A Challenge to Remember the Poor

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

The thread that runs through the readings this morning is a call to those who are wealthy, and a challenge to remember the poor. Amos forecasts correctly that the carefree lives of the wealthy in his time would be devastated by the arrival of the Syrians who would drag them away as prisoners and be relocated hundreds of miles away from their homes, with little to no hope of returning or of reclaiming the wealth that once was theirs. Their identification with the poor would take on a very real dimension, as he ominously understates, "the revelry of the loungers shall pass away."

In his first Epistle to Timothy, Paul also addresses the wealthy with a command not to be "haughty" but be generous and "rich in good works." The Gospel is the famous parable of Lazarus and the rich man - a cautionary tale of wealth and responsibility.

Questions emerge in these stories about who is wealthy and who is poor. In a financial sense all of us are wealthy in global statistics. We would probably describe ourselves as "comfortable" rather than wealthy. We can always point to someone else as a standard of wealth, Bill and Melinda Gates being the only exception to that statement. We can drive through parts of cities and see poverty, but the worst levels of the poorest of humanity is not something that most of us have seen. And it's those levels that are the majority in the world.

I've traveled through rural parts of Mexico and seen desperate poverty from the comfort of a bus. A country which I was surprised to learn is ranked in the top third of the wealthiest countries in the world. I also saw deplorable poverty in the townships in South Africa where corrugated steel shacks passed for housing. And as bad as what I saw is, these aren't even the poorest places.

There really is no doubt that we are among the wealthiest people in the world in terms of percentage, more than just comfortable. Lessons like the ones we heard this morning are not unusual in the Bible. The concern for the poor is a constant theme, and Jesus talks more about money than any other single topic, well, perhaps the Kingdom of God edges it out, but not by much.

When I was growing up, there was a common teaching that in polite company one does not discuss money, politics or religion - at least one's own. Those of the person down the street seemed to be fair game. But here we have it all.

There are no simple answers. It's a tough subject and avoiding it doesn't allow us to grow. Wrestling with difficult issues is immensely important and the decisions we make concerning them is crucial and has far reaching impact. And there is more at stake even, than just what we decide to contribute financially to causes and social services.

There are relationships involved. Family relationships are strained if not ruptured occasionally when those with less look to those with more for assistance. Does one help out once? Occasionally? Whenever asked? What is the responsibility of one for the other? Entitlement, envy, resentment, so many conflicts can arise even within families. Similar among neighbors, or segments of society, nations and people's.

Our political parties battle over these issues whether it's taxes to be raised or lowered, social services to be continued or not, health insurance, it's a huge web of conflicting interests, understanding of the issues and solutions.

We don't live on level playing fields. The relative wealth of our families has put us in good stead. We have access that others don't, unless they are very lucky indeed. Education is often cited as a key to advancement. Certainly it is, but no one can claim that equal educational opportunities are available to all children. Many do get left behind.

Our problems are systemic and will not go away any time soon. Even Jesus said, "The poor you will always have with you..." I believe the spiritual illness that creeps in the cracks here is that we too often label the poor as lazy or unmotivated, conniving and out to beat the system. Accusations of "fraud" are hurled with great regularity at welfare recipients for example, temporarily forgetting the larger frauds committed by wealthier people. It is a process of dehumanizing the poor in our thinking and in our arguments and defenses as a way of solving the conflict we may feel inside, especially when reading such scriptures. We do this in war and all levels of major conflict. It's easier to attack the human value of those with whom we disagree or are called into challenging relationships. When that happens, we are trapped by spiritual illness.

It's not so much that one is rich and one is poor in the scriptures, it's that one overlooks the humanity of the other that causes the problems. If you're like me when you ride the subway and a panhandler comes by, I'll avoid eye contact. Eye contact is almost a guarantee that some kind of conversation is about to happen, and it's not always a good one. Eye contact establishes relationship and it's much, much stickier. We avoid eye contact, we avoid looking, we avoid acknowledging because we haven't figured out what we should do. There is fear at the heart of that avoidance and a sense of guilt that we're not doing enough. We then have to wrestle with the question, "what is enough, then?"

We're Christians and we look to Jesus for guidance. He helped those he met along the way. He looked them in the eye, held their hands, washed their wounds sometimes and always told them about God's love. He was not afraid to engage their humanity. When we engage the humanity of another, we become more fully human ourselves.

When I went to the townships in South Africa my heart ached at the expanse of suffering. I can't do anything to fix that. And yet I can do something. Im still in communication with some people I met there and financially help some go to school. I care about people I had not known before in a different way. And it's not just giving money. It's having seen their eyes, shaken their hands, embraced and remembered the bond of kinship that we all share in Christ. It's even about Facebooking (horrible as that is) and seeing how they are. It's a lot different than riding by in a bus. There was no human interaction there.

In these lessons this morning I don't see a guilt trip for the rich, or the finger pointing of judgment. I see the warning not to lose sight of the fact that all people are our brothers and sisters and at the very least deserve a look in the eyes and an acknowledgment that they are loved by God. What we do with the internal conflict that may get generated is for us to figure out. But it cannot be from callous disregard or capricious judgment, but honest spiritual wrestling. Our Christian faith doesn't provide easy answers, but somehow is good at posing challenging questions. Our faith gets shaped in that uncomfortable place, as it happens.

The closing hymn this morning is written by Frank Mason North somewhere around 1903. He was a Methodist minister and asked to write a hymn for the Methodist Hymnal. He lived in New York City and wrote of what he saw. Even though it's more than a hundred years old, the words still ring true: Where cross the crowded ways of life, where sound the cries of race and clan, above the noise of selfish greed, we hear thy voice O Son of Man. The poetry continues and finds it's answer in the love of God. And that's where we'll find our answers. Amen.

