from a talk given to a Grade 10 'Philanthropy Class' in May 2009
Recently I attended a reception hosted by George Smitherman, who is the Deputy Premier of Ontario.
The reception was to celebrate Carmel Hili ‐ someone who had dedicated the last 35 years of his life working with Toronto’s poor and homeless communities, especially in the area of Regent Park.
Incredible tributes were given by people Carmel had worked with, politicians from both City Hall and the provincial government, but the most memorable speech was made by someone named John Caveney.
John is your vintage street person. When he gets up to speak people get a little worried. He can quickly turn a well‐ordered event into something chaotic.
He began his remarks by saying: ‘we have heard flowery speeches by some important people, politicians ‐ but what would God say about Carmel Hili?
Here’s what He would say:
I was hungry and you fed me
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink
I was a stranger and you invited me into your home
I was naked and you gave me clothing
I was sick and you cared for me
I was in prison and you visited me...'
Matthew 25:34-36
What you people have done in connecting with the various agencies of care in the Markham area is a good thing ‐ for both the agencies and for you. It can be one of those experiences that can be a ‘once only’ thing or it could be the beginning of something that shapes you for the rest of your life.
How many of you know what a gated community is?
Is every one welcome in a gated community?
Living here in Markham, do you live in a gated community ‐ not so much because there are actual gates protecting it, but the community has some unspoken rules to make sure that only a certain kind of people live here?
Are there any group homes on your street for those who have AIDS or live with mental health issues?
Would you describe the place you live, the club you belong to, the church or mosque you go to ‐ a gated community?
Each of us has our own reference points for understanding issues like poverty, homelessness, civil and religious wars, world hunger, foreign debt and the like.
Each of us are assisted in our understanding of these issues by our religious beliefs, or by humanitarian convictions or by people who for whatever reason ‘speak into our lives’ ‐ people like Obama, or Gandhi, or Oprah, or Bono from U2.
Since I come from a Christian church, it should come as no surprise to you that my reference points for understanding issues like poverty, homelessness, world hunger, is the life and teaching of Jesus.
Would you be surprised to learn that 2000 years ago, he spoke of ‘gated communities’?
In a parable he tells of a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in Hugo Boss and fine linen, who lived every day in luxury.
Outside his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus who was covered in sores. As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open wounds. (see Luke 16:19‐21)
A couple of things to notice from the parable.
Only the poor man is given a name. Lazarus.
The rich man remains nameless.
From the vantage point of the story‐teller, only one name is worth remembering.
The name of the poor man.
Second ‐ although the story is about wealth and homelessness ‐ i.e. the indifference of the wealthy to the plight of the poor, Jesus reduces the issue to one rich guy and one poor guy.
Why?
Because whether we talking about poverty or world hunger, or the hoarding of the rich at the expense of the poor ‐ these issues are too big and overwhelming to take on if we try to take them on ‐ en masse ‐ rather than one person at a time.
Each of us has to start somewhere. Each of us has to find our own Lazarus and allow Lazarus to affect the way we live...
This is why I hope that your involvement in this Youth Philanthropy Initiative becomes more than a once only occurrence.
Some of you in the course of your career may make enough money to build hospital wings, institutions for the mentally ill and help fund affordable housing for people who otherwise couldn’t afford their own place to live.
But most of you will probably have enough trouble just making sure you have enough to provide for those you care for. You won’t have that much to give...
But you do.
If philanthropy is merely an exercise to helping the less fortunate by giving them money ‐ it is no more than a social welfare exercise which fosters dependence rather than self‐reliance, indignity rather than dignity...
If you have ever had the experience of standing in line at a food bank, or in a government office for social assistance, you know what a de‐humanizing experience that can be. Whether we are talking about clothing or money, hand me downs are no replacement for personal face to face contact with people in need.
Jesus didn’t tell the story of the rich man and Lazarus in the hope he could get rich people in the future to fund food banks and women shelters. That wasn’t his primary intent.
His primary intent was to get us to invite the poor people to eat at the table we eat at. He wants us to invite the homeless into our homes, the mentally ill into our communities...in other words ‐ to invite the Lazarus outside our gates into the privileges we enjoy, into the communities we live, into our circle of friends.
I remember sitting at a breakfast of business people and we were sharing with each other what our business objectives were.
