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Our gospel lesson today is another of those lectionary passages I would just as soon have skipped over. First of all, I realized that if I were going to preach on it, I was first going to have explain what it is not about. It is not about heaven and hell, at least insofar as they are popularly understood or misunderstood.
In the first place, there are no coherent doctrines of either heaven or hell in the Bible. I will repeat that: there are no coherent doctrines of either heaven or hell in the Bible. Show me a “proof text” about either, and in five minutes or less I will produce two or three more that say something else. One verse, or even some verses here and there, do not make a clear-cut case, Christians--about anything, I might add.
In the second place, most popular understandings of heaven and hell are drawn not so much from the Bible, as from mythology, hymnology (particularly spirituals), John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante Aligheri’s Inferno. Much of what those who dwell on the matter of Hell believe is drawn from isolated symbolic references that do not by any means constitute a coherent doctrine, and the rest of what they believe is drawn from mythology and literature that was developed long after the writing of the Scriptures.
And in the third place, Jesus did not mention either heaven or hell in this story. He spoke of the poor man being taken into the bosom of Abraham, which is to say, united with his spiritual ancestors. These Jews, you see, thought of themselves as the children of Abraham.
In what he said about the fate of the rich man, he did not use the word “hell,” although the translators of the King James Version of the Bible rendered it that way, and a lot of readers today want to interpret it that way. In its original Greek, Luke’s Gospel uses the word “Hades,” the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “Sheol,” which was simply the abode of the dead--all the dead. In all its uses in the Bible except this one, Hades has little if any relation to afterlife rewards or punishments. Biblically speaking, Hades is simply the Greek successor word to Sheol and means simply the grave. In fact, in the KJV version of I Corinthians 15: 55, which states, “O death, where is thy sting” O grave, where is thy victory?” the Greek word translated “grave” is “Hades.” I could go on, but that would be pointless.
The real point is that those who were listening to Jesus on the spot understood these references to the bosom of Abraham and Hades in ways that we cannot.
I.
Do I, your old preacher, believe in a heaven? I want to believe--and I do--in a state in which my identity is preserved, where God calls me by my name, and I can be in that complete and full communion with God that eludes me in this life and I can enumerate to Paul the points at which I think he got it wrong. How and where I do I think this will be, and what will the circumstances be like? I have no idea. I can’t even find a point at which to begin speculating.
I even consulted Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary. Oddly, he did not offer a definition of hell, but he defined heaven this way: “A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.”
I love astronomy and the exploration of God’s starry universe just enough to want it to have something to do with my future state, and I would like to think of myself as somehow flitting about among the stars in an afterlife. In fact, I would like for my grandchildren to think that granddad has gone to be among the stars. And I hope that God will not be offended if, as I slip away from this world, he hears me sing to him my wish contained in that popular song, “Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.”
Do I believe in a hell? I do not--most emphatically do not--believe in a hell of fire and everlasting pain, because I do not believe in a God who would do that, even to those who hate him. And yet, because God gave me free will, I must believe that I have the option of choosing eternal separation from God rather than eternal unity with God.
And still yet, I believe in a God whose mercy and capacity for forgiveness extends right up to that moment of final choice. And I must say, with Roman Catholic theologians, that we do not know that there is a single soul in hell--to which I must add, “whatever that condition may be.”
But whatever may be the case about an afterlife, I do insist that pondering the pavements of heaven or the temperature of hell is simply to waste time and mental energy speculating about the unknowable.
II.
In the day in which Jesus told this parable, there was no unanimous opinion about an afterlife--and Jesus knew that. But both men in his story died. That happens, doesn’t it? Sooner or later, rich or poor, man or woman--we all die. A rich person may get a fancier casket and a larger tombstone, but that’s about it. At the moment of death, we all fall into God’s hands to receive whatever God has waiting for us.
The Pharisees believed in an afterlife. And so they sought to earn the blessings of God and the reward of a heavenly afterlife. They thought to do it through their scrupulous adherence to the Law. By being holy, by being good--according to their own estimation of what constituted holiness and goodness--they would build up religious brownie points and be rewarded by being comfortably nestled in the bosom of Abraham. Conversely, this performance would save them from the punishment that awaited those who did not conform to their standards.
The Sadducees, the other powerful religious group, did not believe in an afterlife. They maintained that we live out our personal heavens and hells in this life, on this earth. Through the way we live our lives, we earn God’s favor, or disfavor, not by and by, but now. Thus, what comes our way in this life is what we deserve, here and now, and God leaves our day-to-day operations up to us. Unfortunately, living for today resulted in some of them living it up today.
In the story he told to his disciples, and to the Pharisees and Sadducees who were listening in, Jesus was recalling an Egyptian myth of a rich man who was punished in his afterlife for his selfishness and a poor man who found comfort in his afterlife. The Pharisees and Sadducees would have been familiar with this story, because it was discussed in several rabbinic writings they surely had studied.
Generally, to those who believed in an afterlife, Sheol was regarded in Jewish theology as simply a shadowy sort of underworld that was nothing more than a warehouse for departed souls. In later Jewish thought, Sheol was divided into two parts--one for the reward of the righteous and the other for the punishment of the unrighteous. It is within this later thought that Jesus framed his parable.
The Greek writers of the Apostles’ Creed, in the fourth century, used the word “Hades” that has been translated--mistranslated, in terms of modern English--as the “hell” into which Jesus descended. Jesus did not go to any kind of hell! He died and his body was buried in a tomb. That is the Hades, not the hell, from which Jesus arose. I prefer to say only that he descended into death; that he was dead but he lives.
III.
