Okay, I've been thinking about the "final" post in the One Thing You Lack series, and finding myself caught in an uncomfortable place. Do I believe what I said? Yep. Am I afraid it's going to be misinterpreted? Yep.

It's the next series of posts, a kind of miniature exploration of "what being a Christian might mean," that is supposed to more sharply define what I may or may not mean by my closing comments in the series. I'm impatient. I want to sharply define right away. But there isn't a way to do so. The issues of personal faith, of what certain ideals mean and how they are implemented into our lives, of trying to view Jesus in the present day, are not trivial. So for now I'll just say that in terms of our riches, I'm satisfied with the content of the posts, but I'm worried people will take them wrong, and in taking them wrong, miss a useful point.

The first area I think people might take wrong is that I'm saying, "Hey, if you stay rich, you go to Hell." This is not what I'm saying; the simple reason being that I don't think of Christianity in terms of going to Heaven or Hell as being the main point of Christian living. Personally I think that if I live my life ordered around my personal eternal reward, I'm being selfish about the whole thing, which in the overall scheme makes no sense at all. My job as a Christian isn't to win myself a place in Heaven. My job as a Christian is to love God and love others, and let the eternal chips fall as they may. I realize that to some people this is a completely wacked way of looking at things, but there is an idea that simply resonates too much with me to ignore, and it is that God calls me to love him and to love other people; not to worry about what he's going to do with me now or later. It's a bigger version, I suppose, of Mother Teresa's view that God didn't call her to be successful; God called her to be faithful. I don't think the Bible is about living life in such-and-such a way because God is going to punish you or reward you. I don't think the Bible is about play nice and you get candy, play mean and you get a lump of coal because God is really into the whole reward/punishment scene. Rather, I think this is a child's way of looking at things, and we adults who profess Christianity need to be a bit more mature in our theology. I think the Bible is about playing according to the way Creation is in the being of God.

It's not that I'm saying, "God says live this way, so I do." Honestly, I'm not a good enough, nice enough, obedient enough person to do that. The context is elaborate, but to me the meaning of Jesus' life and death, as God incarnate if you will, is that there is a way that creation is, in the heart of God, and that's the way to live if you want to be in relationship with God. This is why we are supposed to become something new, and it in turn determines what we do. So if, for example, the Bible says God has no relationship with the proud, it isn't that a person is proud and God says, "Blah! I reject you! To Hell with you!" No, it's just that the way life works is, if you're proud, God can't relate with you; the phone is unplugged on your end. The difference in views is significant. In the first, God sits on a throne and deals out heart-candies or swats, rather enjoying both. In the latter, God offers relationship with himself, and you come to it or you don't. The difference is that God in the first place is a totalitarian who becomes angry when you disobey, while in the second place God is a patient and loving figure who waits hopefully for his children. As for me, I pick the latter view. Personally, I wouldn't much want the other God; it wouldn't be a god big enough to love me.

So. Be that tiny summary as it may, I say it for this reason: Don't think that when I say we rich have rejected the Way of Jesus that I'm saying we're going to Hell. Maybe this interpretation is why people get so defensive and aversive when I mention it, but it isn't at all what I'm saying. But what I am saying is, yes, I think that if we get rich, and if we stay rich while helping not those who are suffering, we're rejecting a large part of what Jesus taught. And in rejecting that, we're rejecting the way the world really is, and accordingly the way we are supposed to live, in the heart of God. So what I'm saying is, those of us who are rich need to take a dose of humility, and understand we have some growing up to do. We aren't rich so we can have fun kicking back and playing with our toys. Life isn't for each of us to suck up as much fun, entertainment and excitement as we can while we rest complacency in something called "eternal salvation."

As for the point I'm afraid people will miss by misinterpreting what I said in the previous post? Well, it's something like this: There are plenty of us who think Christianity is about being richly blessed with money and goods and having a grand old happy time with good, clean, "moral" fun ("Let's take our church buddies out on the boat this weekend! We'll share the Lord's Supper on the lake!"). What I'm saying is that if we are having so much good, clean fun while we're doing precious little to help those who are suffering—then maybe we are practicing immorality in a far larger sense of the word than we ever choose to consider.

Well, I've been saving this particular subtopic to be the last post in this current series. It is a segue into other issues in Christian religion and Christian faith, and I want to talk about one or more of those issues, too. So this post is a bit of a transition into other topics and will therefore have the beginnings of other things mixed in with it.

One of the more intriguing scriptures in the "our wealth" area concerns what we often refer to as "Jesus and the rich young man," a biblical passage which goes like this:

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." (Mark 10:17-27, NRSV)

The first thing I'll note about this passage, just to clear a point out of the way, is that I've heard it said that when Jesus refers to the camel and the needle, what he was referring to was a particular gate or rock formation which required a camel to crawl through on its knees. The theory goes that it was very difficult, though not uncommon, for camel drivers to coax their camels through in just such a fashion. Maybe. I consulted Dr. Ben Witherington's socio-rhetorical commentary on Mark with respect to this passage, and according to Witherington, there is no known factual basis for this. He says that some manuscripts record this as "a rope through the eye of a needle," supporting the idea that Jesus was referring to an impossibility. Witherington, whom I respect and whose scholarship I have never had cause to doubt, takes this passage to mean that in terms of a rich man trying to get into the kingdom on his own, it is absolutely impossible. With God, however, it is possible.

No disrespect, then, to Dr. Witherington, but I would like to pick it up from here, because it is precisely this latter possibility to which rich Christians cling, and I want to raise some points; points which deal directly with the topic at hand, but also lead inevitably to far more broad-sweeping issues in Christianity. To get things started, I want to also refer to another scholar whose work I respect; Alfred Nolan. At least, I'm pretty sure it was Alfred Nolan, in Jesus Before Christianity, who wrote of this passage and summarized it in the following way: when Jesus says it is impossible with men but possible with God, what he is saying is that it takes a miracle for a rich man to enter the kingdom. And, adds Nolan, the miracle is not getting the rich man into the kingdom with his riches. The miracle is in getting the man to give up his riches so that he can enter. At the very least, Nolan's view should make us stop and think for a long while. More on this in a few moments.

