Luxury, Poverty, and the Kingdom of God
1.  Beggars at the Gate – Luke 16:19-31   4.15.7

             Video (approx 5 minutes) – Shane Claiborne – obesity and starvation on the front page. 

            The man in the video:  Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution, lover of Jesus, a man who has devoted his life to living among the poor in Philadelphia (he’s originally from Maryville, TN!)  His illustration of starvation and obesity on the same front page serves as a fitting intro. to this new series, Luxury, Poverty and the Kingdom of God:  What God’s Word says about putting love into action.

            Fact:  God’s Word has a LOT to say about putting love into action by helping the poor, or (better) by joining the poor in their neighborhoods and lives and getting to know them so we’re not helping poor people in the abstract but rather we’re acting in love toward brothers and sisters we know.

            Fact:  Most of us have luxuries, some of which we should be grateful for, many of which we should repent of (because God doesn’t mean for us to hoard them for ourselves).  Though there are those among us who barely have their needs met, there are many of us who realize that we live among the 20% of the world’s population that controls 85% of the world’s wealth, and none of us is among the poorest 20% who have access to 1.4% of the world’s wealth.

            Fact:  God is moving among us, teaching us at MHCC to put our love into action with the poor.  From the Refuge to Project Freedom to a group offering financial counseling to our daily benevolence ministry, MHCC people are getting it, and really I’m one of the last to catch on.  But God is bringing things together to focus us on his people that are poor. 

            I want to begin with the best known story that Jesus ever told about poverty.  It’s the one from Luke 16:19-31 called “The Rich Man and Lazarus”.  The illustration on your bulletin is an artists’ rendition of this famous story.  But before I get to that story…

            I was looking around in my Bible at all the teaching that surrounds Luke 16 and I remembered that God’s economy is so different than ours.  Just when we think we have a handle on it, the Bible contradicts our opinions.  For example, in Luke 15, Jesus tells about a woman who had ten coins and lost one, and she put everything else on hold and swept her little home till she found that lost coin, and then she rejoiced over it.  Nothing makes more sense.  I guess that in God’s economy, you don’t waste coins or food or money and you keep track of your possessions and live frugally.  Very Republican.  Or it used to be. J

            But just before that story, Jesus told one about a shepherd who had a hundred sheep and lost one and left 99 out in the open country while he went off and searched for the one who was lost…and that DOESN’T makes good financial sense – to put 99 sheep at risk, apparently unguarded, to go after one who was irresponsible enough to get lost.  But the shepherd did it, because in God’s economy, one who is lost is worth more investment and risk than others who are not lost.  We have a harder time putting that one into practice.

            Then Jesus told his best-loved parable that we call the Prodigal Son.  The word “prodigal” means extravagant or wasteful, and the story is about this young man who took his inheritance (while his father was still alive) and went off to a far country and blew it on prostitutes and drinking, and then when he ran out of money and friends and got hungry he came back home to ask for work…and then we find out that the father was the prodigal one, because he ran out and met his son and kissed him and dressed him up like a son and threw an extravagant, wasteful party that cost thousands of dollars, all to celebrate “this son of mine who was dead and is alive again…”

            The strangest example of God’s economy is the story Jesus tells in the first part of Luke 16.  It’s about a financial manager who is getting fired for wasting his master’s possessions.  That’s good.  Waste is bad.  So what does he do?  He calls in several of his master’s biggest clients and cuts their bill in half.  He still has the authority to do it.  It’s his last day on the job.  Why WOULD he do it?  Only one reason:  To make himself some friends so that he can find another job.  Now the Christian thing to do, since we value honesty and fair play, would be to throw this guy in jail.  But in the story, Jesus has the master COMMEND his servant for being so shrewd, and then Jesus himself follows up by saying:  “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9).  Now I’m not sure you’ll find a Dave Ramsey book with that title, and I am pretty sure that Jesus didn’t intend this story as a primer on financial management.  But it does show that God’s economy is different than ours.