This one is the only parable in which any of the characters is given a name. Lazarus, the name of the poor man, is a derivative of Eleazar, which means “God is my help.” The name Dives is not a name given by Jesus; it is simply a Latin word meaning “rich man,” a word lifted from the Latin Vulgate bible and used by the later translators of this gospel story. But it is in these two characters in the story, one rich, one poor, that we can find the point that Jesus was trying to make.
Jesus was attacking the lifestyles of the Sadducees, who dressed in fine clothing and ate gourmet foods, but who neglected the poor. They didn’t even see the poor, so preoccupied were they with living well and acting correctly.
They could do this because they were part of the temple hierarchy and came from wealthy families. They also had access to temple funds to provide themselves with a few niceties befitting their station. Their modern counterparts are the religious figures who head up mega churches, preach to cult followings, and wear Brioni suits and Rolex watches.
Jesus was also attacking the Pharisees, who Luke describes in verse 14 as lovers of money, who ridiculed Jesus’ teaching about money. Their theology drawn from the book of Deuteronomy persuaded them that wealth is a sign of God’s blessings and poverty is a sign of God’s displeasure. They would consider that a person like Lazarus deserved his suffering
It is a terribly, terribly unfortunate aspect of our own society that wealth is often seen as a reward and poverty is too often seen as a punishment. But it is simply not true that all people get what they deserve--either good or bad--in our society. Many people get misfortune that they do not deserve. Witness the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, who cannot find new jobs because there are none, and the many people who are now facing foreclosure on their homes through no fault of their own.
While this parable might seem to be about money or the lack of it, it is really about values. Its question is not whether we have money, but whether we love money--whether we share God’s concern for the poor and vulnerable--whether we are too preoccupied with personal concerns to notice the Lazaruses in our midst. In a country where the common people were fortunate if they ate a small piece of meat or fish once a week, Dives is a figure of indolent self-indulgence. Today, we don’t need to be wealthy to engage in this kind of self-indulgence, for by world standards, we Americans feast sumptuously every day and all-you-can-eat buffets and super-sized portions have most of us either gaining weight or struggling--like me--to take it off.
Our danger is that we will fail to understand that by world standards, we are rich. I live in a comfortable house with running water, electric lights, flush toilets, a big refrigerator, washing and drying machines, and central heating and air conditioning. I have a closet full of clothes, some of them very nice but hardly ever worn. We have two good cars, a few years old but still very serviceable. I also have some moderately expensive toys to play with. By the standards of most--that is, most--of the world’s people, I am fabulously wealthy. And so are you.
Money is not dangerous or an evil in and of itself--but its uses can be both. The danger is in what people do with money, and in what money can do to us. One commentator observed that it gave Dives “I” trouble. He could not see beyond his “Is”: I want…I need…I desire…I deserve…I like. His sin was not that he was rich, for that is not a sin. His sin was in what he allowed money to do to him. He allowed his self-concern to blind him to the needs of others who were
less fortunate than he.
Dives represents all people who spend their money on themselves, with never a concern for the fact that money--even a little money--imposes duty on us.
It is our duty to consider carefully how we use our money--not only what we have, but what we shall have. Our planning must go beyond planning for the possessions we want to acquire next. God must be our partner in our financial planning.
We have a duty to the Lazaruses in our community and in other lands on the other side of the world. We have a duty to the people, both near to us and far away from us, who live with little comfort or hope and who could use our help. Some of those people might possibly be as near to you as the next pew: people who could use a friend, people who are sick or lonely or depressed, people who could use a helping hand.
St. Teresa of Avila said it: “Though we do not have our Lord with us in bodily presence, we have our neighbor, who, for the ends of love and loving service, is as good as our Lord himself.”
Jesus intended that the hearers of his parable--and today, we the readers of it--should ask ourselves some questions.
Where do find our identities in this parable? The rich man in the story was identified only by his wealth, and that proved to be empty.
In what ways, and to what extent, do we pursue things that ultimately fail to satisfy?
Does our struggle for income and accumulation blind us to the needs of others?
How can we use our financial resources faithfully and justly?
Jesus calls us to examine our lives. Jesus would have concurred with Socrates, the Greek philosopher, who said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
There is nothing wrong with working hard and making some money and saving some of it. There is nothing wrong with using some money to buy some comfort and some enjoyment. There is something wrong with never being able to help someone else because we haven’t enough for ourselves.
It is the generosity and unconditional love and grace of God that gives life and identity--not our bank balances, houses, cars or clothes. And it is only the generosity and unconditional love and grace of God that will ultimately satisfy us--not things.
It is as Blaise Pascal said, there is a God-shaped blank space in our hearts. We feel its emptiness and we try to fill it with many pleasures and possessions--but only God will fit in that blank, and only God can fill it.
Sermon preached by Chuck Swann, Faith Presbyterian Church, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
A Golden Parachute (Luke 16:1-13)
You have heard me speak, from time to time, of preaching from the lectionary. Well, what is that? It is a three-year cycle of scripture readings that offers, for each Sunday in the year, lessons from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the gospels and the epistles. I am a New Testament preacher and I choose to preach from the gospel texts, most of the time, though not always. Why abide by the lectionary? For the reason that it is designed to expose us, over a period of three years, to the “whole counsel of God.” I take that seriously, rather than just skipping around in the Bible and choosing texts that strike my fancy or support my prejudices.
But one of the problems lectionary preachers encounter is that sooner or later, the lectionary is going to present us with some texts that are difficult to understand and even harder to explain. Today’s gospel lesson is one of those. On the face of it, Jesus appears to be citing the actions of a dishonest man as an example for believers.
We read this passage and we want to say, “Hey, wait a minute, Jesus! This guy is a crook. How can this be?”
I.
On the face of it, Jesus appears to be citing the actions of a dishonest man as an example for believers. But if we dig beneath the surface, we can see that Jesus may have been describing the action of a dishonest man who chose to become honest in order to save himself.