I began this series of posts by talking about aversions and excuses, and the reactions of rich Christians to this particular passage has long intrigued me. Not only are we more than willing to presume that God will get us into the kingdom with our riches rather than God will get us to leave our riches, but we are so willing to accept this that the second alternative never fully occurs to us, and our response to Jesus' words spoken to the rich young man are even more intriguing. What I have heard said every time this passage is encountered in a group discussion, every time, is, "Yes, but look at the text. Jesus tells the man 'you lack one thing.' He's saying it to that man, not to us. That's what he lacked. You and I each lack our own thing." Maybe. Maybe so. Certainly Witherington agrees with this take, and I'm nowhere in the same league, not even close, to his scholarship. But yet what if—what if the lesson from the passage is that it really does apply to the rest of us? What if it's simply too convenient for us to explain it away the way we do? What if we don't see it, simply because we don't want to see it? What if Nolan is right?

I don't know, but here's what gets me about our standard reply. Just suppose—to pick the most provocative example I can—Jesus had said, "You lack one thing; stop having sex with that man you live with. Then follow me." If this were the case, I would venture to guess that a good many Christians would, rather than consider this to be an individual command to a single human being, use it as an additional passage in their personal sets of proof texts condemning homosexuality. Naturally, if challenged on the point, they would say that they "know" it is not an individual command directed at that one person, because they consider it to fit into an overarching theme against homosexual behavior throughout the corpus of scripture. Of course, I could say in a parallel fashion that the command (suggestion?) to go sell everything and give to the poor is also part of the overarching, interlinked themes of social justice, compassion, mercy and the like; and so therefore I "know" it isn't a command for one specific individual. Conversely, a homosexual Christian might say that the command (suggestion?) was, indeed, individual to the man, since he or she "knows" that there is no anti-homosexual arch in the biblical corpus. So. Beyond illustrating the ubiquitous condition that we all interpret scripture pretty much however it suits—which is to say, personally benefits— us, what's the point?

One point is that in the pews, interpreting scripture is (news flash!) pretty much done in just such a way; we interpret scripture according to our own frames of reference. We all do this, and I am certainly no exception. I would probably go so far as to say that, whether we like it or not, the translations of Bibles we buy off a shelf or order from Amazon are also interpretations; much more sophisticated and more scholarly, but still interpretations. (This is one of the big areas of hermeneutics, right? What's the line between translation and interpretation?) And I think that for those of us in the pews, the interpretations aren't based upon a wide enough base. We need to be better educated, more exposed to variety of ideas and considerations, and the like. And we need to ask ourselves more basic, more fundamental questions. In particular in terms of these posts, I'm toying with questions in Christian life that are not addressed very far very often, such as, is it possible that there is a difference between "following" Jesus versus "being a disciple" of Jesus versus "being a Christian," between "the kingdom of Heaven" versus "Heaven per se," and between whatever concepts we can throw into the mix? Do you have to follow Jesus to be a Christian, or not? Is the kingdom of Heaven the same as the Heaven up in the sky that little kids dream of? What does it mean to be a Christian, and why are we, each of us, a Christian? Are we in it for ourselves, for others, for God? I bring these to the forefront today in the light of this passage, wondering if some of these broader issues do anything to help answer others.

To begin with as an introduction, as far as "following Jesus," and "being a disciple," I can't delineate any large difference between the two. A follower is a disciple and a disciple follows. The real question is, to what extent does one follow? I'm beginning to think that Jesus seriously meant that anybody who wanted to follow him fully while he was alive absolutely had to give up everything else. The twelve had left everything, including leaving their families (so much for twenty-first century "family values"). So these disciples were the ones who followed Jesus, as opposed to being people who went to witness him speak, heal, or otherwise teach and practice his ministry. I realize that some scholars would say Jesus had hundreds of disciples who followed him (physically or ethically) to varying degrees, and I suppose it's reasonable to say so. It seems reasonable to me, for example, that in a certain sense Martha (the sister of (yet another) Mary) was indeed a disciple of some sort. But to me, the overall language of Jesus seems to indicate that to be a disciple meant to follow, which meant to leave everything; including one's home, possessions and family. The fancy sounding way of defending this view is that Jesus' ministry was one of orthopraxis; the practice was in the teaching and the teaching was in the practice. The more down to earth view is simply that to grasp what Jesus was trying to teach and accomplish, you had to live with him in his itinerancy. This is all just my opinion, but I can't see that a person could really be a devoted disciple during Jesus' ministry without giving up everything as Jesus had. It was necessary to do so in order to understand what was being done by Jesus, and I doubt that in antiquity this was a surprising state of affairs as far as teacher/student relationships went.

Of course Jesus is no longer here to physically walk the earth, so where does the preceding point leave us today? I think it depends upon how the individual decides to answer it for her or his self. One way I might try to answer this, and in fact often do try, is to make a reasoned guess at where Jesus would be specifically, doing what specifically, if he inhabited my region generally. But this is a pretty dubious approach to take, and gets to why I've never been a fan of "What Would Jesus Do?" The question is one a Christian must ask from time to time, and as a friend of mine says, at the very least it's a bit of an interrupt we can generate in our thought processes, to keep us from running blindly off kilter in the middle of a situation. I can respect this, but then again what troubles me is the fact that if I have to ask, it means I don't know, and if I don't know, how can I answer correctly? Such a question simply traces directly back to my being an existentialist, I know. But of course, being one, to me the question seems as legitimate as it does unavoidable.