            These examples all come from Luke 15-16, right before the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus.  But the most vivid example of how God’s economy is different than ours is from John 12.  Jesus is at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus (not the guy from the Rich Man and Lazarus story).  At some point during dinner, Mary was moved (perhaps out of gratitude that Jesus had raised her brother from the dead, perhaps out of a sense that Jesus’ death was near, to break open an expensive jar of perfume and anoint Jesus with it.  Perfume was sometimes kept as an investment in that day because it kept its value and was easy to store.  This particular bottle was worth a year’s wages for the average worker.  Mary busted it open and anointed Jesus’ feet with it, and then wiped his feet with her hair.

            Now if a laborer today makes $10/hour on a job site, and he works full-time, that’s $20K a year.  What should you do with a $20K bottle of perfume?  According to the World Vision Gift Catalog, $20K is half the amount needed to build a health clinic in Africa; it can provide eye surgeries for 36 kids; it is almost enough to build a school; it could provide 18 children with prosthetic limbs; it could build four homes for AIDS affected kids in Africa.  The list goes on…

            Sometimes when the church spends money on an expensive item that someone doesn’t approve of, that person will talk about how much good the money could have done the poor.  It might be a new church van, or a set of drums, or sound and video equipment or pews or pavement for the parking lot or even a new building itself – how much better to take the same money and spend it on the poor.  Very rarely will I hear anyone do this with their OWN financial decisions, but with those of others or those the church makes…  And I’m inclined to agree.  If God’s economy were simple and straightforward and just like mine, it would be so easy.

            And actually, in the case of Mary dumping $20K of perfume on Jesus’ feet, one of the disciples actually spoke up and said:  “This is wasteful.  That perfume could have been sold and we could have used the money to do so much good for the poor!”  Which disciple said that?  It was Judas, and v. 6 tell us:  “He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.”  I never want to be on his side.  And Jesus said:

            7 "Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."

            God’s economy is different than ours.  If we pick out one simple rule from Scripture about money or luxury or poverty and try to live exclusively by that one simple rule, we will go astray and we won’t be following God. 

            Some people hoard their money because they want to follow only the example of that woman who swept her house looking for a lost coin.  Some blow all their money on recreation, and they say that they’re acting like the father who served up the fatted calf when his son came home.  Some folks want to do essentially nothing to help the poor because Jesus said after all “You will always have the poor among you.”  Most of us just go with the flow and do whatever happens to come along for us.  None of this is following God. 

            The clearest and most simple rule about money is this one, which Jesus spoke just a few verses before he got into the Rich Man and Lazarus…

            LK 16:13 "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

            God’s economy isn’t the same as ours.  As we plunge in to this series on Luxury, poverty and the Kingdom of God, we need to understand that.  The thing we need to do is SERVE God, not money and not simplistic rules about money either.  If we enter this study cherishing our favorite rules, even our favorite Scriptures pulled out of context, we’ll get legalistic and judgmental over what someone else has or the choices they make.  But if we serve GOD, he’ll deal with us about our money and the choices WE make and that may be scary, but it is always a blessing to be in his will, following HIS economy not ours, not America’s, not the Democrat or Republican economies.

            With that foundation, the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus… 

LK 16:19 "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

LK 16:22 "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, `Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'

LK 16:25 "But Abraham replied, `Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'

            LK 16:27 "He answered, `Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'

            LK 16:29 "Abraham replied, `They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'

            LK 16:30 " `No, father Abraham,' he said, `but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

            LK 16:31 "He said to him, `If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

            I don’t think this is hard to understand.  Is this story a parable – that is, fiction?  If it is, it’s the only one to use proper names and someone from history (Abraham), so many think it’s factual.  The story tells us something about the afterlife; namely that there is heaven and there is hell and no one can cross between one and the other.  Further, hell is a place of agony, of torment, of fire, but heaven (Abraham’s side) is a place of comfort for many who were tormented in this life. 

            One of the most important lessons that Jesus had in mind for this story had to do with his own death and resurrection.  Abraham tells the rich man that the Scriptures, Moses and the Prophets, are able to make his brothers “wise unto salvation” if they are so inclined.  “No, they are NOT so inclined to listen to Scripture,” the rich man replies, “but they WILL repent if someone from the dead goes to them.”  And Abraham makes a statement that is obviously loaded with meaning about Jesus and his soon-to-be death and resurrection:  If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.  By and large, those who believed in Jesus and saw him alive after Easter Sunday were those whose hearts belonged to God already.  And those who rejected him, his miracles and his resurrection were often the religious experts who knew but did not listen to Moses and the Prophets.