There are two possible interpretations of the man’s conduct--with lessons to be drawn from both.
First, if we say that the transactions described in the parable were dishonest, as they seem on their face to be, we can hardly believed they were praised by the man’s boss, who was the victim of a fraud. If we say that these actions were dishonest, we can say no more than that the master commended the steward, not for dishonesty, but for realism, determination and resourcefulness in dealing with a personal and business emergency.
In that case, the parable must have been one of Jesus’ warnings about coming crises, a warning from Jesus to his followers, the children of light, that they would have to be as wise as the children of this world, to take immediate and resolute action in the face of impending disaster. And Jesus did warn of hard times ahead for them. And so, under the interpretation of the steward’s actions as being simply dishonest, we can hear in the story a warning from Jesus to his followers that they could not sit on their hands when the times called for resourcefulness and action.
But in a second interpretation of the parable, we can also make a case that the steward was not committing a wrong by his actions, but righting a wrong. These people were Jews, remember; and the law of Moses forbade the taking of interest from fellow Jews on any kind of loan or credit.
(Closer to our own religious history, Martin Luther agreed with the Old Testament prohibition against charging interest for any reason. But John Calvin recognized the difference between personal and production credit. It was not okay with Father John to borrow money to buy a bigger TV set; it was okay to borrow money to buy stuff to make soap that you would sell to your neighbors. This put our Calvinist forebears a step ahead of the Lutherans on making money.)
We simply don’t know how to interpret the dishonest manager’s actions. It may be that Jesus was offering another subtle criticism of the ethics of the Pharisees. In their time the Pharisees had found ways of getting around the law. They argued that the purpose of the law was to protect the poor and destitute from exploitation--not to prevent the lending of money or the extension of credit for the mutual profit of lender and borrower. They argued that there were some situations in which a loan could be considered a kind of business partnership and interest on the loan was just a fair sharing of profits. And if a man already possessed any measure at all of the commodity he wished to borrow--wheat, oil, etc.--he was not destitute and it was okay to charge him interest.
Thus interpreted, this parable is an attack on the niggling, insincere methods of scriptural interpretation by which the Pharisees managed to keep their religious principles from interfering with their business dealings.
They could have rationalized the actions of the steward in the parable. What he did was to return their promissory notes to the debtors and write new ones--without interest. And so, for the first time in his career, perhaps, he had done what the law of Moses required. It is called doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
He was obligating the debtors to him. He was also building up his master’s reputation as a just man. He was ready to make spiritual capital by a munificent gesture--when there was no other course open to him.
The steward was too weak to dig ditches and too proud to beg, so he set up for himself a “golden parachute,” as it is called in the business world these days. He would save these creditors a lot of money, and they would be obliged to help him out when he lot his job.
It is common in the upper echelons of corporate management these days, for officers and directors to be protected from loss if a company is acquired by another in a merger or takeover, or if for any reason they lose their jobs. Their employment contracts protect them from loss and guarantee them handsome stipends if they are fired. In recent memory, Ross Perot caused so much trouble when he became a director of General Motors that the board paid him millions of dollars to leave. And in even more recent memory, many of the officers and directors of some of the nation’s largest bank left their positions with multimillion dollar payments in hand as their companies melted down behind them. Golden parachutes, indeed.
II.
This parable, according to verse one, was told to the disciples, not to the crowd, but in verse 14 we learn that the Pharisees, “who were lovers of money” were listening too. That being the case, perhaps it was Jesus’ principle point in telling the story that if worldly men like the landowner and his steward can recognize that their best interests will be served by keeping the good opinion of their neighbors, religious people ought to be equally astute in keeping the good opinion of both neighbors and God.
On our recent western trip, our bus passed through some country said to have been the territory of the famous Butch Cassidy and his Hole-in-the-Wall gang. And since this was a morning for a long bus ride, to help pass the time, our tour guide showed us the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” on the bus’ video system. Butch Cassidy and his sidekick were out-and-out criminals. They robbed banks and trains. And we are not supposed to root for such bandits. But we did. Everyone who saw that movie mentally and emotionally supported Butch and the Kid because they were, at least in the movie, such appealing characters--just a couple of happy-go-lucky guys who stole money…at gunpoint. And when we analyze our support for them, we realize that we were manipulated by the movie makers into liking these characters.
We cannot--and should not--give the same emotional support to the crook in this parable. But we must admit that as quick-witted and ingenious as he was in acting for his own self-interest, so we as followers of Christ ought to be enthusiastic and energetic in our lives as children of God.
It is always typical of a group following a strong leader that the group members abdicate their own power of decision making and turn it over to the leader. This is why cults invariably have one person at the top of the heap whose rule is unquestioned. Jesus did not want his followers to be like this. He saw an unfortunate tendency toward passivity in his followers. He saw in them an unfortunate interpretation of his description of God as a loving father. Some of his people were descending into an attitude of “big daddy will take care of us.” He saw them fastening on those aspects of the religion he taught as a relief from the religion of fear that was taught by the religious leaders of the day.
That same tendency toward passivity infects some Christians today, and Jesus doesn’t like it today, either. Some Christians today think of weekly worship as the full discharge of their duty, and Jesus doesn’t like that, either. Some Christians today would seem to be singing to themselves unendingly, “Be not dismayed, whate’er betide; God will take care of you.” Jesus doesn’t like that, either.
III.
Jesus calls on his followers to be active in the faith; not passive. We are to be busy serving; not sitting. The Christian life does not consist of soaking up salvation like spiritual sponges. Jesus calls us, as he called his disciples so long ago, to be busy…dreaming…scheming…deciding…doing.