The typical things were said ‐ I want to be a millionaire before I’m forty; I want to complete my doctorate in astrophysics; I want my teenage kids to like me; I want to retire before I’m sixty ‐ that kind of thing.
When it came for me to speak at first I didn’t know what to say. I had just quit my job at a big insurance company to work with my 3 brothers in the insurance business, and I was really having a tough go of it. I had just moved from a job where I got a regular salary to a job where it was commission only and frankly after 6 months on the job I had only made one sale which had generated a commission cheque of $400. Every day I was drawing on my line of credit and every day I was deeper in debt.
But I had also the emerging experience of making friends with some homeless people who hung outside Union Station ‐ guys named Karl and Harry, and a real off the wall guy called the Straw Man whose real name was Bruno.
There was an older man named Pops, who 10 years before had lost his wife and two kids in a car
accident and had been living on the street ever since.
So turning to the
others around the table, I said something which really surprised me at
the time but has been my life ambition ever since ‐
‘I want to be so well known among the poor and homeless people, that they know me by name,
that they know me as someone who doesn’t walk pass them, who gives them more than spare change,
someone they know as a friend, as a guy who cares, so much so that they think me as ‘one of them’.
I share this story in the hope that it might also be your story...that regardless of whether you make millions or hundreds ‐ your primary objective in life will be to make certain that Lazarus ‐ the guy outside your gates ‐ knows you by name, is welcome at your table and has a chance to speak into your life in such a way that he or she not only affects where you give your money to, but who you devote your life to.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Luke 16:1-14
Luke 16:1-14
Jesus told this story to his disciples:
“There was a certain rich man who had a manager handling his affairs. One day a report came that the manager was wasting his employer’s money. So the employer called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? Get your report in order, because you are going to be fired.’
“The manager thought to himself, ‘Now what? My boss has fired me. I don’t have the strength to dig ditches, and I’m too proud to beg. Ah, I know how to ensure that I’ll have plenty of friends who will give me a home when I am fired.’
“So he invited each person who owed money to his employer to come and discuss the situation. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe him?’ The man replied, ‘I owe him 800 gallons of olive oil.’ So the manager told him, ‘Take the bill and quickly change it to 400 gallons.’
“‘And how much do you owe my employer?’ he asked the next man. ‘I owe him 1,000 bushels of wheat,’ was the reply. ‘Here,’ the manager said, ‘take the bill and change it to 800 bushels.’
“The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light.
Here’s the lesson:
Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.
“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?
“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
I have wrestled with this parable as much as any.
On the one hand the Lord commends the shrewdness of the dishonest manager; and then insists that we refrain from such dishonesty. He expects us to be honest 'in the little things'. If we are trustworthy in the nickel and dime stuff, we can be entrusted with the high ticket matters like caring for others.
Why would Jesus commend in his own parable something he refutes in his 'take home' application?
There is a contrast that is key to interpreting the passage. The children of this world versus the children of light.
I think what he's driving at is how we as children of light are to relate to the children on this world - in the areas where the children of this world are more advanced than we are.
It's as though he's saying - admire the ingenuity of a crook, but don't imitate him. Befriend a crook, heck even visit him in his home, just don't become one.
In part it is a mercy thing. Jesus doesn't want his children looking down at anyone - most especially people entrenched in the ways of this world.
But it is also an understanding how life works thing. Jesus' ways are clearly contrary to the way the world works - but he insists we not be blind nor naive to how the world works. We wants us in the world but not of it, he wants us to befriend its children and in some way 'to give them their due' without imitating their wrong-doing. It's a repeat of the Caesar and God thing - give to Caesar his due and to God his - allowing that for the children of light, only one is to be Lord and it ain't Caesar. Just don't sweat with Caesar about the small stuff. Don't try to rub his face off your pocket change. It could kill you. Needlessly. So give Caesar his due. Sure there will be times to take issue with the way he does things. But the imprint of his face on a coin isn't one of them...
Which gets me to the life lesson repeated through scripture. Sometimes God uses the people of this world to rescue the children of light. Joseph, Mary and Jesus escape to become refugees in Egypt to escape the wrath of the Jewish tyrant, King Herod. David hides among the Philistines in order to escape the wrath of Saul. Moses hides for 40 years among the Midianites to escape both the Jews and the Egyptians. Joseph is saved from his brothers...at times God uses the children of this world to save his people from themselves.