            But the main image of the parable is a rich man dressed in purple (a very expensive color to acquire in that day) living in luxury, eating too much, relaxing, enjoying life – and at his gate, Lazarus, a beggar, sick, covered with sores (the only healthcare he got was when dogs came and licked his sores), longing to eat just the scraps that fell off the rich man’s table. 

            This should never be.  How can you call yourself a human being and let such a thing happen?  Here’s how I tend to do it:

            1.  Isolation.  I don’t have a gate on my property and I don’t live in a gated community, and even if you do, neither of us has a beggar lying around outside in such a miserable state.  Why not?  It’s partly due to the remarkable prosperity of America which allows many to have their needs met and it also allows for a safety net that catches a lot of folks and keeps them away from our gates.  But also:  There are certain neighborhoods I stay out of, certain subcultures or communities I keep away from – not intentionally…they’re just not part of my life.  I don’t visit the terribly cheap motels where desperate people sometimes stay, and as long as I stick to visiting with MHCC members, I rarely if ever come across a house with no electricity or water.  I don’t go to the inner cities of America, and if I don’t want to, I don’t have to pay attention to desperately poor people in other parts of the world, people about whom it is no exaggeration to compare them to Lazarus.  But I live in a very different world than this rich man in the story.  I’m just a middle-class Joe, but I have luxuries he never dreamed of (microwave, electric blanket, cell phone) and I have an obligation to look beyond my own gate and find Lazarus somewhere else in the state if need be, or somewhere else in the world.  Isolation helps me not to see Lazarus.

            2.  Excuses.   “It won’t do any good,” I might say.  “The poor you will always have with you”, Jesus said.  Doesn’t that mean we can’t do anything about it?  (That statement, of course, was NOT Jesus’ definitive word on helping the poor; his definitive word was “whatever you do for the least of these, you do for ME – Matthew 25:40).  And even though I’m a Christian, not a Hindu, I might even appeal to “karma”, to the idea that people get what they deserve and so poor people must be paying for some sin or another.  It doesn’t add up, but it makes me feel better. 

            3.  But the best strategy I have for ignoring the poor is simply procrastination – I’ll put it off for today.  I’m not turning my back on them forever; I’ll do something tomorrow.  But not today.  It’s the way I avoid doing a lot of important things.

            But when I get down to the bottom of my motives, what do I need all these strategies for?  What am I trying to protect, after all?  Mike Mower sent me an article from the AARP magazine this week.  In it, economist Bill McKibben tells about touring a factory in China and meeting an 18-year-old woman who worked there.  Making small talk, he asked the woman if she owned a stuffed doll (since he saw that many of the girls there had them).  She actually began to cry and said she couldn’t afford a stuffed animal.  So McKibben bought her one, and he says that it made her as happy as he has ever seen any human being.  That got McKibben thinking…that his teenage daughter has a room full of stuffed animals.  What would another possibly mean to her?  Nothing. 

            Now he didn’t start a crusade to ship stuffed animals to places where they are needed J but he did realize something. While new possessions might deliver a shot of joy for this Chinese young woman, he writes “Not so in the United States, where the Eisenhower-era ideal of bigger cars, faster foods, and automatic everything has been nearly as devastating to our nation’s psyche as rampant consumption has been to the earth.  Once measured to have the happiest citizens in the developed world, the United States is now number 23…alcoholism, suicide, and depression rates have soared with fewer than one in three Americans claiming to be ‘very happy’…”

            You know, one of Jesus’ most direct statements about discipleship confirms this. In Luke 9:23-24, he said:  "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.

            All these excuses for failing to minister to the poor are excuses to keep me drinking the sugar-water of this life that will never satisfy.  They are excuses to keep from coming to Jesus fully and losing my own life in him, in order to find real joy and satisfaction.           

Bill McKibben – Deep Economy:  The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (Times Books, 2007)
AARP – May, June 2007, p. 54

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