Monday, September 27, 2010

Sermon for 9.26.10

Scriptures for this day are here: http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearC_RCL/Pentecost/CProp21_RCL.html

Jesus is breaking rules again. We have a rule in American society – we don’t talk about money. We will tell the most intimate details of our sex lives – but we won't talk about money. Jesus breaks that rule, and comes right out and talks about the most taboo subject – and all three lessons today are about money, so I couldn’t avoid talking about it if I tried.

So I decided to research what it means to be “rich.” You can go on a website called GlobalRichList.com – you can enter your income and see where you stand in relation to the rest of the world. The median household income in US for 2007 was $50,233 – so think of Mr. or Ms. Average American, someone who worries about the price of gas and whether he can send the kids to college, and what happens if the car’s transmission finally goes out. He makes $50,233 a year. So if you enter this as your income, you get the following information: “You are the 58,938,818th richest person in the world.” You don’t think that’s so hot, no one goes around shouting, “We’re number 58,938,818!” But the kicker comes if you look at the next line down, where it tells you what percentage that puts you in. If you make $50,233 a year, Mr. or Ms. Average American, that puts you in the top .98% - you are in the top 1% of the world’s income. And if being in the top 1% doesn’t qualify someone as rich, I don’t know what does.

In fact, even some poor people in the US are rich. The poverty line for a family of five in the US is $25,790, and if you make the US poverty line amount – you are still in the top 10% of people in the world – an incredible fact to me. Because there are plenty of people who struggle to make ends meet here – yet it’s all relative. A man in Haiti was quoted as saying, if you eat three meals a day – you are rich. Well, that’s a simple enough definition for us to go on.

So let’s take this information that the average US person is unimaginably rich to the average person in the world – half of world’s population lives on less than $2 per day (less than we would spend at Starbucks) – and ask what the scriptures have to say about it. And when you ask this question, you begin to think that maybe Halloween came a little bit early this year. Not that I’ve seen streets filled with miniature-sized Darth Vaders, fairy princesses, and teenage monsters lugging pillowcases full of Snickers. This early Halloween is way scarier than that. Because if you can read today’s scriptures from the standpoint of someone who is probably in the top 10% at least of the world’s income, and not be scared, you’re a lot braver than I am, and you can escort me into any dark alleys I need to go into. Someone once said, "It's not what I don't understand about the Bible that bothers me. It's what I do understand!" Yep, that’s the problem, all right.

I tried to talk myself out of being frightened by today’s scriptures. From the prophet Amos: Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory – hey, no problem – I don’t have any ivory in my house. Alas for those who eat lambs from the flock and calves from the stall – not to worry, I get my lamb and beef from the grocery store. Alas for those who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp – naah – I listen to them on my iPod (in my air-conditioned car, on my way to eat in restaurants and watch movies). Alas for those who drink wine from bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils – well, you get the picture. The technology has changed, but we have access to all these things – leisure time, plenty to eat and drink, entertainment to enjoy. And Amos says: if you have all these things, and are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph – alas to you.

If we can enjoy the good things of life, and not be grieved for those who can’t, we will be the first to go into exile, says Amos. A kind of exile that is brought to graphic life in our parable from Luke today, with its vivid description of the flames of Hades, which are the fate of a rich man who looks up from his torment to see the poor wretch he stepped over every day as he went into and out of his house, up in Heaven, and begs for mercy – but it’s too late for mercy.

Now Jesus isn’t telling us this story as description of what heaven and hell will be like – his point is about this life (God has heaven under control). What Jesus wants us to focus on is how we live right here, and how our use of possessions helps us or hinders us from loving God and loving our neighbors. Jesus spends a lot of time talking about this. Last week we heard him say “you can’t serve God and wealth” – we can’t serve two masters, it’s one or the other, and we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can compartmentalize our life into spheres – this hour on Sunday for God, the rest of our lives for everything else.