For the sake of brevity, at this point it seems to me the jump to make is to start talking about the kingdom of Heaven (or kingdom of God, if you prefer). There's been significant thought over the past decade or two in the discussions of the kingdom. Well, I would say you could go back to Schwietzer, who grasped that the kingdom is within us, for a good start. But, the basic idea is that Jesus spoke a great deal about the kingdom. It was one of the things he talked about most often; maybe the one thing he talked about most often. He said the kingdom belongs to children and to the destitute. He said the kingdom is amongst (or within) us. Some of the recent scholarly views of the kingdom term the kingdom as the "reign and rule of God." (I suggest Stephen J. Patterson's work on the kingdom for a really good, readable, concise presentation of the subject.) What I tend to do, in a landscape that fills most of my little brain, is to view the kingdom of Heaven as the way the world is. By this I mean the way the world is in its underlying reality. This is necessarily the way the world functions, by what means and rules if you will, in the being of God. So the kingdom of heaven is the state of being of the world as it is in God, as opposed to the state of being of the world as you and I tend to perceive, view, weigh and measure it in human terms—and the the two are radically, radically different. It's a very long story, but the part which applies here is that—in my opinion—when the New Testament writers refer to "entering into the kingdom," they are talking about entering a state of being wherein we perceive and act in this world according to the way it is in God's being, as opposed to Man's. Entering the kingdom is not talking about going to a place called Heaven; it's about existing in a different state of being. So what does this have to do with "What Would Jesus Do," and what are we supposed to do without him here to tell us face to face?

Well, I think that in Jesus' orthopraxis he was trying to help people into the kingdom. He was trying to bring people into a different state of being. I'm not talking just physical, like giving up wealth, but more so I am talking about our whole—well—being. How we see, how we think, how we feel. How we reason, how we intuit, how we conclude. I think Jesus was really trying to call us, to show us, to invite us into, living according to the way the world is. A world of loving compassion and mercy. A world where worldly power does not matter. A world that you cannot see, cannot comprehend, cannot enter, if you are concerned about the things of the opposing kingdom: the kingdom of Man. And so the idea would be that if you are in the kingdom, you no longer need to ask what Jesus would do; you instinctively know; it's who and what you are. How you are supposed to live becomes intuitive. And so when Jesus said narrow is the gate, narrow is the way that leads into the kingdom and few people find it, he didn't mean few "go to Heaven." He meant very few enter the kingdom. Very few reach that state of being.

So. Where does this leave the discussion? I think we need to come full circle in this post, back to the possible and impossible. Being rich by the standards of Man's kingdom, that is being wealthy and having a bunch of assets racked up on a bank report, says something. Or, at the very least, it implies the very real likelihood of something: that you are in a state of being other than the kingdom of heaven. And, as long as you perceive the world and life in terms of the priorities associated with Man's kingdom, you cannot make the state-change to the kingdom of Heaven. Here's an analogy that just popped into my mind. I haven't vetted it, but let's look at it this way for now. Let's suppose that violence and peace are states of being within a person. If Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a violent man to be a peaceful man. With man this is impossible. With God it is possible." This example is easier to analyze, if only because we aren't biased toward a particular interpretation. A man cannot be violent in his soul and peaceful in his soul, and this is the point. You're violent, or you're peaceful. To be the latter, you have to stop being the former. Would we really read this and think that the point is that God is going to figure out some way for this man to be both, or would we take this to mean that God will change the man, so that he is no longer violent? I think we'd conclude the latter. In this way, I tend to agree with Nolan: the miracle of God is to get the rich to become poor; not to bring the rich to the kingdom of Heaven and allow them to keep their riches.

The point is not the riches per se, and I think this is where the nugget of truth comes into play when people say, "It's not what I own, but what my priorities are." It is not the things in my house or driveway, nor my house for that matter, that keep me from the kingdom. True enough. But, it is extremely important to understand that they are the symptoms which indicate that something is keeping me from the kingdom. The very act of accumulating wealth indicates that there is something awry in my interior being; something that is contrary to the kingdom. For if I was in the kingdom, as fully as Jesus was, I would never have taken the time, never had the inclination, never spent the resources, to acquire what I have. I would have been doing something else with my time, my money, my mental energy; namely, helping those who are suffering. Jesus' point is, I think, it is impossible for the person who is rich to enter the kingdom. Not because he is rich per se, but because the kind of person who worked to become rich, and/or to remain rich, willfully inhabits the kingdom of man. Just as violence indicates a lack of peace, being embedded in Man's kingdom indicates I am not embedded in Heaven's kingdom. It's not complicated. It's important, yes, but not complicated. If you're rich, you're not in the kingdom. The only way you'll get into the kingdom is to become poor. And you don't want to do that, do you? And the very fact that you don't want to do it, that you don't even think you have to do it, that you argue against the necessity of it, proves its impossibility. Unless God breaks you, brings you to humility, places you somewhere that you can see, it won't happen. You are a camel, and you cannot pass through the eye of a needle. Not until you become something other than a camel. If I had to summarize succinctly: It isn't that the Way of Jesus has rejected the rich; it is that the rich have rejected the Way of Jesus.

With respect to my thoughts, feelings and opinions on the matter, this seems like the most on-target conclusion I can make to this series of posts on our aversions and excuses when it comes to our wealth.

Moving along to future posts, this discussion, to my mind, points out the need to ask ourselves, hopefully for the umpteenth time, some very basic questions. What does it mean, to each of us, when we say, "I am a Christian," and, "Having claimed to be a Christian, why do I choose to be a Christian?" These questions are inextricably linked to the discussion at hand, and the range of answers I can offer are inextricably linked to why I am talking about wealth and poverty, and what I am and am not claiming about religion and faith in this present series of posts.

School is approaching again, so I don't know how far I'll get, but next on the agenda are a few posts on these latest questions, hopefully with a tie-in to the present series I now finish. We'll see.

For this part of the series, just a few things to consider before I start drawing to a close in a future post.

