing you through the words of the prophet Amos? You have to be deaf not to hear Amos’s warning to the indolent superrich of 8th century Israel. It was a time of great prosperity. It was also a time of great income inequality when the lifestyles of the wealthy were in sharp contrast to the lifestyles of the poor. Worse yet, wealthy landowners were able to manipulate the credit system so as to amass great estates at the expense of small farmers. Enter Amos. “You who are at ease in Zion,” he thunders, “you who are sure your wealth will always support you, you who sit around idly, imagining that you are like King David, you will be the first to lose it all. As the music fades away, you will be the first into exile.” The message could not be clearer. The rich of Amos’s time didn’t want to hear it, and neither do we.
Our psalm for the day begins on a joyful note. We hear the psalmist declare, “I will praise the Lord as long as I live.” However, here again we hear the warning: neither politicians nor any “child of earth” can grant us security. The psalmist goes on to declare that the God whom we profess to worship cares for those who are oppressed, or hungry, or blind, or in prison. More to the point, we who profess to love this God, we who would honor God’s covenant with us, must imitate God, indeed must be God’s instruments, in caring for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow.
In the Gospel reading, rather than thundering at his hearers, Jesus tells a harsh story to the “lovers of money” and those who would follow their example. However, just as in Amos’s prophecy, Jesus’ story is filled with contrasts and reversals. The poor man, Lazarus, has a name, while the rich man does not. While the rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, Lazarus has only his rags and his sores. The rich man sits down to a groaning table, while Lazarus would be happy to have the leftovers in the trash. The rich man is buried, no doubt without all ceremonial, while Lazarus is carried away by the angels. However, at the end of the story, Lazarus, safely ensconced in Abraham’s bosom, now looks down on the rich man, who is forced to look up and beg.
What was Jesus telling his hearers in this story? Was Jesus condemning wealth as such? Was the rich man punished for being rich? If the rich man could invoke Abraham, then he was a member of the household of faith. As such, he too knew his Scriptures. He too had heard the prophets and the psalms. He too knew of God’s care for the needy and of his own responsibility to imitate God in caring for those around him. No, the rich man’s sin was ignoring the human need right in front of his eyes, and in failing to address it while he could. He was punished for not connecting the dots, for ignoring the connection between his identity as a child of Abraham and his responsibility to be God’s conduit of blessings to the world.
So what of us? We too sit “at ease in Zion.” We too live in a country – in a county – with deep income inequality. Currently, the richest sections of the US population now concentrate in their hands a greater portion of the national income than at any point in nearly a century, and income inequality is at near record levels. Walk any city in the US, or maybe even any small town, and you will find homeless people sleeping on heating vents and park benches, lines at soup kitchens and free dinners, and shelters full to bursting. Geralyn Wolf, the bishop of Rhode Island, spent a month of her sabbatical living on the streets as a homeless person. In her book, entitled Down and Out in Providence, she reminds us that poor people cannot “pull themselves up by their own boot straps.” Rather, many of the people she met had full or part-time jobs but did not earn enough to rent an apartment or even a room. Others were physically or emotionally handicapped. Some had lost their jobs in the recession. Government was doing little to help the people Bp. Wolf met, and some policies even actively made their situations worse.
What is our responsibility? Can we do a better job of imitating God than we currently do? The end of the letter to Timothy may provide clues, ways to respond to the prophets’ and Jesus’ warnings. The letter was most likely written by a disciple of Paul to a younger pastor when Christianity was still very much a minority religion. Even so, many of its lessons are still applicable to us. In this part, the writer closes his message by suggesting six virtues that Timothy as a pastor should pursue. The first three are addressed to God: righteousness, i.e., living in right relationship with God, godliness, i.e., choosing a lifestyle acceptable to God, and faith, i.e., trusting and obeying God. The other three deal with conduct towards one’s neighbor: love, i.e., self-giving love of others, endurance, i.e., holding fast to faith, and gentleness, i.e., humility towards others.
The writer then advises Timothy how to behave towards the wealthy. He is to remind of them of the fragility of their wealth, of their need to acknowledge that all they have comes from God, and, most importantly, of their responsibility to generously share their wealth. He is to help them to understand that this is the lifestyle that leads to “life that is really life,” the life that God intends for all of us, rich and poor. So here is our “investment strategy.” Here is the answer to the warnings of Jesus and the prophets: whatever our means, and especially if we are wealthy – and if we have food in the fridge, a roof over our heads, and more than two changes of clothes, then by definition we are wealthy – we are to be unfailingly grateful to God and generous to those in need.
Tom Gordon tells the story of Doug.1 Doug was an avid soccer fan. His team was the United, and he had begun going to matches as a small boy with his father and grandfather, who had both been season-ticket holders. After Doug’s grandfather died, his father kept up the tradition, and game days were always special treats for Doug. Doug looked forward to returning the favor when he was old enough to start earning on his own. He never got the chance: Doug’s dad died when Doug was just seventeen. After that, Doug lost interest in the United soccer matches for some years. Finally, though, he was working and had saved up enough for a season ticket.
The opening game was disappointing. United lost 3-2 on a debatable penalty. Instead of socializing with friends, Doug decided to go straight home. In the bus shelter he saw a poster asking for donations for drought-stricken Burkina Faso. Doug ignored it. Who cared about a tiny West African country? As he opened his newspaper, there was an ad soliciting funds for emergency food aid for Burkina Faso. Doug ignored it. At home, there was Burkina Faso on the evening news. Doug was moved by the pictures of the struggling farmers and dying children, but he didn’t open his checkbook. The next day was Sunday. It was a chance to see his sister’s family, so Doug went to the harvest festival at church. There was Burkina Faso again: 50p a day would provide meals all year for a struggling family, £25 a week would provide food for malnourished children and pregnant mothers, and £270 a month would support an agricultural worker. Was there a message here?
It took two weeks for Doug to decide. In fact, it was right after United won their next home game 2-0. It had been a good day. Doug began to wonder whether the people of Burkina Faso ever had good days. That evening he set up a direct debit to an international relief
organization – for exactly the same amount as the monthly cost of his United season ticket. Doug still enjoys United matches, but now his enjoyment is even greater.
What are riches?
What we have but did not earn …
What we own but did not create …
What we cherish but did not deserve …
What we value but did not achieve …
What is poverty?
What we need but do not find …
What we deserve but do not attain …
What we work for but do not receive …
What we hope for but never fulfill …
What is awareness?
What we see and choose to know …
What we listen to and choose to hear …
What we learn and choose to heed …
What we feel and choose to understand …
What is giving?
What we have and decide to share …
What we own and decide to give away …
What we cherish and decide to let go …
What we value for ourselves and decide to value for others … 2
1. Tom Gordon, “Riches,” in A Blessing to Follow (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2009), 226-29.
2. Ibid., 229.
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