Two men who have been particularly adept at dreaming and scheming in the business world are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, both of whom are among the richest men in the world. Gates became a multibillionaire through his genius and some sharp business practices in the world of computers. Buffet became a multibillionaire through his genius in the business world and his mastery of buying and selling stocks. It must be seen--and it has been seen by both men-- that the acquisition of wealth often comes at the expense of someone else. I do not know what they think and how they feel about how they acquired their wealth; but I do know that both men have pledged to give at least half their billions to charity. They also have challenged another 80 of the world’s billionaires to do the same, and 40 of them have already agreed to do so.
Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant who became one of this country’s wealthiest men, used his money to build more than 2,500 public libraries. He had this to say about it: “This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance, to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent on him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds…to administer in the manner…best calculated to produce the most beneficial results to the community.”
One more modern man observed cynically that money is how you keep score. Money can’t buy happiness, jokes one of my friends; a man with five billion dollars is just as happy as a man with 10 billion. But there is happiness to be found in giving it away to someone who needs it--and in the case of many of the world’s people, who need it desperately. Jesus calls us to a life of self-giving. And money is either a tool or a trap. We cannot serve two masters. We must decide for one or the other.
The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer contains these memorable words, “In all time of tribulation; in all time of prosperity…good Lord deliver us.”
Paul said to Timothy (I Timothy 6: 10), the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. That’s the love of money; not money itself. Money is not bad in itself; money is good when it does not rule us, but serves us and others who need our help.
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has a great deal to say about the dangers associated with money, for money competes with God for our attention and affection. Wrong attitudes about money can bring about spiritual ruin. But it is entirely possible to use money in Christ-like ways. God give us resources that not only provide for our needs, but also allow us to demonstrate our faithfulness. God will know whether we used our resources to help others.
The real moral of this story is one that finds great emphasis in Luke’s gospel: forgive. Forgive it all. Forgive it now. Forgive it for any reason or for no reason. Forgive because the Lord’s Prayer asks God to “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And the real major character in this story is the master who forgave the steward for mismanaging his funds in the first place. That master, of course, represents the God who forgives us for our misbehavior. The currency, the money, of God’s kingdom is forgiveness.
CONC.
Whatever our circumstances, we can help people who have less than we have. Even poor people can help others. I remember the comment of a missionary to Brazil who responded to those Americans who said they could not afford to tithe their incomes. He said, “I know people who live in houses with dirt floors who do.”
Our calling is to see our personal resources, whatever they may be, as having eternal consequences. Do we see the connection of our money and possessions to the causes of Christ? Jesus does! He calls us to be clever and energetic with our resources, for his sake.
Obedience, heeding the calls of Christ, is our “Golden Parachute.” When the time comes for each of us to bail out, we may know that we shall land gently and safely. Amen.
But one of the problems lectionary preachers encounter is that sooner or later, the lectionary is going to present us with some texts that are difficult to understand and even harder to explain. Today’s gospel lesson is one of those. On the face of it, Jesus appears to be citing the actions of a dishonest man as an example for believers.
We read this passage and we want to say, “Hey, wait a minute, Jesus! This guy is a crook. How can this be?”
I.
On the face of it, Jesus appears to be citing the actions of a dishonest man as an example for believers. But if we dig beneath the surface, we can see that Jesus may have been describing the action of a dishonest man who chose to become honest in order to save himself.
There are two possible interpretations of the man’s conduct--with lessons to be drawn from both.
First, if we say that the transactions described in the parable were dishonest, as they seem on their face to be, we can hardly believed they were praised by the man’s boss, who was the victim of a fraud. If we say that these actions were dishonest, we can say no more than that the master commended the steward, not for dishonesty, but for realism, determination and resourcefulness in dealing with a personal and business emergency.
In that case, the parable must have been one of Jesus’ warnings about coming crises, a warning from Jesus to his followers, the children of light, that they would have to be as wise as the children of this world, to take immediate and resolute action in the face of impending disaster. And Jesus did warn of hard times ahead for them. And so, under the interpretation of the steward’s actions as being simply dishonest, we can hear in the story a warning from Jesus to his followers that they could not sit on their hands when the times called for resourcefulness and action.
But in a second interpretation of the parable, we can also make a case that the steward was not committing a wrong by his actions, but righting a wrong. These people were Jews, remember; and the law of Moses forbade the taking of interest from fellow Jews on any kind of loan or credit.
(Closer to our own religious history, Martin Luther agreed with the Old Testament prohibition against charging interest for any reason. But John Calvin recognized the difference between personal and production credit. It was not okay with Father John to borrow money to buy a bigger TV set; it was okay to borrow money to buy stuff to make soap that you would sell to your neighbors. This put our Calvinist forebears a step ahead of the Lutherans on making money.)
We simply don’t know how to interpret the dishonest manager’s actions. It may be that Jesus was offering another subtle criticism of the ethics of the Pharisees. In their time the Pharisees had found ways of getting around the law. They argued that the purpose of the law was to protect the poor and destitute from exploitation--not to prevent the lending of money or the extension of credit for the mutual profit of lender and borrower. They argued that there were some situations in which a loan could be considered a kind of business partnership and interest on the loan was just a fair sharing of profits. And if a man already possessed any measure at all of the commodity he wished to borrow--wheat, oil, etc.--he was not destitute and it was okay to charge him interest.
Thus interpreted, this parable is an attack on the niggling, insincere methods of scriptural interpretation by which the Pharisees managed to keep their religious principles from interfering with their business dealings.
They could have rationalized the actions of the steward in the parable. What he did was to return their promissory notes to the debtors and write new ones--without interest. And so, for the first time in his career, perhaps, he had done what the law of Moses required. It is called doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
He was obligating the debtors to him. He was also building up his master’s reputation as a just man. He was ready to make spiritual capital by a munificent gesture--when there was no other course open to him.