Through Jeremiah God tells the Jews in Babylon to 'work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile'. We are not to be a 'stick with our own only' community. We are to be out there...not just for our sakes but for the peace and prosperity of those we live with, regardless of who they are...
And maybe this is the connecting point between the parable and its application. Part of the trustworthiness Christ expects of us is to respect those who are not children of light. Eat with them, learn from them, love them, 'give them their due' - there will be times in life when they will rescue us because of their shrewdness or because they're more advanced in the ways of this world than we are. Sometimes they are the very break we need when our fellow children of light are killing us.
But we aren't to refrain from being 'children of light' among them. Not only do they help us, we help them. God has entrusted them to us. They are our parish. We are to gain their trust in the things that matter to them in the hope of gaining their trust in the areas that ultimately matter to all of us i.e. faith, love, mercy, justice, kindness and truth...
Jesus told this story to his disciples:
“There was a certain rich man who had a manager handling his affairs. One day a report came that the manager was wasting his employer’s money. So the employer called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? Get your report in order, because you are going to be fired.’
“The manager thought to himself, ‘Now what? My boss has fired me. I don’t have the strength to dig ditches, and I’m too proud to beg. Ah, I know how to ensure that I’ll have plenty of friends who will give me a home when I am fired.’
“So he invited each person who owed money to his employer to come and discuss the situation. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe him?’ The man replied, ‘I owe him 800 gallons of olive oil.’ So the manager told him, ‘Take the bill and quickly change it to 400 gallons.’
“‘And how much do you owe my employer?’ he asked the next man. ‘I owe him 1,000 bushels of wheat,’ was the reply. ‘Here,’ the manager said, ‘take the bill and change it to 800 bushels.’
“The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light.
Here’s the lesson:
Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.
“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?
“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
I have wrestled with this parable as much as any.
On the one hand the Lord commends the shrewdness of the dishonest manager; and then insists that we refrain from such dishonesty. He expects us to be honest 'in the little things'. If we are trustworthy in the nickel and dime stuff, we can be entrusted with the high ticket matters like caring for others.
Why would Jesus commend in his own parable something he refutes in his 'take home' application?
There is a contrast that is key to interpreting the passage. The children of this world versus the children of light.
I think what he's driving at is how we as children of light are to relate to the children on this world - in the areas where the children of this world are more advanced than we are.
It's as though he's saying - admire the ingenuity of a crook, but don't imitate him. Befriend a crook, heck even visit him in his home, just don't become one.
In part it is a mercy thing. Jesus doesn't want his children looking down at anyone - most especially people entrenched in the ways of this world.
But it is also an understanding how life works thing. Jesus' ways are clearly contrary to the way the world works - but he insists we not be blind nor naive to how the world works. We wants us in the world but not of it, he wants us to befriend its children and in some way 'to give them their due' without imitating their wrong-doing. It's a repeat of the Caesar and God thing - give to Caesar his due and to God his - allowing that for the children of light, only one is to be Lord and it ain't Caesar. Just don't sweat with Caesar about the small stuff. Don't try to rub his face off your pocket change. It could kill you. Needlessly. So give Caesar his due. Sure there will be times to take issue with the way he does things. But the imprint of his face on a coin isn't one of them...
Which gets me to the life lesson repeated through scripture. Sometimes God uses the people of this world to rescue the children of light. Joseph, Mary and Jesus escape to become refugees in Egypt to escape the wrath of the Jewish tyrant, King Herod. David hides among the Philistines in order to escape the wrath of Saul. Moses hides for 40 years among the Midianites to escape both the Jews and the Egyptians. Joseph is saved from his brothers...at times God uses the children of this world to save his people from themselves.
Through Jeremiah God tells the Jews in Babylon to 'work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile'. We are not to be a 'stick with our own only' community. We are to be out there...not just for our sakes but for the peace and prosperity of those we live with, regardless of who they are...
And maybe this is the connecting point between the parable and its application. Part of the trustworthiness Christ expects of us is to respect those who are not children of light. Eat with them, learn from them, love them, 'give them their due' - there will be times in life when they will rescue us because of their shrewdness or because they're more advanced in the ways of this world than we are. Sometimes they are the very break we need when our fellow children of light are killing us.