And Jesus said:

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.' But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.' He said, 'Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house—for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.' Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.' He said, 'No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' (Luke 16:19-31, NRSV)

Is it significant, or not, that the only distinction Jesus makes here between the fellow in torment and the man in paradise after death is that the first was rich and well fed, and did little to help the second, who was poor? Does it mean something that Jesus points out nothing, nothing about what we today would call "morality" in the life of either man? That the only thing Jesus mentions is wealth and luxury versus poverty and suffering?

We like to talk about Sodom with respect to God's unhappiness toward its inhabitants. Typically, we refer to Sodom in regard to perverse sexual practices. But, how often do we talk about the bottom line, the root of the problem, as Ezekiel saw it:

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it. (Ezekiel 16:49-50, NRSV)

The root of Sodom's sin, the source of its culpability, was being rich, and proud, and not helping the poor. I like another English translation, which uses the word "complacent" to describe Sodom. It's interesting to me that many of us dress in our fine clothes, sitting in our padded pews on Sunday mornings, with our luxury cars and SUVs sitting in the parking lot, wondering what restaurant we'll attend for lunch, while speaking of the evils and impending doom of those who practice "sodomy."

And what are we told about Zacchaeus, about what and where he was before salvation, and after? Not much. Only the important parts, perhaps?

A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost." (Luke 19:2-10, NRSV)

How about James 2:1-5 (NRSV); who has God chosen to be heirs of his kingdom?

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Have a seat here, please," while to the one who is poor you say, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet," have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

It's a bit more radical in the beatitudes. Note how this relates to Jesus' teaching about Lazarus, as noted previously:

And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

In James 1:27, just before the quote noted above:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Although there are many, many other passages along this vein, for example the many passages in the prophets which speak of social justice, and I think they form an overarching theme in the Bible, I'm aware that arches can be built and cited for or against most anything. Given a book of the Bible's breadth in time and subject matter, this is almost unavoidable. In this regard, I'm not a big fan of lists like the foregoing—although obviously I'm not above using them. I tend to think that sometimes other things are more powerful, and so instead I'll leave with the following point.

Jesus, as God incarnate, was born to a very young (let's say, thirteen-ish to fifteen-ish), unwed, poor girl who was refused room and bed at a common inn, even though she was with child and about to give birth. The Son of God was from a no-good, disrespected village named Nazareth, and born in a manger where—I presume— the animals stained the hay with their urine. What, exactly, is this story to mean to us about the nature of God and Man, and with which of the latter the former most identifies? In other words, to whom did the Lord God come first and foremost?

This one, it seems to me, is undeniably central, clear and to the point.

Back to the series on dealing with common aversions and excuses regarding our wealth, the next one is based in the following of Jesus' parables:

For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, 'Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.' His master said to him, 'Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, 'Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.' His master said to him, 'Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master replied, 'You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. (Matthew 25:14-29, NRSV)

I find it interesting that it just so happens that the English word for a certain amount of money (actually a weight of metal) is "talent." It's not uncommon for Christians to simply use this passage as a reference to natural abilities (talents; get it?) like leadership, working with one's hands, etc., and not use it to refer to money. On the one hand this is an unsophisticated association of the coincidental word "talent." On the other hand, some Christians use this passage as one which actually is speaking about money, and here is the irony because in my opinion the parable is indeed metaphorical, speaking not of money necessarily, but all sorts of things including… well, talents. I tend to think that Jesus' point here is that no matter what we have that has been granted to us, we are to use it to bring forth some sort of increase on behalf of the Grantor. We are supposed to be serious, wise, and diligent in making something more out of whatever we have been given. Certainly we aren't to waste what we have been given. We aren't even supposed to protect it with no hope of increase. We're supposed to nourish it in some way; even risk it with a calculated chance of gain for the sake of God. There is an implication of willful responsibility being exercised. The buzzword often assigned to this is stewardship, and there's certainly nothing wrong with the word or the concept it signifies. Take care of what God gives you, utilize it wisely, and do so in a way that God has more from your labor than when he started with you. This is pretty much axiomatic, I tend to think, and it is a lesson we should take to heart.

The other day a reader of this blog sent me an email that went something like this:

[For a good many years I worked off and on with an anthropologist who worked with us in staff training activities to help overcome some of the cultural barriers we faced in working with Indian communities. Her contention was that folks will usually part with money before they will give of their time. Also that most of us are pretty selfish when it comes to giving of our time. Guess I wonder how this fits into the total giving equation. Visiting the sick, sitting with the dying, or comforting the grieving is not a highly visible act, or at least I don't think it should be, but it can take a part of the soul, if that terminology works. It also means the giver probably has other uses for the time. I know money is always welcome and hopefully put to good use but on a general societal basis money may not be what is needed . Maybe just a bucket of chicken. A large tin of coffee at a wake, or a tender touch and a kind word is worth more.]

These of course are good points. I'll probably return to them toward the conclusion of this series of posts, but for the moment point out that we can and should be using whatever it is that we each, uniquely, have been given. Maybe it's money. Maybe it's time. Maybe it's an ability. Maybe it's a personality trait (or even a quirk) that is useful in helping other people. Maybe it's simply being another human being in the right place at the right time. Making our very selves available to others is a use of the life we have been given. Don't sit on your butt watching television, when there are people who could use your help dealing with a problem. Certainly all of these fit, and fit very importantly, into the idea of this parable. Everything I have in this very moment is in my possession for the purpose of furthering God's kingdom. I mustn't waste it. I mustn't let it lay dormant. I must use it, even if using it puts it at risk.