The steward was too weak to dig ditches and too proud to beg, so he set up for himself a “golden parachute,” as it is called in the business world these days. He would save these creditors a lot of money, and they would be obliged to help him out when he lot his job.
It is common in the upper echelons of corporate management these days, for officers and directors to be protected from loss if a company is acquired by another in a merger or takeover, or if for any reason they lose their jobs. Their employment contracts protect them from loss and guarantee them handsome stipends if they are fired. In recent memory, Ross Perot caused so much trouble when he became a director of General Motors that the board paid him millions of dollars to leave. And in even more recent memory, many of the officers and directors of some of the nation’s largest bank left their positions with multimillion dollar payments in hand as their companies melted down behind them. Golden parachutes, indeed.
II.
This parable, according to verse one, was told to the disciples, not to the crowd, but in verse 14 we learn that the Pharisees, “who were lovers of money” were listening too. That being the case, perhaps it was Jesus’ principle point in telling the story that if worldly men like the landowner and his steward can recognize that their best interests will be served by keeping the good opinion of their neighbors, religious people ought to be equally astute in keeping the good opinion of both neighbors and God.
On our recent western trip, our bus passed through some country said to have been the territory of the famous Butch Cassidy and his Hole-in-the-Wall gang. And since this was a morning for a long bus ride, to help pass the time, our tour guide showed us the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” on the bus’ video system. Butch Cassidy and his sidekick were out-and-out criminals. They robbed banks and trains. And we are not supposed to root for such bandits. But we did. Everyone who saw that movie mentally and emotionally supported Butch and the Kid because they were, at least in the movie, such appealing characters--just a couple of happy-go-lucky guys who stole money…at gunpoint. And when we analyze our support for them, we realize that we were manipulated by the movie makers into liking these characters.
We cannot--and should not--give the same emotional support to the crook in this parable. But we must admit that as quick-witted and ingenious as he was in acting for his own self-interest, so we as followers of Christ ought to be enthusiastic and energetic in our lives as children of God.
It is always typical of a group following a strong leader that the group members abdicate their own power of decision making and turn it over to the leader. This is why cults invariably have one person at the top of the heap whose rule is unquestioned. Jesus did not want his followers to be like this. He saw an unfortunate tendency toward passivity in his followers. He saw in them an unfortunate interpretation of his description of God as a loving father. Some of his people were descending into an attitude of “big daddy will take care of us.” He saw them fastening on those aspects of the religion he taught as a relief from the religion of fear that was taught by the religious leaders of the day.
That same tendency toward passivity infects some Christians today, and Jesus doesn’t like it today, either. Some Christians today think of weekly worship as the full discharge of their duty, and Jesus doesn’t like that, either. Some Christians today would seem to be singing to themselves unendingly, “Be not dismayed, whate’er betide; God will take care of you.” Jesus doesn’t like that, either.
III.
Jesus calls on his followers to be active in the faith; not passive. We are to be busy serving; not sitting. The Christian life does not consist of soaking up salvation like spiritual sponges. Jesus calls us, as he called his disciples so long ago, to be busy…dreaming…scheming…deciding…doing.
Two men who have been particularly adept at dreaming and scheming in the business world are Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, both of whom are among the richest men in the world. Gates became a multibillionaire through his genius and some sharp business practices in the world of computers. Buffet became a multibillionaire through his genius in the business world and his mastery of buying and selling stocks. It must be seen--and it has been seen by both men-- that the acquisition of wealth often comes at the expense of someone else. I do not know what they think and how they feel about how they acquired their wealth; but I do know that both men have pledged to give at least half their billions to charity. They also have challenged another 80 of the world’s billionaires to do the same, and 40 of them have already agreed to do so.
Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant who became one of this country’s wealthiest men, used his money to build more than 2,500 public libraries. He had this to say about it: “This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance, to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent on him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds…to administer in the manner…best calculated to produce the most beneficial results to the community.”
One more modern man observed cynically that money is how you keep score. Money can’t buy happiness, jokes one of my friends; a man with five billion dollars is just as happy as a man with 10 billion. But there is happiness to be found in giving it away to someone who needs it--and in the case of many of the world’s people, who need it desperately. Jesus calls us to a life of self-giving. And money is either a tool or a trap. We cannot serve two masters. We must decide for one or the other.
The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer contains these memorable words, “In all time of tribulation; in all time of prosperity…good Lord deliver us.”
Paul said to Timothy (I Timothy 6: 10), the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. That’s the love of money; not money itself. Money is not bad in itself; money is good when it does not rule us, but serves us and others who need our help.
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has a great deal to say about the dangers associated with money, for money competes with God for our attention and affection. Wrong attitudes about money can bring about spiritual ruin. But it is entirely possible to use money in Christ-like ways. God give us resources that not only provide for our needs, but also allow us to demonstrate our faithfulness. God will know whether we used our resources to help others.
The real moral of this story is one that finds great emphasis in Luke’s gospel: forgive. Forgive it all. Forgive it now. Forgive it for any reason or for no reason. Forgive because the Lord’s Prayer asks God to “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And the real major character in this story is the master who forgave the steward for mismanaging his funds in the first place. That master, of course, represents the God who forgives us for our misbehavior. The currency, the money, of God’s kingdom is forgiveness.
CONC.
Whatever our circumstances, we can help people who have less than we have. Even poor people can help others. I remember the comment of a missionary to Brazil who responded to those Americans who said they could not afford to tithe their incomes. He said, “I know people who live in houses with dirt floors who do.”
Our calling is to see our personal resources, whatever they may be, as having eternal consequences. Do we see the connection of our money and possessions to the causes of Christ? Jesus does! He calls us to be clever and energetic with our resources, for his sake.