But we aren't to refrain from being 'children of light' among them. Not only do they help us, we help them. God has entrusted them to us. They are our parish. We are to gain their trust in the things that matter to them in the hope of gaining their trust in the areas that ultimately matter to all of us i.e. faith, love, mercy, justice, kindness and truth...
Monday, February 6, 2012
Benediction
Jesus had so much more in mind as to what His church should be in the world than we can possibly imagine.
The Pharisees and teachers of the law thought it was enough that the church be a place where one could thank God with clean hands.
But Jesus spoke of a church where men and women contaminated by evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony and slander could become clean and thank God with clean hearts.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law saw the church as an institution where God's word could be safeguarded; the sacred sheltered from the common; where traditions could be preserved from the ravages of time.
But Jesus saw something more. He saw the church as something living, so affected by the eternal vibrancy and life of the Holy Spirit that the poor, the hurting, indeed all those who thirst would come running in. Not only was the church to have the sound and appearance of a wedding feast, she was to have a table big enough to feed all who come.
Here lies one of the great paradoxes of God's love. Although Christ himself was denied mercy and deprived of justice when he was in the world, his church is to be his instrument of mercy and justice to that same world, the world he loves.
So go out in his name as his instruments of mercy and justice, not only for the world's sake, but for yours and most of all, for His.
The Pharisees and teachers of the law thought it was enough that the church be a place where one could thank God with clean hands.
But Jesus spoke of a church where men and women contaminated by evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony and slander could become clean and thank God with clean hearts.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law saw the church as an institution where God's word could be safeguarded; the sacred sheltered from the common; where traditions could be preserved from the ravages of time.
But Jesus saw something more. He saw the church as something living, so affected by the eternal vibrancy and life of the Holy Spirit that the poor, the hurting, indeed all those who thirst would come running in. Not only was the church to have the sound and appearance of a wedding feast, she was to have a table big enough to feed all who come.
Here lies one of the great paradoxes of God's love. Although Christ himself was denied mercy and deprived of justice when he was in the world, his church is to be his instrument of mercy and justice to that same world, the world he loves.
So go out in his name as his instruments of mercy and justice, not only for the world's sake, but for yours and most of all, for His.
Relationships
The whole of the Christian gospel is centred on relationships.
How we treat our neighbour says everything about how we treat God.
We are obliged to two commandments which are inseparable from each other.
We are to love God and
We are to love our neighbour as ourselves.
If we can walk past a person in need without offering help
then our entire confession of love for God is suspect.
But love we know, without exception,
starts small and grows bigger.
It must be exercised.
The will to love must see its way into action.
Love grows with action.
In this we must first be tested:
We must learn to forgive
We must learn to be forgiven.
On this, the entire blessing of the Lord's prayer rests.
It is for this ministry alone that God gives us his Holy Spirit -
that we forgive and are forgiven by one another.
There is not a Christian commandment - to pray, to give, to worship, to forbear
to endure, to care for, to provoke, to gain, to lose
that does not involve relationship.
Relationship with God.
Relationship with each other.
The great diagnosis of our condition from the Scriptures is:
'You can't do this on your own.'
The great remedy of the Scriptures is:
'You are not alone, God loves you' -
the experience of which
is Christian fellowship.
To be faithful to God
to participate in his remedy
God gives us community.
Community among people who know themselves to be flawed.
Community among people who hunger to be accepted as they are.
Community among people who will carry one another in their thoughts
and by extension in their prayers.
Community among people who confess their sins to find healing and forgiveness.
Community among people with whom, when courage and liberty allow,
I too would confess and find healing and forgiveness.
I expect that in Christian community
I will become in word and action what I profess to be:
A Christian, a Christ one
to walk as Jesus walked
To live as he lived
and lives
in community.
How we treat our neighbour says everything about how we treat God.
We are obliged to two commandments which are inseparable from each other.
We are to love God and
We are to love our neighbour as ourselves.
If we can walk past a person in need without offering help
then our entire confession of love for God is suspect.
But love we know, without exception,
starts small and grows bigger.
It must be exercised.
The will to love must see its way into action.
Love grows with action.
In this we must first be tested:
We must learn to forgive
We must learn to be forgiven.
On this, the entire blessing of the Lord's prayer rests.