And this is really the point I've been hovering around in these posts; that what we have, including but not limited to our money, is in our hands so that it may be used for the kingdom (I plan to speak more about "the kingdom" when I close this series), not for ourselves. But, it is far too easy and far too common for us to take the idea of stewardship and use it to justify the way we protect what we have so that it will remain ours. Being a good steward comes to mean that we polish our fishing boat once a month and protect it from the elements. Being a good steward comes to mean watching my investment portfolio so I'm sure to have more money for myself in ten years than I have now. And from the outside looking in, if we have done little for the kingdom, what have we really done but protect ourselves by placing all of our resources under a rock?

To the point of aversions and excuses, I'll say it briefly and simply. Being a good steward is a poor excuse for spending a Saturday polishing a boat and buying a new cover to protect it from the elements; being a good steward is more about what we could have done instead of buying a new toy and taking care of it. Being a good steward is a poor excuse for investing money so that it will bring more wealth and luxury to ourselves; being a good steward is more about who we could have helped with that money yesterday. Being a good steward is a poor excuse for keeping resources for myself while I think, "that family over there is suffering because they're irresponsible, so I'm not giving them something they would already have for themselves if they were good stewards like I am." Being a good steward is about figuring out how to relieve their situation using whatever I've been given. This is the kingdom view, which is almost certainly the view Jesus intended by his parable.

"Being a good steward" is about bringing forth increases in the kingdom, not about protecting our own wealth, time, energy and luxury. Come to think of it, using the idea of "being a good steward" to justify our selfishness is about like using the idea of "loving my neighbor" to justify having sex with the mailman.

The next aversion in this series of posts is about taking care of our families, and there's a bit of hand waving we have to do around the word "families." It's somewhat about relatives, with a special emphasis on those closest to us. I've heard this aversion several times when I've mentioned the idea of spending too much money on our personal lifestyles. The response is along the lines of, "Well, Paul clearly says that if I don't provide for my family, I'm worse than an unbeliever." True enough. The verse being quoted, plucked from its context, is:

And whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:8, NRSV)

I'm certainly not going to argue with this, especially since it is in the middle of Paul talking about a number of guidelines for taking care of others; most notably widows. What I find interesting, though, is that if we read a bit further we encounter Paul saying something that nobody, to date, has ever bothered to mention to me when he or she speaks of providing for his or her family:

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. (1 Timothy 6:5-8, NRSV)

So, I've wondered from time to time, if we could ask Paul what it means to provide for family in a Christian way, and if a Christian should be content with food and clothes, what is expected in terms of provision? Personally, I distaste trying to slice and dice verses in this way, but if we are going to quote 5:8 in an effort to defend our wealth, shouldn't we also consider 6:5-8 along with it?

To be fair, I need myself to be willing to read further, for Paul also says,

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 us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share… (1 Timothy 6:17-18)

And so it appears that there were indeed rich Christians, and Paul doesn't tell them to become poor. He does imply though, that they need to be generous and ready to share, and this is after he notes:

But 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 and pierced themselves with many pains. But as for you, man of God, shun all this… (1 Timothy 6:9-11, NRSV)

To summarize and place things into the present, personally I would include shelter and medical care as part of providing for my family; although admittedly this is a bit beyond what Paul was literally saying. And apparently it's okay to be rich, given that you take care of your relatives, you're not arrogant, you strive to do good, you're generous, and you share. (I understand that all these are open to interpretation (and subsequent misuse), too. More on this, probably, in a future post.)

But all in all, my point is about the aversions we tend to have. I still think the larger context of the passage begs us to reconsider what we're dealing with when we use "providing for my family" as a license (which is to say, excuse) for excesses in our lives. Plain and simple, anything beyond necessities is beyond the scope of what Paul meant when it came to providing for our families. So, no: I don't consider my kids' Wii, computers, toys, plethora of clothing, cell phones, mp3 players, DVDs, CDs, pets, music lessons and instruments, sports lessons and equipment, orthodontics, educational trips and summer camps to fall under the biblical idea of provision. My children are materially spoiled, because I let them be, because I am. They are children. They are innocent. My problem is greed; greed for myself and for my family. But I'm not going to be obtuse and hypocritical, and claim that to the contrary I'm simply following Paul's admonition to take care of my family. Such a claim would be a selfish and gross manipulation of scripture, beyond what even I can bear. To live in wealth and claim, "Hey, man, I'm just following Paul" is, simply, ludicrous.

One of my other pursuits. I figure this one goes well with the current series of posts...

"It isn't what you have, but what your priorities are."

This is one of the very common comments tossed about by us when we start talking about our wealth, and I want to address it before any others because I tend to think that it alone is the one idea in this wealth mess that I haven't yet resolved in my own mind. It's of no surprise that I am especially intrigued with this idea intellectually, because it leaves a lot of room for shades of gray and I tend to inhabit that kind of a world.

On the one hand, there are two clear things which support this idea. One, I know some people with quite a bit of money who are extremely generous and give a lot to our local community, as well as to individuals in need. They have no particular attachment to the material things they own, and as some Christians are fond of saying, "It's all going to get burned up in the end anyway. It's just stuff." In short, there are people who have a lot of material wealth but don't consider that wealth an end in itself. Two, there are probably people who have very little but are very selfish about it. I can't think of anybody I've met who is like this, but I have no doubt that they exist.

To continue, I know people who probably give half of what they make to one charity or another, and it's difficult to look at somebody who makes a lot of money but gives half away and say they are somehow more greedy or less concerned with the poor than a person who makes comparatively little and gives only a small fraction, if any, to those more needy than themselves. There is unselfishness and there is selfishness, fully independent of resources. It isn't what you have. It's what your priorities are. Fair enough.

But on the other hand, there can be serious flaws in the basis of this thinking, and for over half of my life, I have not been able to get them out of my head. Before talking about them, there is something that needs to be delineated. The idea of priorities in the above few paragraphs needs to be explained a bit for the sake of completeness. There are two main issues at stake, which are concerns about greed and concerns about idolatry. So when a Christian looks at their possessions and says "It's all going to be burned up in the end anyway; it's just stuff," he or she is typically making reference to concern with idolatry. It's a way of saying "These things aren't important to me in the way God and people are important to me. God comes first; not things." I mention this just to note that I do see the distinction between the views; but as I hope to point out, the distinction becomes more or less meaningless to the discussion at hand. So. Onward to the flaws.