Obedience, heeding the calls of Christ, is our “Golden Parachute.” When the time comes for each of us to bail out, we may know that we shall land gently and safely. Amen.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
God's Lament (Jeremiah 8:18-9:3)
The miners from Chile have been much in the news and much on our minds.
The whole world has been in their corner.
And many of us have given a thought or two or more to what it must have been like to have been 2000 feet down in a dark, dirty, hole without much food or water.
How would I have handled that?
How would you have handled that?
Would I have felt God-forsaken?
Would I have shouted out my anger at God and man?
Have you ever felt like life was teetering
On the edge of chaos—held together by a thin thread
Tears, anxiety
Hovering just below the surface
Fear, grief, trepidation
Heart sick
Joy Gone
Utter dismay
Isolated, alone,
Angry, crushed
Have you ever breathed Lament from every pore of your being
GOD HAS
Hear now the powerful lament of God from the prophet Jeremiah 8:18 -9:3
This is the word of God for all people—Thanks be to God
From the mouth of Jeremiah we hear the words of our suffering God.
We hear the disappointment, the agony, the weeping for God’s children who have turned away.
In our hearing, we yearn for a verse of Hope
And in our yearning
We are given permission to express the Gut Wrenching parts of our life.
In God’s Lament, we humans,
We who are indeed created in the Image of God
Are Freed to express all that is within us
Freed to have no barriers, no secrets
Freed to have all things spoken and exposed to God
Mary can say, “Lord, if you have been here, my brother would not have died”
And others could say, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying”
They could bring God in Christ to tears, but they were free to express all that was within their hearts.
God can hear our every thought. Our prayers can open all of our life to God.
We don’t have to act nicely in God’s presence.
We don’t have to appear better off than we are,
to put on joyfulness when our hearts are broken,
When we feel alone and forsaken God will hear us.
If God’s speech is Raw—Ours can be too
Our lament, our doubt, our questions—
Even our Anger bring no danger to our relationship with God
They are ingredients that enhance our relationship with God
Because these are real.
These ingredients bring full-flavor to who we are
As we live in the potter’s hand,
As we live in the hands of the one
Who will make us whole.
The beauty of Lament is that it is real
Reflecting the true realities of life
The freedom of lament
Is that in giving voice to our anguish
We realize that we are not alone in our pain
When we hear the pain of God
We can perhaps find something that reflects life as we know it
Life as we are experiencing it
In our songs of Lament
Those around us enter with us
God enters with us
And through our cries
The possibility of hope is Reborn
When our cries are heard—When someone listens
The journey toward healing begins.
The prophets and the psalmist assure
That the depth and raw-ness of our pain
Can be given directly to God
We have the promise that God is never absent.
God enters our pain-no matter what we may be suffering
And the God who enters our pain
Is the same God
Who saw his only son tortured.
Who watched his only son die.
Who cries for a people who turn from him.
The God who enters our pain –with us
Is the God who knows suffering.
The tears of God that we read about today
Are tears for a wayward people.
And they are tears for us
God sees our suffering—coming just down the road
Our suffering because of our choices
Because we turn away.
God sees where we are headed
And a fountain of tears is not enough to express his sorrow
It must feel a bit like watching children and grandchildren struggle into adulthood
We are vulnerable in our watching.
What happens to them hurts us.
Sometime what happens to them hurts us more
Than anything we could bring on ourselves
When life’s pain stems from terrible decision, we feel helpless.
What happens to another hurts us and we lament.
God watches us struggle—struggle to grow
God sees where we are headed
And a fountain of tears is not enough to express God’s sorrow.
God hurts because God’s children hurt.
God hurts because we hurt.
We hurt ourselves and we hurt each other.
And in Jeremiah’s time God’s hurt is increased
Because not only did the people of God—the children of God
Make terrible decisions
But they are also indifferent about it.
They just do not seem to care
Have you ever wanted to shake someone till their teeth rattle?
As you watch them arrogantly
Choose a path toward destruction?
But we can not make others strong with our strength.
We can not make others wise with our wisdom.
Strength and wisdom have to be discovered and developed, and have to be learned—not given.
Each person having to discover in his own way.
Each having to give birth to his own strength.
Each having to give birth to his own wisdom.
And to endure the labor of that process
Labor that often, -maybe always, involves pain
God is watching the people of Israel
As the people of God teeter on the brink of Chaos
And God cries.
God cries for a community headed toward Death
A nation where communal integrity is Destroyed
God’s people have forgotten
That they are accountable for each other
And responsible to each other
I’m afraid this is true, not just for the people of Israel, but also for us.
We are indeed keepers of our Brothers and Sisters
All our brothers and sisters around the globe
The poor, the homeless, the hungry
The jobless, the unwanted and the unloveable
The forgotten, the lonely, the hurting
The hated and the enemy
God’s people have forgotten that
We are inter-dependent and inter related
What happens to one—happens to us all
There are no independent, isolated actions
Our attempts to get ahead—may push someone else behind.
Our moves toward arrogantly imagined selfish goals may
Put a stone of stumbling in the path of the Kingdom of God.
Not only in Jeremiah’s world, but here and now as we read the news of business and politics, and society,
We can see that God’s people have forgotten that God alone is Lord
Of our lives and of all things.
As a result of all this forgetting
We see ourselves attempting to shape the world
According to our vision—not God’s.
Have the people of God forgotten true life
And in the process chosen death?
We choose death
When we try to organize life into neat packages
That we can control.
We choose death
When we reject our basic inter dependent, inter-related nature.
We choose death
When we fail to fully listen to the faithful voices around us
When we fail to be accountable and responsible to the will of God.
We choose death
In our idolatry as we seek control
As we take truth and bend and shape it to our own purposes.