It is for this ministry alone that God gives us his Holy Spirit -
that we forgive and are forgiven by one another.
There is not a Christian commandment - to pray, to give, to worship, to forbear
to endure, to care for, to provoke, to gain, to lose
that does not involve relationship.
Relationship with God.
Relationship with each other.
The great diagnosis of our condition from the Scriptures is:
'You can't do this on your own.'
The great remedy of the Scriptures is:
'You are not alone, God loves you' -
the experience of which
is Christian fellowship.
To be faithful to God
to participate in his remedy
God gives us community.
Community among people who know themselves to be flawed.
Community among people who hunger to be accepted as they are.
Community among people who will carry one another in their thoughts
and by extension in their prayers.
Community among people who confess their sins to find healing and forgiveness.
Community among people with whom, when courage and liberty allow,
I too would confess and find healing and forgiveness.
I expect that in Christian community
I will become in word and action what I profess to be:
A Christian, a Christ one
to walk as Jesus walked
To live as he lived
and lives
in community.
The resurrection and the homeless
The Resurrection and the Homeless
Though you have made me see troubles,
many and bitter,
you will restore my life again.
Psalm 71:20
Jesus taught there were three weighty matters critical to true religion: mercy, faithfulness and justice. (Matthew 23:23). For sometime now, I have had some understanding as to how his resurrection connects with the first two, mercy and faith. For us to share in God’s immortality takes an inexhaustible supply of mercy on His part, and the simplicity and endurance to believe it on ours.
But to connect the resurrection with that third essential, justice, has taken some reckoning. It has come with looking out my office window and seeing those without a home.
Is the resurrection merely the consolation to those hard done by this life, that things will be better for them in the next? If so, what better excuse for us who have, to do nothing for those who haven’t! There’s a cop out! Like the mobster who shoots his neighbour and then goes to mass to be absolved, our religion would give license to the very thing Jesus came to reverse.
Remembering the parable Jesus told of a rich man who ignores the suffering of a poor man at his doorstep (Luke 16:19-31), the resurrection marks the great reversal of fortune from the way things are now. As Bob Dylan put it: ‘the loser now will be later to win.’ The servant of all, though forsaken by man and God, is raised to become Lord of all. The man of sorrows’ ascends with joy ‘into glory.’ The despised and rejected One is now in body and spirit, the living evidence of justice’s triumph for all those rejected and despised.
For Jesus himself was homeless. He had ‘no place to lay his head’ (Luke 9:58). He too had been accused of ‘being out of his mind’ (Mark 3:21), worse still, of conspiring with the devil (Mark 3:22). He too had been left for dead.
Jesus had no comfortable pew. Whether as a carpenter he ever made one, we are not told. Based on his teaching, I don’t think so. There’s that business about it being easier to squeeze camels through the eye of a needle than to get rich people into his kingdom. Add to that his demands that we do good to those who hate us, lend to those who can’t re-pay and host gala celebrations to which only the destitute are invited and clearly he’s not the cushy type. Whenever I am in a church with comfortable pews, I reason they are there to brace the congregation for the brunt of his commands.
Not that we are likely to hear in church ‘woe to you who are rich now, for you will go hungry.’ (Luke 6:25) Sermon material along those lines does little to increase church attendance or cash flow. Taking up one’s cross and following Jesus runs counter to a mindset hooked on self-fulfilment. Were the loud part of Christianity a car, it would be one with Prosperity at the wheel, Individual Salvation blaring through the speakers and Justice bound and gagged in the trunk.
Admittedly there is as ground swell within various denominations to take our economy to task for its propensity to reward at the expense of the many, the the tyranny of the dollar holds unparalleled sway both within and outside church walls.
What ails us most is a callousness of heart. We are too ‘me first’ for justice. Justice by definition means justice for all. ‘Justice,’ proclaimed the prophet Amos, ‘must flow like a river,’ filled with a life as sustaining and dignifying to my neighbour as it could ever be for me. Together we are to labour ‘that there might be equality...so that he gathered much did not have too much, and he that gathered little did not have too little.’ (2 Corinthians 8:13, Exodus 16:18)
Jesus was even more emphatic. Heaven can only be found by those who undertake to care for him in his present address: among the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the afflicted and the imprisoned. (Matthew 25:31-46)
Like the rich looking through barred gates, I can see the beggar Lazarus outside my office window. He goes by many names and story-lines now. It is only when he feels your respect that he will actually tell you his real name.