The first major problem I have with the idea of priorities is to me as obvious and unavoidable as the sun in the sky. There's a simple way to say it, but I'll first mention the way it came to me. Years ago, I was sitting around one day pondering the phrase, "It isn't what you have, but what your priorities are," when to my mind came the image of Jesus walking into my house, wandering through the rooms therein. As he walked around, he looked at the furnishings. He looked at the things hanging on the walls. He looked at the decorations. He looked at all my electronic toys (including, sigh… my computers). He went outside and looked at my four-wheeled toys. Nervously, wringing my hands, I followed him around. Finally, I could bare the silence no more, and offered, "I know what you must be thinking, but, it's not what I have here, it's my priorities in life that matter." And with that, Jesus turned to me, nodded slowly, and said, "Yes. And I see what your priorities are." The simple point is, what we have indicates what our priorities are. I cannot see anything more concrete, more clear, more obvious, more inarguable than this. Greed or idolatry? Irrelevant, really. Where your resources go, is where your priorities lie.

The second problem concerns the wealthy giving much and the poor giving little. Jesus touched upon this a bit when he spoke of what we sometimes refer to as the widow's mite:

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." (Mark 12:41-44)

Before I say what I'm about to say, I just want to notice that I'm posting this series out of my own guilt and confession of my extreme selfishness in a hurting world. I'm guilty, I'm sorry, and I'm hoping, wanting, to change. So I am not pointing fingers here. Really, I'm not; but it will easily seem so. I've heard people with a lot of money talk about what they give at church. And I've heard them talk in thickly veiled terms about how they give so much more than other people in church. Sometimes they'll fall back to something like, "I give my ten percent, but I don't see those people doing it." To be sure, if a person takes home $100k a year and gives $10k a year to charity, they're giving a whole lot more than the person who brings home $20k a year and gives five percent for a total of $1k. This argument makes a lot of sense numbers-wise, I agree. The only problem with it is that it's not the way Jesus looks at it, and it's bass-ackwards from the economic reality of the situation. Interestingly, it summarizes elegantly the two main ways of viewing things that we see in the politico-socio-economic rhetoric around us. The former people always view giving in terms of what is given. But Jesus defined giving in what was left. And so, as Jesus would see it, the person who is left with $19K has given far more than the person who is left with $90K. If you really must assign cold mathematics to it, let's do it this way: the "wealthy" person has given approximately four and half times less than what the other has given.

Perhaps needless to say, I have very little patience for the Christian who drops a thousand dollars into a collection plate, drives his or her expensive car to a restaurant before heading to his or her fine home, to sit in front of his or her HDTV and think of how other people need to be giving more to further the work of the kingdom—while a brother or sister in God drops five bucks into the plate, leaves church by packing his or her family into a beat-up old wreck with plastic tape over the tail lights and cardboard for windows, to go home and scrape together something for lunch and wonder which bill he or she will have to let slide so that the family can eat during the coming week. In this scenario, I'd really like to hear some banter about "It's not what I have, but what my priorities are."

To summarize the "what I have versus what my priorities are" line of speaking, I'm thinking the following. The idea remains gray. I would be one of the very last people to try to second guess other people's motivations and hearts, which are absolutely between them and God. Maybe a person has a sick kid or may not see another birthday. Spoil them rotten? Absolutely. I would. Or maybe a person makes far more, gives far more, works far more, and is devoted far more to the poor than anybody else, especially me, knows. I can absolutely allow for that. Or maybe a person, like me, is morally weak and is selfish, and needs patience and time with love in the meantime. No problem. We love each other in our weaknesses. And last of all, the Bible says some people have certain gifts and not other gifts, and it lists giving as a gift. So after all my talking, there's no judgment cast. But I look inward, and I know the line doesn't fit me. I know that for me, what I own shows my priorities. I know the line is untrue. If I truly cared for the hungry, the sick, and the homeless, I would have less so that they could have more.

I am a work in progress. May God move me.

A few years ago I was teaching a group of Christian adults, and every class for twenty-six weeks was great. I loved the class. The students loved the class. I talked about some fairly hard topics, and some pretty provocative topics. I talked about how we love to come to church with our smiles pasted on and pretend we have no problems, when in fact we have all the same problems as everybody else in the world. I talked about the idea that God doesn't have an intricate plan lined out to the most minute detail from now until the end of the world. One period I even claimed that Jesus didn't have a priori knowledge that Judas would betray him, and that furthermore—presuming the traditional view of "salvation" being about going to Heaven instead of Hell—Judas was saved in the end (the context within which this opinion was delivered is a bit large). And so it went, smoothly and thoughtfully and respectfully with good-willed reciprocity from both sides of the lectern, until one night after I had made the statement that the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of the poor and not of the rich, and asked, "So who are the rich?"

There was a pregnant pause, and nobody said a word.

So I said that if I were to take a yard stick and hold it vertically, and if it represented the per-capita income of all the people in the world, then every one of us in the building that night would be in the upper half inch of the stick. "That makes you and me the rich," I said. And at this—I kid you not—a woman straightened right up in her seat and yelled at me, "Don't talk to me about my money!"

The odd thing is, the lady who said this was a bright, thoughtful, supportive member of the class and I had a good deal of respect for her (to this day I would say "have" instead of "had," but she has since passed away). Given that, it would be far too easy, and I think quite mistaken of me, to simply ask myself, "How could she have been so wrong, so selfish, so far off base?" I don't think that's the wise question. But what I still wonder, to this day, is why did she react the way she did? She was bright. Why didn't she say something else, and contribute to the discussion? Why did she just give this emotional interjection that effectively shut the conversation down?

