AMOS 6:1-7
PSALM 146:4-9
1 TIMOTHY 6:11-19
LUKE 16:19-31
Sermon – September
26, 2004
The
prophet Amos was, in baseball terms, like a relief pitcher who steps on the
mound and throws 99-mile per hour fast balls – high and inside. It gets your attention. And so it should. Amos’ “fastball” read this morning was a denunciation of the
self-indulgent rich among the Israelites who “lay upon beds of ivory” – an
exotic high-end luxury item of the 8th Century B.C. – in the capital
of Samaria while ignoring the plight of the poor all around them. Charity and justice are part
of the required curriculum of life, Amos warns them, and unless they change,
God is about to give them an “F” in both courses, with disastrous consequences
for them.
A
hundred years ago, scholars thought that Amos was indulging in rhetorical
hyperbole – grossly exaggerating – when he talked about “beds of ivory.” How could the distribution of wealth have
been so imbalanced in Israel 2,750 years ago that the rich could have imported
furniture made from a luxury product found thousands of miles away?
That
was before archeologists found beds of ivory – pieces of them, actually
– in the ruins of the capital city
of Samaria. I’ve been there, and there
isn’t much left. The nation got an “F”
in charity and an “F” in economic justice, and the consequence was not summer
school – it was obliteration by the Assyrian Army.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells a story about a rich man and Lazarus (not the same Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead). This takes Amos’ message to a personal, 1:1 level. The rich man had far, far more than he needed, and Lazarus was afflicted with a chronic, debilitating disease and chronic hunger. Even though Lazarus lived right outside his door, the rich man totally ignored him.
The rich man ignored the fact that charity and justice are both considered required courses for every human being by God. The rich man got an “F” in charity and an “F” in economic justice. The rich man, much to his surprise, ended up in Hell, while Lazarus was taken to Heaven and was comforted by Abraham. The rich man begged for the smallest morsel of comfort – more than he had ever given Lazarus – and then that his brothers be warned. Abraham said that if the brothers have ignored Moses and the prophets (see the first reading), “Neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” Rich man, you had your chance and blew it.
Our
Epistle by comparison is pretty low-key but also gives the same message: “As
for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or
to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly
provides everything for our enjoyment.
They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to
share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the
future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.”
So,
the message we hear is: ignoring charity and economic justice leads to divine
punishment in this world or in the next; embracing charity and economic justice
means discovering the secret to real life.
Clear
message. The only potentially confusing
thing about these Scriptures is how they all talk about “the rich.” If Gallup did a poll of Americans and asked,
“Do you think rich people should give more to charity than they do?”, I suspect
an overwhelming majority would say “yes.”
I also suspect that an overwhelming majority of people would also choose
to define “rich” as “anyone who has a lot more money than I do.” I suspect that definition would be popular
in Princeton and Bernardsville as well as in South Brunswick, North Brunswick
and Franklin.
So
let’s do our own survey. How many
people here have a home to go to, whatever it’s like, which won’t blow
away in a puff of wind, can be locked, has indoor plumbing with drinkable
water, a refrigerator with some food in it, and electricity? (Hands.) Guess what: each of us is richer than the vast majority of the world.
This
list is considered pretty basic to most Americans. It doesn’t include telephone service, TV or any kind or age of
car, never mind Internet service, all of which are fantasies for billions
of people.
Or,
let’s put it another way. Elda and I
have a dog named “Bart” (short for Bartolome de las casas). We spend an average of $3-4 a day on Bart,
when you add up and average out food, chew toys, leashes, treats, chew toys,
medications, chew toys, veterinarian care...did I mention chew toys? (That doesn’t count the “start up costs”
after we adopted him from the shelter.)
Three-four
dollars a day. Not much – certainly not
much when we consider all we get back from him.
There
are a couple of billion people on earth who, somehow, survive on less than $3-4
per day, less than what Bart manages.
And he gets regular medical care, with the assurance that if he needs
more he’ll get it. Those two billion
people have neither.
Somehow,
those people survive. Or not. I was born in the USA; if I had been born in
Haiti or Bangladesh or Ethiopia, I might not be having an inconceivably
harder life now: I might in fact not be alive at all, because lots of people in
those countries never make it to 52 years old.
So,
here’s the reality check for us all: by
world standards, we are all rich.
The economically poorest person in our parish family has abundance that
many people on earth cannot even imagine.