What to do?
Forget the question for the moment of what society should do. That’s a cop-out. The heart of the matter is: ‘what am I to do?’ The news that I will share in the resurrection of the righteous sadly isn’t enough to compel me. A salesman by profession, I am wary of deferred compensation.
Yet there is, as I look over the wall called ‘affluence’, the sense that my life is likewise out there, beyond the wall, where he and I are brothers in need of the real currency of value in life - mercy, faithfulness and justice. There, beyond the wall, is where one’s taste for all three grows, especially for justice.
If it is true that God himself is found among those in pain, I really have no idea what awaits me in the encounter. I can imagine an exchange between Lazarus and I, where neither of us really lose. I have heard others describe it in more exhilarating terms: a treasure of lifelong sacrifice whose reward exceeds anything that can fit into a bank account, the raising of the heart, mind and body to do as Jesus did.
Though you have made me see troubles,
many and bitter,
you will restore my life again.
Psalm 71:20
Jesus taught there were three weighty matters critical to true religion: mercy, faithfulness and justice. (Matthew 23:23). For sometime now, I have had some understanding as to how his resurrection connects with the first two, mercy and faith. For us to share in God’s immortality takes an inexhaustible supply of mercy on His part, and the simplicity and endurance to believe it on ours.
But to connect the resurrection with that third essential, justice, has taken some reckoning. It has come with looking out my office window and seeing those without a home.
Is the resurrection merely the consolation to those hard done by this life, that things will be better for them in the next? If so, what better excuse for us who have, to do nothing for those who haven’t! There’s a cop out! Like the mobster who shoots his neighbour and then goes to mass to be absolved, our religion would give license to the very thing Jesus came to reverse.
Remembering the parable Jesus told of a rich man who ignores the suffering of a poor man at his doorstep (Luke 16:19-31), the resurrection marks the great reversal of fortune from the way things are now. As Bob Dylan put it: ‘the loser now will be later to win.’ The servant of all, though forsaken by man and God, is raised to become Lord of all. The man of sorrows’ ascends with joy ‘into glory.’ The despised and rejected One is now in body and spirit, the living evidence of justice’s triumph for all those rejected and despised.
For Jesus himself was homeless. He had ‘no place to lay his head’ (Luke 9:58). He too had been accused of ‘being out of his mind’ (Mark 3:21), worse still, of conspiring with the devil (Mark 3:22). He too had been left for dead.
Jesus had no comfortable pew. Whether as a carpenter he ever made one, we are not told. Based on his teaching, I don’t think so. There’s that business about it being easier to squeeze camels through the eye of a needle than to get rich people into his kingdom. Add to that his demands that we do good to those who hate us, lend to those who can’t re-pay and host gala celebrations to which only the destitute are invited and clearly he’s not the cushy type. Whenever I am in a church with comfortable pews, I reason they are there to brace the congregation for the brunt of his commands.
Not that we are likely to hear in church ‘woe to you who are rich now, for you will go hungry.’ (Luke 6:25) Sermon material along those lines does little to increase church attendance or cash flow. Taking up one’s cross and following Jesus runs counter to a mindset hooked on self-fulfilment. Were the loud part of Christianity a car, it would be one with Prosperity at the wheel, Individual Salvation blaring through the speakers and Justice bound and gagged in the trunk.
Admittedly there is as ground swell within various denominations to take our economy to task for its propensity to reward at the expense of the many, the the tyranny of the dollar holds unparalleled sway both within and outside church walls.
What ails us most is a callousness of heart. We are too ‘me first’ for justice. Justice by definition means justice for all. ‘Justice,’ proclaimed the prophet Amos, ‘must flow like a river,’ filled with a life as sustaining and dignifying to my neighbour as it could ever be for me. Together we are to labour ‘that there might be equality...so that he gathered much did not have too much, and he that gathered little did not have too little.’ (2 Corinthians 8:13, Exodus 16:18)
Jesus was even more emphatic. Heaven can only be found by those who undertake to care for him in his present address: among the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the afflicted and the imprisoned. (Matthew 25:31-46)
Like the rich looking through barred gates, I can see the beggar Lazarus outside my office window. He goes by many names and story-lines now. It is only when he feels your respect that he will actually tell you his real name.