©2010 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ

Homecoming Sunday

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

Some parables are easier than others to figure out. Last week we had the relatively easy lost sheep and coin. This week we have the not-so-easy Dishonest Steward.

One of the things that makes this parable so unsettling is that Jesus appears to praise the shenanigans of the dishonest steward and encourage us to do likewise. Even the logic of the stewards trickery eludes me. Surely the rich man who goes over the confiscated ledgers will know that he was owed one amount from each of the borrowers and that the amount had been lowered. It then occurred to me that it might be similar to the offer that credit card companies give. If a person is significantly behind in their payments, they can settle for a lesser amount if they pay it in full. In this way it would appear that the credit company makes something back rather than losing it all. Perhaps the dishonest steward made a similar judgment in lowering the amounts.

Also, notice that he never refutes the allegations of mismanagement in the first place. I must say that was refreshing, for someone who didn't do the job well to admit it. We live in a culture of denial and deflection. I'll credit the dishonest steward with at least a little bit of honesty in that regard!

The best sense I can make of this parable is how Jesus uses human behavior to make a point. The Gospels always present Jesus as a shrewd judge of character, one who see through smoke screens and can make a spiritual lesson out of anything. This might just be the case. When he needed to, the unjust Steward became creative and efficient. If he had demonstrated these qualities earlier, there would have been no problem. Now that's human nature.

How many parents have told their children that if they put the same effort into their homework as they do trying to get out of it, they would have been finished? How many times has my procrastination come back to haunt me and when I finally have to do the task I realize I could already have done it. You may have similar stories of your own. Avoidance is a terrible waste of time and gets in the way of accomplishing good things. But we do it. And then like the unjust steward, when the chips are down, get to work.

While avoidance and procrastination is part of the parable, the deals that get made in order to provide a safe landing are another. All the others sign onto the dishonest stewards' plan, making them in effect just as dishonest as he was. Accessories to the crime, as it were. Again, creative and efficient. The praise of the rich man for the whole scheme is a real puzzle as well.

In a spiritual way, I think and I hope, that the point Jesus made was to acknowledge the creativity and drive rather than praise the goals of those who behaved so dishonestly. There have been many examples of unjust stewards in the news these past few years - people who have brilliantly circumvented the law and totally disregarded any moral compass to achieve goals of acquiring money, power or prestige. Despite the horrendous damage done, there is an objective case that can be made for the ingenuity involved. If those same people had applied their ingenuity to legal ways of bettering the lives of the people they purported to be serving, what an amazing world we would live in.

If everyone in positions of power and authority were honest for just one year, the world would be transformed. But it is not so. Perhaps this is what Jesus was lamenting as well by musing that the children of light should be as crafty as the dishonest if we are to move ahead.

In the context of our lessons, there is a sense of the responsibility of leadership that arises. Amos looks at the corruption of business practices in his day increasing the suffering of the poor. The Epistle encourages people to pray for their leaders to make good decisions that promote peace and justice. In another place in the Gospels Jesus says, to whom much is given, much is required. The benefits that we have, whether through our own ingenuity or luck of the draw or inheritance, can be used simply for our own comfort, or it can be used as an opportunity to serve others.

This is our Homecoming Sunday. As we return our focus to the ministry here we do so in the comfort of beautiful buildings and a reasonably comfortable cash flow. In a day when churches are closing or merging due to lack of income, we are in a strong position despite our challenges and wrestling with the deficit. We could use all these assets for our own comfort and close the doors to any outside need. But we don't do that. We open our doors to other groups and agencies that share a compatible mission with ours. Groups that enhance the lives of children, 12 step and bereavement groups, educational and cultural groups, events that witness to social justice. We have been given much from generations of faithful St. Georgians and we're doing our part by using these resources responsibly, generously and creatively. Needs and resources will continually change with each passing year and good stewardship is a moving target. But Jesus's teachings that if we keep our eye on God's service and justice that the rest will take care of itself.

As a community we work with this and as a community we remind ourselves and witness to others that our common faith calls us to step out in service to others as a way of demonstrating our commitment to God and ourselves.

In the prayer attributed to St. Francis, there is a line that says, "For it is in giving that we receive..." We grow spiritually and deepen in humanity when we use our personal and communal gifts for the good of others and in God's service.

I once had lunch with a new member of a church I served who said it was time for her to get more involved in the life of the parish. I thought "Great, you'll get no argument from me!" Through sighs and thoughtful frowns, she listed the activities she thought she could consider. I was struck by the painful prospect this was becoming. She settled on one and wondered what I thought. I said I think that would be a terrible mistake. She was a bit surprised since that wasn't my part of anticipated script. Rather, I said, "Lets' look at your talents and passions." As we explored those and how they might be used to generate a new program in the church, she lit right up and started to feel energized. God gave us gifts and talents to be used. And in using them we become more alive than if we had not.

St. George's has a long tradition of strong lay leadership, and leadership has responsibility. Among those, it seems to me are authenticity and determination. Any one who expresses a desire to serve, must do so from a love of God that inspires service and then discern the gifts they have and how they can best be utilized in the service of others. It's exciting and challenging and can be scary at times. But it brings us life and abundant life.

On this Homecoming Sunday I hope we all renew our commitment to God and to this wonderful place where we have come to know God better in the fellowship of other seekers. In a world with so many creative dishonest stewards, we need all the creative honest stewards we can find! Be that and more in God's love and service. Amen.

©2010 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