I can only guess, but I tend to think that for those of us who are rich and who claim Christianity, somewhere deep down we know "our money" is a problem. By this I mean that I think we know, deep down, that there is an issue with our wealth and we have not resolved the issue to our own satisfaction. Further, I think that maybe we realize the resolution would be either: to come up with an effective defense of our wealth; or to give up our wealth. And finally, I think we don't want to play the gamble of honestly seeking this resolution because doing so would incur the risk of having to acknowledge the latter alternative. So, we avoid the issue whenever possible. But of course it can't be avoided entirely. Once in a while somebody will bring it up publicly, or in moments of repose we will raise the question within our own hearts and minds. In both of these cases, it seems that the best we can usually muster are lines of discussion which have become so predictable that they have become clichés.

As noted in my previous post, I'll present a few of these in upcoming posts.

I've been touching upon the subject of loving God and loving others; that the center of Christian living rests in the vicinity of these two great commandments. Because they are so central to biblical teaching, it isn't difficult to talk about almost anything in Christianity and relate it to these two themes. Recently I've also been dancing around social justice, and it is a case in point, for to be concerned with and act on behalf of social justice is a manifestation of loving others and, by extension, of loving God. The question is, if you turn that statement, does a necessity result? Does loving God and loving others necessarily mean that you are concerned with and act on behalf of social justice? I believe so, and would like to open up some personal opinions on the issue.

I write once in a while on a problem I have with the fact that many people have characterized the word love by labeling it as an action. Now, with respect to using this classification in order to separate actively loving somebody from the idea of simply having an emotional feeling for them, I agree. Similarly, it is a good idea—as well as a useful admonition to myself—to perform this same separation with respect to a purely intellectual view of what love should be. That is to say, it doesn't do much good to have beautiful, profound ideals of what Godly love might be, if you never act upon them. Where I have a problem is in settling for the idea that love is merely an action, and nothing more. The problem I have with this is that it places love in the position of being one more thing which Man can claim as his own, as if love does not and could not exist—doesn't happen—without Man. So, rather simply, I take the stand that Love with a capital L, Love that comes from and is God, exists within Man but also transcends and exists independently of Man. Having said all that, I claim that the Love with which we are supposed to concern ourselves as Christians is the Love of God that is God, that it can be and must be experienced, that it can be and must be entered into, and that we can and should literally become a part of it in both the ontological and the active senses. In so doing, we become Love's inspired action in this place we call the world.

Because I have this view my interpretation of 1 John, as an example, is when the writer says "[if you know God, you'll love. If you don't love, you don't know God]" what he means is that if you've experienced God, you can't help but become a part of his love, which leads to action in the world. And he also means that if you aren't a part of that love, then obviously you haven't experienced God. To me this seems much more matter-of-fact and spiritually sound than a more typical, legally based interpretation which substitutes the presence of actions accepted as loving for any actual knowledge of God; the latter being a matter of confusing simple action with a state of spiritual being. But, as I've also noted previously, this creates a great area of concern for me in regard to my own Christian faith. Without going into the specifics all over again and yet including some of my most recent posts, the issue is this: if one is not primarily concerned—genuinely concerned in a deeply inspired and actively loving way—with the social injustices and suffering that other people endure in this world, then that person really must question whether he or she knows God at all. If, for example, I can sit and see in the newspaper the plight of millions of people who are starving or otherwise being systematically slaughtered by individuals or institutions while I blithely sip my Starbucks and circle my thumb around the wheel of my iPod, well—there is almost certainly something seriously, seriously wrong with me as a child of God. There is no way around this. There is no way around it, and I am rapidly reaching a point in life where I am unwilling to accept the aversion to, excuses concerning, and complacency toward this issue; all of these being inherent in my personal, formal Christian tradition.

In line with the posts on loving God, loving others and social justice, over the next few weeks or months I will be offering a few posts dealing with these aversions and excuses.

Several months ago, probably closer to a year ago, I began putting together a post but had some problems working it out in my mind. I thought up until this week that I had eventually posted it, but I can find it nowhere, so I'm guessing that I didn't. In that case, it's a nice thing that I didn't, because I think I've now remedied the problem I was having (best as I can recall) with feeling good about posting it in the first place.

The post was supposed to be the first of three concerning "dirty little secrets" of Christian faith (note, please, that I'm referring to specific traditions in modern Christian faith; not Christian faith in general). Well, so I didn't publish the first, I forgot the second, and I ended up posting the third as "Faith, Belief, Reality etc. Part III." Now that I recently posted some ideas on judgment, I think I'm ready to publish the first post now, in a slightly edited form without some introductory materials concerning dirty little secrets. I'll include the post here and now, and append a comment or two related to the judgment post:

[begin]

A lot of us, Christian or not, spend a fair amount of time talking about "justice." Oftentimes, perhaps usually, we talk about how justice was or was not carried out in a particular criminal or civil case. Sometimes we talk about justice in terms of our Christian faith, generally when we talk about Heaven and Hell and who will or should go to either place. In the majority of all these cases we like to say we "cry out" for justice to be served, which is in itself a borrowing of language inherited from religious tradition. We believe, for whatever reasons, that crying out for justice is a good, moral, Godly thing for us to do. And so it is. But now we have to get a little closer to the dirty little secret, and to inch toward it I'll start with Micah, who is credited with saying:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8, NRSV)

Some English translations of the Old Testament give us "mercy" instead of kindness in this verse, and I'm not sure which, if either, is closer to the Hebrew. I'm going to go with mercy, since it's what I've heard most often and because, admittedly, it goes better with my point. To love mercy implies that we will extend mercy, and extending mercy necessitates that beforehand a wrong must have been committed. (After all, if none had been committed, there would be no need for mercy.) In short, it seems to me that if we accept that the three things Micah admonishes us to pursue are not mutually exclusive—and there is no reason to think they are so—then mercy is dealing with gracious forgiveness toward wrong-doing and if so, then the justice we are supposed to "do" is not about dispensing an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. It is not about people "getting what they deserve." Justice here cannot be about punishing wrong, nor about giving another person their just desserts. So here's the beginning of the dirty little secret: The justice we typically seek in mainstream Christianity is not the justice God asks of us, but is a purposeful misinterpretation on our parts; one which allows us to ignore what Micah says the LORD really requires of us: that we be socially just.

