Am I really that awful?

Do I have something that needs to be confessed here?  Have I ignored the poor, the hungry, the homeless?  Am I living in luxury and pretending the poor don't exist?

I don't know.  Only you and God can have that discussion, but it is a discussion well worth having.  Where does Jesus show up in your checkbook?  your bank statement?  the walking around money you spend each week?  Is my money my money for my pleasure and not God's tool to help mend the world?

The rich man knew Lazarus' name, knew he lived right outside his gate, and ignored him until they both died.  The consequences of the rich man's actions were eternal - Lazarus sat with Father Abraham and the rich man sat in torment.  It was a complete reversal of how it had been.

But it doesn't say we must continue to act this way.  We can hear this word and examine our lives and walk in a new direction, listening for God's guidance and trusting in God's presence in our journey.  In matters large and small we are called by God to care for the poor, to be a part of the healing of the world.  Today you can act differently than yesterday....we have the power to re-write the ending of the Lazarus story.

Today is a good day to begin.

Don't preach to me about money

I've thought that.  Have you thought that? For 3 weeks we will hear Jesus teach about what we should do with our money, how it can drag us down spiritually, how it makes a difference eternally, and we want to say, "Don't preach to me about money."

Don't make me feel guilty.  Don't tell me that it will all work out OK when I'm worrying about getting through the month.  Don't compare me with people living in Bangladesh.  If I lived in Bangladesh, I wouldn't drive to work and pay $3.70 a gallon for gas.

Of course I should feed the hungry.  Most of the time, 'the hungry' are sitting at my dinner table.  Of course I should help provide clean water for our global neighbors who have none.  I'm trying to keep my water bill manageable with 3 teens taking showers.

Of course I should help build a pre-school in Zambia; in the meantime I trying to figure out how my kids will afford college.  And don't talk to me about retirement....who's going to retire?

I know that all of this is true.  Finances will stress a relationship faster than almost anything else.  So how do we find a path - a path that is faithful to Jesus - in the midst of God's concern for the poor and the aching feeling that I'm on the verge of being 'the poor'?

Because we want to be faithful to Jesus!  Jesus' love for me is at the center of my life, my sense of worthiness, my ability to forgive others.  How can I faithfully use the money that God has entrusted to me for the sake of the whole world - including my family?

There is no simple answer to these questions but there are a couple of places we can begin the conversation. We will look at having some knowledgeable people teach about budgeting, saving, investing and sharing our money.  Some folks will learn how much that fancy coffee each morning costs them in a year and decide to give it up for another purpose.  Some folks will learn that they are doing all they can.  Watch for news about this.

But there are also spiritual exercises which will help us too.  When we re-focus on giving thanks - always watching for places, times, people, events we can give thanks for - the pressure of 'not enough' begins to recede.  Giving thanks gives us relief from the terrible 'not enough' pressure.

Timothy tells us that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.  Not having what we think is enough money can be the greatest temptation we will ever face.  Let's figure out how to do this together as a community of faith.

The Grand Canyon of Life

In this week's parable Jesus talks about 'a great chasm.'  One of my colleagues pictured it as the Grand Canyon.  The people on one side can't get to the other.  Really quite a poetic image, but the reality of living on the wrong side of a great chasm I couldn't cross is much less so.

Jesus builds up this image of the chasm between a rich man and Lazarus.  The rich man is clothed in purple (very expensive!) cloth and fine linen .....and Lazarus is clothed in 'sores that the dogs lick.'  The rich man lives in a mansion with a gate to keep out the unwanted ones; Lazarus lives outside the gate. He is one of the unwanted ones.  The rich man has sumptuous feasts every day; Lazarus would have been satisfied with the crumbs from the rich man's table.  Luke 16

Now that's a chasm.  This rich man is very, very, very rich and Lazarus is equally poor.  Jesus doesn't want to leave any doubts in the hearer's minds.  He describes a chasm of wealth which leads to a chasm between God and the rich man.

What do we do with this old story?  First, we don't try to convince ourselves that the same conditions are unheard of today.  Great chasms exist today and wealth is often the underlying source.  Second, we are to see how the rich man's blindness to his neighbor (because, in fact, Lazarus lived right outside his gate) built a great chasm between him and God.  The rich guy saw Lazarus only as someone put there to serve his needs....not as another human being with needs (overwhelming needs!) of his own.

Most importantly, the rich man was blind to God's purpose for this world from the beginning, but especially in the life and ministry of Jesus.  Jesus came to mend this world - to heal it - to make it whole - to bring it again into perfect relationship with God the Creator.  Anything which keeps us from being a part of this great healing of the world also keeps us from God.

N.T. Wright, a biblical scholar has written "What you do in the present- by painting, preaching, singing, sewing praying, teaching, building hospitals, diggings wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself - will last into God's future."  Or as one blogger writes, 'Whatever we do to mend the world has lasting value.  Everyone contributes.  God blesses each and every gift.'

Great wealth can lead to great blindness and a mistaken trust in the protection that wealth provides.  But it is not only wealth that can pull us away from contributing to God's vision of a redeemed world.....it is just that most of the time it does.  Money too often makes us blind.

