During the health care reform debate, the most important issue was not what we can do as Americans or even Christians to help benefit those who are sick and in need of health care. The most important matter is how can the health insurance companies keep their billion dollar profits, even if they manage to refuse health care to someone who is sick and it results in someone's death. Our nation is corrupt. What is the answer? How do we get to the answers?
The Bible readings for this weekend speak about God's awareness of those who are poor, oppressed and in need. The Old Testament offers two optional readings. The first is from Jeremiah 8:18-9:1.
- My joy is gone, grief is upon me,
- my heart is sick.
- Hark, the cry of my poor people
- from far and wide in the land:
- "Is the LORD not in Zion?
- Is her King not in her?"
- ("Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
- with their foreign idols?")
- "The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
- and we are not saved."
- For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
- I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
- Is there no balm in Gilead?
- Is there no physician there?
- Why then has the health of my poor people
- not been restored?
- O that my head were a spring of water,
- and my eyes a fountain of tears,
- so that I might weep day and night
- for the slain of my poor people!
Out in Scripture offers some reflection for us to consider.
These are vivid images: A city ruined. Birds plucking dinner from the bodies of God's people. Blood poured out like water around the holy city. No one left, even to bury the victims.
Left with no healing ointment, finding no physicians in the holy places, a mourner longs to weep: "O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears" (Jeremiah 9:1).
These images from Psalm 79 and the prophet Jeremiah grab our attention. They press Israel's misfortune before our eyes, calling us to stop and stare. The Bible does not glide by human suffering. Usually, it names suffering and sits with it, calling us to identify our own relationship to those who suffer. Sometimes our most important choice in biblical interpretation involves deciding who we are — where we are in the passage — and where we stand in relation to the text.Both psalmist and prophet mourn along with their people — God's people — the Israelites. Facing their society's devastation, the overthrow of its holy city, they call out for divine intervention. Prophet and psalmist identify themselves among the survivors, when survival itself hardly seems a grace. They stand within the people of Israel.
The questions they ask also express their identification with God's suffering people. Their questions challenge God who allows, perhaps causes, Jerusalem's devastation: "How long, O God? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?" (Psalm 79:5). "Is the God not in Zion?" (Jeremiah 8:19). "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?" (Jeremiah 8:22). These questions seem as prayers of accusation to an almost silent God.
The other option for the First Reading is Amos 8: 4-7
In Amos 8:4-7, another prophet sees things differently. A Judahite, Amos is preaching to the "other" people of Israel. Standing over against – not with – them, Amos employs other images. He poses other questions. Trampling the needy, corrupting weights and measures, purchasing the poor for silver and the needy for sandals, these images accuse not God but Israel's wealthy. When Amos voices the questions of the people, they do not challenge God, rather, they indict the wealthy. "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale?" (Amos 8:5). Amos identifies over against the people.
Do we join the voice of the psalmist and Jeremiah, standing alongside the victims of violence and oppression? Do we find ourselves with Amos, condemning the agents of oppression who — pursuing wealth and power — grind the bones of the poor to make their own bread? Or are we the wealthy who pursue privilege ignoring the suffering of others? When we proclaim the word of God for today, we must discern the images and questions most appropriate to the place in which we plant our feet.
As for images drawn from our lives today, options abound: A wounded soldier trying to build a new life or, conversely, an Iraqi with several empty beds in the home. A poor woman who takes her cancer to work every day, a cancer that would have been detected had she received health care. A lonesome college student, trying to find one person she can trust with who she truly is. Standing with these victims requires engaging the myriad ways in which we victimize one another. That's a daunting decision in its own right.
Luke 16:1-13
Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."
The Gospel reading sounds very confusing. Is Jesus condoning dishonesty as some might suggest? No, that is not what is here. What is being discussed is mismanaging all of the goods that were given to the manager, and how the manager took care of things while he still had the opportunity.
"Faced with expulsion, he knows he will get no recommendations for a similar job. He is not physically capable of day labor, and begging would be too humiliating. While there is time, he uses his position to make friends for the bleak future. He reduces the debt of each of his master's debtors (only the first two instances are described), hoping they will remember. It appears that the steward has played fast and loose with his master's property. The charge against him was not dishonesty, however, but wastefulness and mismanagement; and in his preparations for the future he may not have been dishonest either." (Jerome Kodell, O.S.B.,The Collegeville Bible Commentary, New Testament Volume, page 965).
Biblical literalism and the way it has been used to denigrate women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning people is an example of how Christians have misused the "wealth" that is knowledge. Wealth is not just money or materials. We can also have a wealth of knowledge, ability, and we can be selfish with it, or use it only for our advantage, while keeping truth from those whom it would benefit. Such is the case with ordained Priests and Bishops with in the Roman Church who have misled people into believing that children were safe, rather than admitting that the sickness of pedophilia that is within their very own walls. Such behaviors represent a mismanagement of spiritual and pastoral power.
Rather than use the gift of Reason to better understand the Scriptures and our historical Christian Tradition, many use it's misfortunes and misinformation to suppress immigrants, people of different races, nationalities, cultures and abilities. People who are LGBTQ are treated as individuals who are intrinsically disordered (Catechism of the Catholic Church, page 566). People who experience sexual orientations that are not heterosexual are suppose to "pray" or "cure the gay" through ex-gay ministries. The Christians Church has been charged as stewards of the truth of the Gospel that all individuals are created as good human beings by God, totally loved to the point of being redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, God's only Son. Every person is loved and sanctified by God the Holy Spirit as she moves in and through the hearts and lives of every human person. Is this not a good example of mismanaging the goods of the Gospel? Might not the Church have some serious penance to do and make right before God and all of humankind?
And for LGBTQ people who have been so richly blessed with the ability to love people of the same sex or be transgendered. We cannot live good and holy lives if we live them in hate of those who have and continue to oppress us. We will not find wholeness of life if we live with hate and anger with every person who harms us. We can and should approach God and ask the Holy Spirit to help us heal and forgive. We are not good stewards of God's gift of love when we live our sexuality promiscuously and carelessly. When we use individuals for our own personal pleasure with no concern for the common good of those we are sexually active with, we are mismanaging God's gift of human sexuality as lesbian, gay or bisexual people. Heterosexual people also have such a responsibility with their sexual partners. There are holy ways to manage our lives and there are ways we can be destructive. God's ways are always to be loving, holy and to engage in activity that is life-giving and preserves the dignity of every human person. Yes, people who are LGBTQ can live holy lives as we are, but that does not excuse us from holy and healthy responsibilities.
We are challenged in our Bible Readings today to be concerned about those less fortunate than ourselves. When we cast our votes this upcoming November 2nd. May we be most concerned that those who lead our country forward over the next several months and years, take to heart our concern for those who are struggling to get up off of ground 1. May we show corporations that people are more important, and that it is the welfare of all people that people and Government must serve. The Church must also be challenged and held accountable for seeing to the good of every human person, and that includes those who misuse their power to suggest that God's will just might encourage violence and cruelty. Christians should know better than that. We have every business challenging ourselves, our Government and the Church to do much better. For the sake of the Name of Jesus Christ, who's Name suffers when God's people are suppressed, we must challenge ourselves and our Government and the Church to do better.
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 20, Book of Common Prayer, page 234).
Holy One,
It is so easy to name the sufferings of life – my pain,
my neighbors' pain, the pain of the world.
Do you see our suffering? Do you feel our pain?
Help us to identify the suffering, to name the pain
and to turn towards you.
We ask you to do miracles – heal the pain and take away suffering,
And yet even if you don't, come to us.
Hear the world cry. Come to us.
Amen. (Prayerfully Out in Scripture).
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