I have long believed and often said that every problem of man comes down to his frighteningly insidious and clever pride. In the case of ourselves vis-à-vis Micah, what we have is a pride that tells us we should be able to possess whatever we want in life no matter what the cost to those who can't seem to get what they need in life. It is pride that tells us that we deserve spoils and they don't, because, simply, we are good and they are not (in a sort of incestuous reasoning , we have previously concluded, via our poor theology, that they are not good because they do not have). Once this pride convinces us that justice is about punishment and vengeance rather than social welfare and fairness, then we can tell—which is to say, lie to—ourselves that we cry out for justice, while we commit all manner of crimes against social justice. Furthermore, because this twisted view of life necessitates that we relegate the justice for which we "must" cry out to the realm of punishment and just desserts, we throw mercy out the window, saving it as well for those whom we judge to be deserving—which we read as those who haven't really done anything wrong other than what we ourselves may have already done or are currently doing. In short, we somehow manage to make sure that justice and mercy are defined in such a way that each affords us personally the most benefit possible. Whatever that psychological, intellectual "somehow" may be, it is allowed to succeed because it is approved by our pride.

What the secret comes down to, the dirty little secret too dirty for our minds to allow to bubble up to the surface of our consciences, is that we rich, Bible-thumping Christians are not leading the lives God asks us to live. In spite of all our rhetoric, in spite of all our crying out, in spite of all our so-called morality, we are missing the basic, essential facts of Godliness. And dirtiest of all, when it comes down to it and the rubber meets the road, we aren't really willing to face the facts. Plain and simple, we don't want to be in line with God's program. We don't want to be, because we are too selfish. We don't want to be, because we don't want to share. We don't want to be, because we would rather believe that we deserve life's extravagant spoils and others deserve comparatively nothing. We don't want to be, because in the end we care about ourselves far more than we care about others. We don't want to be, because we like it this way. We don't want to be, because it's a lot more fun to wheel our SUV through the drive-thru than it is to be like much of the rest of the world: hungry, sick and suffering from exposure to the elements. Besides, what thinking person can't see the truth that some of us are blessed because of who we are, some are cursed because of who they are, and this is the way life always will and should be? (Well and of course, notwithstanding that Micah, the other prophets and Jesus disagree.)

Many of us, and I fear myself included, are hypocrites in the realm of justice. It's a secret that only we don't know.

[end]

As best as I can recall (and believe me, my memory is not so great anymore), the problem I had with this post was questioning myself on my interpretation of the word justice. I seem to recall going a few rounds in my head about whether or not I was being sufficiently open to the form of justice that I was rejecting. But, after reviewing Jesus' invective in Matthew, where (it seems clear to me, anyway) that Jesus is quoting the prophets regarding justice, mercy and humility, I have to side with my original thoughts. Jesus was far more interested in social justice (or, more correctly, the lack thereof) in his time than about "legal" justice. What is significant here is that I can find no evidence that the Pharisees, scribes and such were short on the "legal" justice. To the point, given that these men were more than willing to deny, cast out and punish those whom they considered to fall short, and given that in such an environment Jesus would say they had neglected justice, I really must conclude that Jesus' take on the prophet was that the reference is to social justice.

Do I feel better? Yes, in that I think the original post stands on firm footing. And no, in that I think the post stands on firm footing.

Last year the congregation I attend announced that it would be holding a congregation-wide, weekend long retreat to promote fellowship. Good idea.

Well, except that the facility hosting the retreat, it was known at the time, charged around two hundred dollars to feed and house a family for the weekend. This meant, in effect, that the weekend of fellowship was for those in the minority portion of the congregation who could afford it. Bad idea. Really, really, bad idea.

Oh, there was no backlash. Nobody mentioned it in public. I heard no grumbling. But I was terribly bothered by it. It was so simple, so clear, so blatant. Did anybody organizing the event realize what it sounds like, what it means, when you stand in a pulpit and say that the whole congregation is invited, when most of the people know it is impossible for them, and those doing the inviting already know that? What exactly is the congregation implied to be in such circumstances? Those who can afford to be a part of it? And uh, parenthetically, isn't this the opposite of what Jesus taught?

This a perfect example of how socio-economics works in the real world: money divides people, all of the time in a myriad of ways. But the example is especially disconcerting in an organization where nobody is supposed to be divided in any way. Even more worrisome is that when I mentioned this to a few people who could afford to attend the retreat, as far as I could tell the economics and the consequent divide hadn't occurred to them at all. None of these people were mean or cruel people, but they were—and this is not an excuse—clueless. Those of us who enjoy power and privilege in a group small or large are likely to never notice the way we flaunt our position and lord it over others, and why should we? When all is well, when we have everything we need and most everything we want, what would cause us to stop and see the other side? What could cause us to question what we've always known? What would incite inquiry into that which seems so normal, so natural and so right to us? What, that is, except a heart and mind in a different, which is to say proper, place?

We need to stop and think. We need to think about the things we say and choose to do. There are numerous examples of the above case in point; little situations we probably don't even notice, that drive a wedge between humans because of economics. We need to think about a Christianity that prides itself on following the Bible and striving to emulate the church of the first century. In that church, everyone had everything in common, and no one was in need. Those who had, sold what they had so that those who had not, could have. We need to think about how we don't like to think about that little detail. We need to think about getting a clue.

And by "we," I mean myself most of all.