No, says Jesus, it all belongs to God already – we are just stewards, caretakers of the many blessings God has given us. Everything we do reflects how we feel about God – every interaction with another human, every hour we pass on this earth, every dollar we spend. I serve on the board of TENS, The Episcopal Network for Stewardship, and we have a very simple definition of stewardship: stewardship is everything I do after I say I believe.

We can wish that Jesus would concentrate on more “spiritual” matters like prayer and healing, miracles and heaven. But the fact is, Jesus talked more about our use of money than any other subject except the kingdom of God – in fact, today’s scriptures show that our use of money is intimately related to our place in the kingdom of God.

Now I want to be clear: this is not a stewardship sermon, not if you think stewardship is a euphemism for the church asking for money. Churches do need money do accomplish God’s mission, and that’s part of what God asks us to use his gifts for, but that’s not what I’m doing here. This is about something absolutely vital to our spiritual well-being, and I would be irresponsible as your pastor if I didn’t talk about this. Stewardship is not about what we do for the church, or about what we do for others – stewardship is about what we do for ourselves.

Our lesson from 1 Timothy makes it clear – having money or wanting money can put us into grave spiritual danger: “Those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith & pierced themselves with many pains.”

It’s not the mere possession of money that is the problem, and you don’t have to be rich to have the problem of loving and wanting money too much – it’s what the love of money and the desire for money does to us spiritually. And we don’t even know it’s happening – we are unaware of what it’s doing to us. Clement of Alexandria, a 2nd century theologian, compared wealth to the danger of handling a poisonous snake, "which will twist round the hand and bite, unless one knows how to lay hold of it without danger by the point of the tail. And riches, wriggling either in an experienced or inexperienced grasp, are dexterous at adhering and biting; unless one, despising them, use them skillfully, so as to crush the creature, and escape unscathed."

I think it would not be an exaggeration to say that for many 21st century Americans, our use of money and possessions is the single most significant spiritual issue we will face in our lives. Not prayer, not church attendance, not for God’s sake, sexuality, but the practical, everyday, mundane, extremely personal question of how we use money.

So what is it that brought the rich man to this dreadful state? Look at parable: Lazarus lies at his gate; the rich man doesn’t give him even scraps from his table. Every single day this rich man goes out through his gate to visit his friends and transact his business in the town, steps over Lazarus on his way out and his way in, notes the crowd of friendly dogs trying to help Lazarus feel better, and does nothing.

It’s not the simple fact of being rich that condemns the rich man, it’s the fact that he does nothing to help this bleeding, starving man at his gate. He sees Lazarus every day, yet he doesn’t see him at all – not as a person for whom God gave him responsibility – Stewardship responsibility. The chasm between the rich man and Lazarus was fixed long before they died. That chasm was put there by the rich man, whose years of habit failed to let him see Lazarus as a human being, a brother, someone deserving of mercy and grace. And once they both died, that chasm remained right where the rich man had put it.

Once we are in habit of creating chasms between ourselves & our brothers and sisters by ignoring their claims on us, those chasms become hardened by years and years of practice, worn down to the bedrock of our souls, permanently fixed in our spirits. So that when we stand before God, we cannot remove them even if we try. For the rich man, his habits of mind have prevailed, the chasm cannot be crossed. His story is over.

The good news is, for you and I, story is not over. There is still time to cross that chasm. Because we are not the rich man in this parable, and we are not Lazarus. We are the five brothers, the ones still here on earth, the ones who can listen to what God has to say. We have Moses and the prophets to listen to, we have the words and witness of the church, we even have someone who has risen from the dead to tell us. All we have to do is listen.

There are two suffering people in this story. The suffering of Lazarus is easier to fix: for the hungry man, you bring him food. For the woman with no clean water, you bring her drink. For the children with no prospects in life, you give them education. For family with no livelihood, you give them work and a home.

But the rich man is suffering too. And so for the one who is suffering from the love of money, you set him free. The one who is clinging to wealth as his savior, you give him opportunities to share that wealth and turn his salvation over to God who has the power to give it.

Our story is not over, and the story of God is not over. For us, it’s not too late. God can open our eyes to see the needs of this world around us, so that we can begin living in the kingdom of God right now.

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