Money is complicated.

Having money is complicated. Of course, not having money is complicated too.

Money complicates our lives, whether we have it or not.  We certainly want to have enough so that we do not have to scramble to survive every day.  Yet few of us live on the edge of survival; our lives are much more comfortable than that.   Sure something could go wrong in a minute and that security we've worked for melts away.....but if we tell the truth, few of us are worrying about where our next meal is coming from.  In fact, few of us have stood in a free meal line in order to eat.

I'm not judging, I am describing the truth.

To survival folks, our existence, with bank accounts and cars that usually run for us and medical insurance and a job that pays regularly is beyond their hope.....and to them we are wealthy beyond measure.  What could we possibly want?

Well, that is a subject deeper than the ocean.  Wanting is our middle name.  Perhaps desire is at the heart of 'original sin' or that innate brokenness of all humans that leads us to embarrassing, hurtful behaviors.  Adam and Eve wanted knowledge, and perhaps an apple too.  We want things like a little nicer car and a bigger cushion in the bank.

[Unless, of course, you have survived a life threatening disease and then perhaps all you want is another day with your loved ones and the sight of a beautiful sunrise.  Nice cars are sooooo not important.]

See how complicated money is?  It brings out our baser instincts.  It holds out to us the possibility that better is just around the corner.  Good is just down that block.  Safe is just a half mile walk.  Chasing that Franklin tied to the end of a stick, we believe the false promises.

Promises that are false because they are time stamped, due to expire, not good after the night when your soul is required of you and you come face to face with the Divine Creator.  [While your children/loved ones divide the booty.] That dollar bill convinces us that we will WIN! But then is life about winning?  or it it about living?  is it about being happy?  giving happiness to others?  Truth is, in the end, we all simply die.

Money pretends that it can solve all our problems forever.  It pretends that it can give meaning to our lives and comfort us when the clouds gather or hope is lost.  We choose to delude ourselves into thinking that this is true.  It isn't.  Only God - the one who created in the beginning and will create again - is forever, and ever, and ever.  If you fill your head and all your days and hours and years chasing a dream that can never be caught...there will be little time left for God and for what truly matters in the eternal long run.

Not judging.  Just pointing out that it is real easy to squeeze God out of your life, until, of course, your life is squeezed out of you.

Money is complicated.

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?

How do we balance the budget?

On this election day, it seems this is a pertinent, albeit a little late in the game, questions.

How do we balance the budget?  Candidates have presented a myriad of ideas about how to balance the budget.  The plans with the greatest potential for success combine increasing revenue and decreasing expenditures.  The arguments usually revolve around how to increase revenues (increase taxes is an all time unfavorite option) and which expenditures to decrease (not my program, only those other wasteful, needless programs).

My emphasis in this discussion is not on the balance but on the we.  How do we balance the budget?

If this nation is balancing the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable...the poor, elderly, the widows, then we need to say something about it.  We meaning people of faith.  We meaning those who follow Jesus. 

Jesus had already confronted a system that was built on the backs of impoverished and oppressed people.  He didn't like it then; it is unjust even today.

What are we doing about it?

We're talkin' about widows

Throughout the Old Testament we hear again and again God's command to Israel to care for the widows and orphans.  That is because, in the structure of their society, no one else did.  Widows and orphans represented the most vulnerable, those with no power at all, no voice, no resources.

Who would we put in this category today?  In light of Hurricane Sandy we might put those who are now homeless.  Perhaps all homeless folks should be in this category.

In light of Newtown, we might put grieving parents into this category, or perhaps all those who are left behind when violence claims a loved one.

Justice - according to our faith - is the balancing of the scales; that is, lifting up and protecting those who are vulnerable and without a voice. 

Who needs our protection today?  What are we/you doing to care for them?