What do our business dealings say about our faith?
What do our purchases say?
What does our use of our most valuable resource(time) say?
“They have grown strong in the land for falsehood
And not for truth and they do not know me.. says the Lord”
Hear Jeremiah speak to us, to you and to me.
God’s own people have forgotten to know God
And in their forgetting have chosen death.
And God Laments
As we twist and shape the world for our own glory.
God Laments
Maybe we too need to lament.
Maybe we need to lament the loss of communal integrity.
Maybe we need to lament
The despair that we cover with self-sufficient autonomy
Maybe we need to lament
Hopelessness that we cover with stoic independence.
Or maybe we simply need to bring our basic, human need for God
To a conscious and named level.
Maybe we just need to cry out—revealing
Our exhausted spirits
Our broken relationships,
Our damaged families, and communities
Our viewed, witnessed and experienced violence
Maybe we just need to cry.
Dare we name our brokenness.
Dare we refuse to white-wash truth and reality.
Dare we fully embrace life as Christ intends us to live.
Our God cries for us
The beauty of crying out—the beauty of lament
Is that it is real and reflects the true realities of life
The freedom of crying out—the freedom of lament
Is that in giving voice to our anguish
We realize that we are not alone in our pain.
God cries
And in the pain of God
We can find reflections of ourselves.
Thru all cries—thru all lament
The possibility of hope is reborn.
When cries are heard
When someone listens
The journey toward healing begins.
Scripture assures us—our experience assures us
The experiences of the faithful around us assure us
That the depth and raw-ness of our pain
Can be given directly to God.
We don’t have to make it pretty, or nice, or politically correct for God.
We have the promise that God enters our pain—no matter what.
Through-out history the faithful have marched to the throne of God and cried out their pain.
Our only hope is to march ourselves to the throne of God and in loud lament cry out the pain that lives in our souls.
God, in accepting our lament, brings us to be strong, strong in faith,
strong in utterance,
strong in insistence,
strong in risk-taking
Our prayers of lament teach spiritual survival
Here is what to do in the pit of hopelessness:
Cling to God, even when God has seemed to slip away from you.
Yell at the top of your collective lungs.
Hold tightly, mercilessly, and with every ounce of strength to hope in Christ.
Shout and scream at our Lord and Savior..
That’s it
Don’t hold back.
Complain, protest, resist.
Reach into yourself to claim your experience and your capacity to see and name reality.
Jeremiah serves as a model survivor.
Stick to God with absolute loyalty.
Put doubts and rage and betrayal before God’s face.
Lay it out so you can see it yourselves and can see the deep, unending wound and isolation.
It is exactly laments’ bitter complaints and assaults on divine justice that, paradoxically, make them a perfect vehicle of fidelity.
Fasten on to God with all your strength in the midst of catastrophe.
Keep the relationship alive.
Keep communication open.
Think of the miner, months down in the depths, knowing how unfair this was.
Did you hear one of them say, “I held God’s hand”
We must hold on to God no matter what
And God will hold on to us—no matter what
Halleluah, Amen
The whole world has been in their corner.
And many of us have given a thought or two or more to what it must have been like to have been 2000 feet down in a dark, dirty, hole without much food or water.
How would I have handled that?
How would you have handled that?
Would I have felt God-forsaken?
Would I have shouted out my anger at God and man?
Have you ever felt like life was teetering
On the edge of chaos—held together by a thin thread
Tears, anxiety
Hovering just below the surface
Fear, grief, trepidation
Heart sick
Joy Gone
Utter dismay
Isolated, alone,
Angry, crushed
Have you ever breathed Lament from every pore of your being
GOD HAS
Hear now the powerful lament of God from the prophet Jeremiah 8:18 -9:3
This is the word of God for all people—Thanks be to God
From the mouth of Jeremiah we hear the words of our suffering God.
We hear the disappointment, the agony, the weeping for God’s children who have turned away.
In our hearing, we yearn for a verse of Hope
And in our yearning
We are given permission to express the Gut Wrenching parts of our life.
In God’s Lament, we humans,
We who are indeed created in the Image of God
Are Freed to express all that is within us
Freed to have no barriers, no secrets
Freed to have all things spoken and exposed to God
Mary can say, “Lord, if you have been here, my brother would not have died”
And others could say, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying”
They could bring God in Christ to tears, but they were free to express all that was within their hearts.
God can hear our every thought. Our prayers can open all of our life to God.
We don’t have to act nicely in God’s presence.
We don’t have to appear better off than we are,
to put on joyfulness when our hearts are broken,
When we feel alone and forsaken God will hear us.
If God’s speech is Raw—Ours can be too
Our lament, our doubt, our questions—
Even our Anger bring no danger to our relationship with God
They are ingredients that enhance our relationship with God
Because these are real.
These ingredients bring full-flavor to who we are
As we live in the potter’s hand,
As we live in the hands of the one
Who will make us whole.
The beauty of Lament is that it is real
Reflecting the true realities of life
The freedom of lament
Is that in giving voice to our anguish
We realize that we are not alone in our pain
When we hear the pain of God
We can perhaps find something that reflects life as we know it
Life as we are experiencing it
In our songs of Lament
Those around us enter with us
God enters with us
And through our cries
The possibility of hope is Reborn
When our cries are heard—When someone listens
The journey toward healing begins.
The prophets and the psalmist assure
That the depth and raw-ness of our pain
Can be given directly to God
We have the promise that God is never absent.
God enters our pain-no matter what we may be suffering
And the God who enters our pain
Is the same God
Who saw his only son tortured.
Who watched his only son die.
Who cries for a people who turn from him.
The God who enters our pain –with us
Is the God who knows suffering.
The tears of God that we read about today
Are tears for a wayward people.