Now,
please understand that I’m preaching to myself today too, as I do every
week, as well as to everyone else. I,
like the rest of us, am caught up in a culture which eats, sleeps and breathes
materialism – the true functional religion of America – and which inundates us
with tens of thousands of ads urging us to spend more on ourselves. There even are TV shows which glorify
over-the-top self-indulgence, as though we aren’t really alive unless we’ve had
some kind of “extreme makeover.”
So
I’m not proposing that we all live on bread and water. I am postulating that, based on the
clear teaching of today’s and last weeks many other Scriptures, that Christians
are commanded to reject the worship of wealth and endless
self-indulgence. Or else.
The
downside risks for us of “blowing off” these commandments are pretty clear from
today’s Old Testament and Gospel readings.
But there is also the “upside opportunity” for us of embracing
generosity as a way of life as described in the Epistle: we “may take hold of
the life that really is life."
The
reality is that what needs an “extreme makeover” is not our hairstyles,
clothing or interior design but the
world. Let me put this in personal
terms. When I was four years old, I
went to Pre-school. When a certain
friend of Elda’s was four years old, she got up at 4 a.m. with the rest of her
family and walked for two hours to a field where the family picked coffee beans
all day, because that was what poor people like her in the Central American
country of Costa Rica did.
The
world needs an extreme makeover. God
has promised that it will get one. In
the Kingdom of God, life will not be like that for anyone. No one will die at 18 months old because of
where they were born, either. The
fullness of peace, safety, well-being, joy and love will abound for all who God
invites to live in this Kingdom.
Lazarus will be there; the rich man in the story won’t. Who else will be there?
So
the question is, do we want to be part of God’s team preparing for that
ultimate celebration? Are we going to
live while remembering that, indeed, “all things come of thee, O Lord” and that
therefore we should systematically give to God and all God’s family a share of
what God has entrusted to us?
People
can start simply. If you haven’t made
this a habit, or want to add to your discipline, here are some ideas. The equivalent of “Lazarus outside our front
gates” could be the people who come to the Food Banks right in this area. If everyone added one item for a Food Bank
to each grocery trip, it would mean those baskets in the Fellowship area would
get filled even more often, and “Lazarus” will be fed. The Women’s Shelter
needs new twin bed sheets and pillows.
These are examples of things we can do for those nearby.
But
if we claim to be part of God’s family, then we are part of all of God’s
family, not just of those within a radius of 10 miles of here. So here are some more samples of what we can
do. The Caribbean Island nation of
Grenada was devastated by Hurricane Ivan.
Over half of the country is
homeless. Two of our parishioners,
William Straughn and Pauline Devonish, who hail originally from Barbados, are
leading a drive for relief supplies. A
copy of the “wish list” went out on Thursday to the parish e-mail list, and
there are hard copies of the list available for those who need them. The people of Grenada are part of our
family, too.
Every
year, people from St. Barnabas participate in Church World Service’s CROP Walk
against world hunger. As the Caribbean
rebuilds from repeated natural disasters this year, the opportunity to
participate in making both short- and long-term solutions happen is here. The CROP Walk will be Sunday afternoon,
October 24; information is in your bulletin insert; see (me or) Tony Thompson
to sign up or to sponsor someone.
It
is crucial to offer people a hand up and not just a hand out. In addition to Church World Service, our
Diocese, supported by our pledge dollars through our companion relationship
with the Diocese of El Salvador in Central America is also doing
that. The housing program we are
involved in not only helps earthquake victims have places to live, but they can
hope for the first time to own homes.
This speaks to issues of economic justice that go beyond charity. In El Salvador, ownership of land is
concentrated in a small elite, leaving most people as tenants. Imagine most of a country as, in effect, a
Mobile Home Park – and one in which, if you improve your home, the landlord can
immediately jack up your rent by a considerable amount. Actually owning title to property
is a fantasy for most people. So the
church is working to buy land and acquire title so that people
can not only have decent homes but also own them. It’s a small effort, but it matters. And in neighboring Honduras the Episcopal
Church, USA has built a whole village, complete with medical clinic and church. These are just a handful of examples of what
can be done and is being done.
We
are part of a global team, working to make a difference as best as we can. Charity and economic justice are parts of
the curricula of our lives; by working together as Christians for both of these,
we can experience the joys of generosity, the thrill of giving thanks, the
pleasure of pleasing God.
(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard
St. Barnabas Episcopal Church