What to do?
Forget the question for the moment of what society should do. That’s a cop-out. The heart of the matter is: ‘what am I to do?’ The news that I will share in the resurrection of the righteous sadly isn’t enough to compel me. A salesman by profession, I am wary of deferred compensation.
Yet there is, as I look over the wall called ‘affluence’, the sense that my life is likewise out there, beyond the wall, where he and I are brothers in need of the real currency of value in life - mercy, faithfulness and justice. There, beyond the wall, is where one’s taste for all three grows, especially for justice.
If it is true that God himself is found among those in pain, I really have no idea what awaits me in the encounter. I can imagine an exchange between Lazarus and I, where neither of us really lose. I have heard others describe it in more exhilarating terms: a treasure of lifelong sacrifice whose reward exceeds anything that can fit into a bank account, the raising of the heart, mind and body to do as Jesus did.
Different than our prayers
I once knew a man who was up to his eyeballs in debt, whose every inch of living space was cluttered and whose venture into heavenly matters had little if any earthly significance. He sang psalms and would not pay his parking tickets. A proud man, he was nonetheless prone to praying whenever his eyes were opened to the chaos of his existence. He would pray for prosperity and fame.
The Lord answered this man’s prayer by giving him a wife, who though of overwhelming delight to the man, hardly seemed like the answer to his prayers. Her purse was nearly as thin as his wallet, fame was the least of her ambitions and prosperity she reasoned was no more than to live within one’s means. She introduced him to the vacuum cleaner and the laundry hamper.
Over time, the man’s indebtedness shrank. She insisted on it. And his house came into order. He had learned to vacuum. And though he had long forgotten his prayers for fame and fortune, he found himself the beneficiary of a million prayers he hadn’t prayed, which had been answered by this woman he loved. He had someone he could talk to, someone he need not hide from, though he tried. She would love him despite himself and disrupt him whenever the slumber of indifference sought to drag him back into the chaos which was once his home. His home was different now.
There is in the gospel story strong evidence for God’s answer to prayer being substantially different than what was prayed for. The prayers of His people would be heavily weighted by their oppression, the agonizing cries of a people under siege. Some of their prophets had been tortured, some even beheaded. They were bound by laws not of their own making, caught in a culture in contradiction to their own, openly scorned for clinging to narrow minded notion that the gods were not many, but One.
Christ who was God’s answer did not end the crucifixions. Rather because of him, they increased. Their oppression only worsened. Within a generation of Jesus’ death, Jerusalem their holy city was destroyed.
But a new kingdom did emerge, blessed for its poor residents, comforted in mourning, happy despite persecution, triumphant in death. in every generation being run down and yet in every generation growing.
The Lord answered this man’s prayer by giving him a wife, who though of overwhelming delight to the man, hardly seemed like the answer to his prayers. Her purse was nearly as thin as his wallet, fame was the least of her ambitions and prosperity she reasoned was no more than to live within one’s means. She introduced him to the vacuum cleaner and the laundry hamper.
Over time, the man’s indebtedness shrank. She insisted on it. And his house came into order. He had learned to vacuum. And though he had long forgotten his prayers for fame and fortune, he found himself the beneficiary of a million prayers he hadn’t prayed, which had been answered by this woman he loved. He had someone he could talk to, someone he need not hide from, though he tried. She would love him despite himself and disrupt him whenever the slumber of indifference sought to drag him back into the chaos which was once his home. His home was different now.
There is in the gospel story strong evidence for God’s answer to prayer being substantially different than what was prayed for. The prayers of His people would be heavily weighted by their oppression, the agonizing cries of a people under siege. Some of their prophets had been tortured, some even beheaded. They were bound by laws not of their own making, caught in a culture in contradiction to their own, openly scorned for clinging to narrow minded notion that the gods were not many, but One.
Christ who was God’s answer did not end the crucifixions. Rather because of him, they increased. Their oppression only worsened. Within a generation of Jesus’ death, Jerusalem their holy city was destroyed.
But a new kingdom did emerge, blessed for its poor residents, comforted in mourning, happy despite persecution, triumphant in death. in every generation being run down and yet in every generation growing.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)