The rich man had so much with which he could have balanced the scales of justice for Lazarus, and possibly for many others as well.  He wouldn't have reversed the spin of the earth but he would have contributed the blessings he had received to God's holy plan through his care for one neighbor.  One neighbor.  One.

Expendable, invisible, outside the gate

Wow!  I wouldn't want to be that person.

Luke 16 tells a parable about an impoverished man named Lazarus (the Lazarus who was raised from the dead is in the gospel of John) who sits outside the gate of a great mansion.  Every day rich and influential people are invited through the gate for a great feast.  Every day Lazarus sits outside, clothed in sores and hungering for the leftover crumbs from the feast.  Crumbs never come his way, even though the rich man knows him enough to know his name and recognize his face. Lazarus was, in fact, the rich man's neighbor.

We as a society have a thousand ways of making that person know just how unwanted they are.  We pass them by without a glance or nod....or in the case of Lazarus, a crumb of bread.  We never bother to learn their names; they are never really people to us.  They are urban furniture; landscape anomalies; obstacles to avoid.  Even though they sit right outside our door day after day.

What would it take for us to see them as lost sheep?  As beloved children of God?  As the very persons we are sent to give care to?  What would it take for us to conceive of our wealth as a tool in our hands to ease the suffering of at least this one person?  We cannot fix it all - but do we get a free pass on fixing any of it?

What does the good news of Jesus look like when you encounter one of the expendables?  When you are one of the expendables?  How loudly would you cry for justice then?

Adjunct professor of 25 years dies in abject poverty

She had taught almost full time at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh for over 25 years....but she was adjunct faculty all those years.  Never tenured; never on salary; never any health benefits.  In a good year she would make about $10,000; many years it was even less. Her teaching was highly rated.

When they decided she was too frail to continue teaching (age plus cancer did that) they no longer needed her services.  No severance.  No retirement.  No help paying for the cancer treatment she needed.

Margaret Mary Vojtko died at age 83 of a massive heart attack on the front lawn of her home the day after the state summoned her to Orphans Court to see if she was competent.  Her home was so run down and her appearance so tenuous that her neighbors had called Adult Protective Services.[www.post-gazette.com for more information]

One more sad story in a city full of sad stories?  Yes.  But here is the kicker: Duquesne University is a Catholic institution.  It has fought off all efforts made by adjunct faculty to unionize or to improve the contracts under which they work.

The prophet Amos had a lot to say about those who claim to follow Jesus and yet treat others in the market place with contempt.

 "I will turn your feasts into mourning, 

and all your songs into lamentation" 

What you do with your money says a lot about the state of your heart.  Amos 8.10

Caveat emptor and learning trust

"Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me."

We tend to have a caveat emptor approach to most of our economic interactions: buyer beware.  Perhaps the toughest thing to learn as we grow up is who to trust and how much to trust.  We all know you should not trust everyone, especially when money is changing hands.

For some people, wealth is a temptation beyond temptation.  Generosity always comes in the small size and at the last minute.  For some people, counting the cost is an automatic operation and it takes very little for them to deem anything 'too costly.'

I know this.  You know this. Perhaps you even wrestle with yourself in this very place in your spiritual life - this inability to freely give, to share without weighing against self interests.  On really good days you can open your hand and press a gift into the hand of another - sometimes you surprise yourself and it is a $20 instead of a $1.  But on bad days, you cannot see past your own self-interests to compassion for another.  You rarely experience joy in giving.

Keep at it.  It will come.  The great generosity of God's heart which gave to us the gift of Jesus and in him the gift of forgiveness will transform your heart.  Pray that you will see opportunities to share yourself all around you.  Pray that Jesus will intervene when your heart starts cramping up.  Deliberately choose to give more than you have originally planned - more time, more gifts, more money....more anything.

God calls that opening of your heart: love.  In time, it will be the very thing you give the greatest thanks for.

You don't want to eat this fruit

Figs probably.  It was probably figs in that basket of summer fruit that Amos held up to let the people know that the harvest had begun; one season ended and one about to begin.  Amos 8.1-7

The prophets love to use these kinds of images to hammer home their message of Repent! Repent!  They will use anything at hand as a concrete example of the words the Lord has put into their mouth.  Jeremiah used his loincloth (read: underwear).  There was the 'plumb line' example and one about a camel.

Amos was telling the folks that the harvest was upon them.....and it wasn't going to be pretty.  "The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by." v2

What makes Amos different is that he was talking about their business practices....their unethical business practices.  Let me paraphrase:  You can't wait to get out of worship where you proclaim allegiance and honor to God who teaches you to care for the poor and needy.  You rush out so you can open your booth in the market and cheat your customers using false scales.

I love you Lord!  Thank you Lord for finding me when I was lost!  Forgive me Lord when I mess up.  Yes, Lord, I hear you call me to care for others, to be generous with all the blessings I receive......and then you sneak off into the market to make as much money as you can by whatever means it takes.

"Surely I will never forget any of their deeds." says the Lord.  The harvest has begun. Beware.

This is why no one invites prophets to dinner.