And they are tears for us
God sees our suffering—coming just down the road
Our suffering because of our choices
Because we turn away.
God sees where we are headed
And a fountain of tears is not enough to express his sorrow
It must feel a bit like watching children and grandchildren struggle into adulthood
We are vulnerable in our watching.
What happens to them hurts us.
Sometime what happens to them hurts us more
Than anything we could bring on ourselves
When life’s pain stems from terrible decision, we feel helpless.
What happens to another hurts us and we lament.
God watches us struggle—struggle to grow
God sees where we are headed
And a fountain of tears is not enough to express God’s sorrow.
God hurts because God’s children hurt.
God hurts because we hurt.
We hurt ourselves and we hurt each other.
And in Jeremiah’s time God’s hurt is increased
Because not only did the people of God—the children of God
Make terrible decisions
But they are also indifferent about it.
They just do not seem to care
Have you ever wanted to shake someone till their teeth rattle?
As you watch them arrogantly
Choose a path toward destruction?
But we can not make others strong with our strength.
We can not make others wise with our wisdom.
Strength and wisdom have to be discovered and developed, and have to be learned—not given.
Each person having to discover in his own way.
Each having to give birth to his own strength.
Each having to give birth to his own wisdom.
And to endure the labor of that process
Labor that often, -maybe always, involves pain
God is watching the people of Israel
As the people of God teeter on the brink of Chaos
And God cries.
God cries for a community headed toward Death
A nation where communal integrity is Destroyed
God’s people have forgotten
That they are accountable for each other
And responsible to each other
I’m afraid this is true, not just for the people of Israel, but also for us.
We are indeed keepers of our Brothers and Sisters
All our brothers and sisters around the globe
The poor, the homeless, the hungry
The jobless, the unwanted and the unloveable
The forgotten, the lonely, the hurting
The hated and the enemy
God’s people have forgotten that
We are inter-dependent and inter related
What happens to one—happens to us all
There are no independent, isolated actions
Our attempts to get ahead—may push someone else behind.
Our moves toward arrogantly imagined selfish goals may
Put a stone of stumbling in the path of the Kingdom of God.
Not only in Jeremiah’s world, but here and now as we read the news of business and politics, and society,
We can see that God’s people have forgotten that God alone is Lord
Of our lives and of all things.
As a result of all this forgetting
We see ourselves attempting to shape the world
According to our vision—not God’s.
Have the people of God forgotten true life
And in the process chosen death?
We choose death
When we try to organize life into neat packages
That we can control.
We choose death
When we reject our basic inter dependent, inter-related nature.
We choose death
When we fail to fully listen to the faithful voices around us
When we fail to be accountable and responsible to the will of God.
We choose death
In our idolatry as we seek control
As we take truth and bend and shape it to our own purposes.
What do our business dealings say about our faith?
What do our purchases say?
What does our use of our most valuable resource(time) say?
“They have grown strong in the land for falsehood
And not for truth and they do not know me.. says the Lord”
Hear Jeremiah speak to us, to you and to me.
God’s own people have forgotten to know God
And in their forgetting have chosen death.
And God Laments
As we twist and shape the world for our own glory.
God Laments
Maybe we too need to lament.
Maybe we need to lament the loss of communal integrity.
Maybe we need to lament
The despair that we cover with self-sufficient autonomy
Maybe we need to lament
Hopelessness that we cover with stoic independence.
Or maybe we simply need to bring our basic, human need for God
To a conscious and named level.
Maybe we just need to cry out—revealing
Our exhausted spirits
Our broken relationships,
Our damaged families, and communities
Our viewed, witnessed and experienced violence
Maybe we just need to cry.
Dare we name our brokenness.
Dare we refuse to white-wash truth and reality.
Dare we fully embrace life as Christ intends us to live.
Our God cries for us
The beauty of crying out—the beauty of lament
Is that it is real and reflects the true realities of life
The freedom of crying out—the freedom of lament
Is that in giving voice to our anguish
We realize that we are not alone in our pain.
God cries
And in the pain of God
We can find reflections of ourselves.
Thru all cries—thru all lament
The possibility of hope is reborn.
When cries are heard
When someone listens
The journey toward healing begins.
Scripture assures us—our experience assures us
The experiences of the faithful around us assure us
That the depth and raw-ness of our pain
Can be given directly to God.
We don’t have to make it pretty, or nice, or politically correct for God.
We have the promise that God enters our pain—no matter what.
Through-out history the faithful have marched to the throne of God and cried out their pain.
Our only hope is to march ourselves to the throne of God and in loud lament cry out the pain that lives in our souls.
God, in accepting our lament, brings us to be strong, strong in faith,
strong in utterance,
strong in insistence,
strong in risk-taking
Our prayers of lament teach spiritual survival
Here is what to do in the pit of hopelessness:
Cling to God, even when God has seemed to slip away from you.
Yell at the top of your collective lungs.
Hold tightly, mercilessly, and with every ounce of strength to hope in Christ.
Shout and scream at our Lord and Savior..
That’s it
Don’t hold back.
Complain, protest, resist.
Reach into yourself to claim your experience and your capacity to see and name reality.
Jeremiah serves as a model survivor.
Stick to God with absolute loyalty.
Put doubts and rage and betrayal before God’s face.
Lay it out so you can see it yourselves and can see the deep, unending wound and isolation.
It is exactly laments’ bitter complaints and assaults on divine justice that, paradoxically, make them a perfect vehicle of fidelity.
Fasten on to God with all your strength in the midst of catastrophe.
Keep the relationship alive.
Keep communication open.
Think of the miner, months down in the depths, knowing how unfair this was.
Did you hear one of them say, “I held God’s hand”
We must hold on to God no matter what
And God will hold on to us—no matter what
Halleluah, Amen
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