Proper 20C
Jeremiah 8: 18 – 9:1, Psalm 79: 1 – 9, 1 Timothy 2: 1 - 7, Luke 16: 1 - 13
The Rev. Linda Campbell
Talking about Money and God
So offensive is this parable that St. Augustine is quoted as having said he didn’t believe this could have ever come from the lips of our Lord.
Gil Bailie, a favorite commentator on Luke’s gospel, mostly walks right around Luke 16.
The truth is Luke has Jesus talk about money more than anything else. Far more than sex. While the church may be caught up in the politics of sex, Luke’s Jesus is talking about the far more dangerous subject of money – or mammon – as the old translations say. Jesus says a whole lot, in this Gospel, about our relationship to money and our relationship to God. And what he says appears contradictory. Give it all away.
Don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing when you give it away. On the other hand, use it to gain friends and a softer landing when you get the pink slip. Hmmmm…….
Balance perhaps. Maybe it turns out that Jesus didn’t think or teach in terms of black and white. Maybe Jesus was tuned in to the realities of the complexities of life, of the realities of survival in a world that doesn’t look after the welfare of those on the edges. Maybe Jesus wasn’t pure idealist, but was also imminently practical.
So practical in fact, that he taught his friends to look towards the very long view. The verrrry looooong view. Not just the twenty years of retirement – and socking away as much as possible to make those retirement years livable – but the eternal years of eternity with God. Should we invest and save for retirement? For those twenty or thirty years when we are not working? Yes. But Jesus is even more practical than that. He’s got the very long view in mind – and from that perspective, he is adamant about investing in the future, now. While we can. *
How do we invest in the future, in our future, in the future God wants for us? The scriptures don’t tell us exactly what to do. It is impossible really to answer with any certainty that modern day question – what would Jesus do? However, because the Universe has a certain bent, a certain grain, a certain arc, the scriptures do help us learn how to make decisions that help us align ourselves with the same bent, the same arc. We can learn to go with the grain of the Universe rather than go against the grain. Jesus lived in that bent, flowed with the grain of the Universe. God’s life that flowed in and through Jesus followed a certain arc. The scriptures don’t tell us exactly what to do. But walking close to Jesus is one of the very best ways to learn how to look at the various options before us and choose the ways that most closely align us with this arc and bent of the Universe, and
So how do we invest in a future that is going with the grain of the Universe rather than against the grain? In other words, how do we put ourselves in the same stream of goodness and abundance and creativity that is characteristic of Creation?
Let me ask you something. If I asked Miriam and Rebecca and Noah and Liliana and Fred and John and Dorothy and Olivia up here and had them jump up and down and say “I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry,” at the top of their lungs, what would your response be? I think it would probably be pretty immediate. Elizabeth and Leslie would run down to Safeway. Elise and Jeff would be up in the kitchen. Diane and Bobbi would put their arms around them and make sure they knew they would be taken care of. And before you know it, we would have fed the children and the others who were hungry. Of course, these are our friends and fellow parishioners. It would be easy to feed them if they came to church that hungry. And they are of a limited number. It would also be fairly practical and within our financial reach to feed them breakfast.
God says look around. ALL the people around you are my children. ALL the people around the world are my children. And a whole lot of them are very hungry. And you are full.
Addressing hunger in some practical way is to go with the grain of the universe. Likewise, addressing lack of shelter is to go with the grain of the universe. Or lack of clean water. Or lack of medical care. Or lack of friendship. Understanding the laws of abundance – that money is meant to flow, that debt is meant to be forgiven, that sins and trespasses are not to be held tightly to one’s heart where they fester and turn into a hotbed of bitterness. Sins and trespasses are meant to be forgiven, to be let go and turned over to God. Resources, any kind of resource, are meant to be circulated, not hoarded.
It was wonderful yesterday to see how resources circulated in the rummage sale. Many of us left with what others of us brought! Many people throughout the community came through these doors and went home thoroughly pleased with their $8 microwave and their $2 Wedgwood china cup to drink tea in. Circulating resources rather than hoarding them means that everyone benefits. St. Alban’s benefited by over $4,000.
The question is – what for? So you can have a safe, comfy place to worship? Or so you can truly invest in God’s future, the future that God has in mind for this community? My conviction is that the future God has in mind for this community is far more audacious, far larger and more out on the edge than quietly admiring the beautiful stained glass windows and the wonders of Rite 1 and Rite 2, and how the candles are lit or not lit on the altar.
In the New York Times this morning, there is an article on a church in Georgia that was dying. Finally, they began to look around and understand the signs of the times – the signals God was sending their way. Their community had changed. It was now home to many immigrants from all over Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. This is a Southern Baptism congregation in the deep south. At a church meeting, one elder stood up and said that if they thought these people were going to be welcomed into this church, they had another thing coming. Well, I would say that this man wasn’t very well invested in his loooong term future. The future with God. Looking at the scriptures, at how Jesus lived, gave this congregation the direction they needed for investing their dwindling resources. Newly named the International church, they opened their doors and welcomed in their neighbors. They compromised in many ways. The music changed. The preaching changed. The food changed – although apparently this was the easiest and most welcome change – since everybody liked everybody else’s food! In the last few years, they have easily tripled in size – but even more, they reflect what heaven actually looks like – as Anglos and Nigerians and Sudanese and Ecuadorians and many others of all ages, worship God together, while also making room for various ethnicities to have their own worship services in their own languages.
In terms of the future, I don’t know what God has in mind for St. Alban’s. What I do know is that St. Alban’s has a gift for food, for welcome, for friendship. What I do know is that there are a lot of people hungry. Hungry for food. Hungry for welcome. Hungry for friendship. Hungry for God.
Resources:
Diane Bergant, “Money, Money, Money,” America, The National Catholic Weekly, September 13, 2004
Dr. William Long, “A Different Kind of Friendship” http://www.drbilllong.com/LectionaryIII/Lk16.html
*The Rev. Edward F. Markquart, “Money and Wise Investments for the Future,” Grace Lutheran Church, Seattle, Washington.
The New York Times, Sunday, September 23, 2007
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