One of the most common themes in the Bible : warnings against the rich. Yet earning your living is a necessity of life. How do we put together our need to provide for ourselves and our families on one hand and being on guard against the dangers of being rich on the other?
First of all we might protest by saying that WE are not rich Yet if we look at the whole population of the world, this argument does not hold water. We are members of one of the wealthiest nations in the world. And if we look around here in the church and generally in our congregations, we hardly see anybody who is living in total poverty. We live in a welfare society, where admittedly some fall through the cracks, but generally people have their minimum needs met.
Today's texts seem to speak especially about the ways we reach our financial security. Amos joins the other old Testament prophets in preaching God's judgement on those who seek their own good, trampling on the needs of the poor. There is a familiar sounding question about the opening hours of businesses: There is a great impatience to open the market for trading, from the business point of view every hour of closed doors means lost revenue. And what do these traders do when they open up? They falsify their balances, they measure too small amounts of second grade grain and charge a full price. And they use the desperate situation of the poor to hire them and pay them a pittance for their work. Amos brings God's warning to this situation: this will not be forgotten, the jugdement will come.
But it seems that time and time again the same warnings needed to be expressed. People repented for a time, and then slipped back to their selfish ways. Is this true about our generation? We only need to open the newspaper or the TV set, and there is corruption in front of us. Fraudulent business practices are revealed in all kinds of situation, from lowest level to the top management and government agencies.
Let us now look at the Gospel reading. Isn't Jesus' story about the dishonest manager like a description of what we see all around us? This story poses some difficulty of interpretation. If we try to look how this fraudulent servant could be an example for us, we certainly come up with some problems. But maybe that is not the point when Jesus tells the story. Maybe he just wants to point out how shrewd people are in dealing with a threatening situation. And maybe he tells the disciples to make friends with dishonest wealth as an obvious joke. I believe Jesus sometimes made his statements sort of tongue in cheek. That way he could get his point across. The point here may be that dishonesty may get you a praise from an equally dishonest employer, but in the end what matters is whom we are serving. Are we slaves of what we own or do we serve God. Jesus presents these as mutually exclusive options.
In the verses following the gospel reading we see that the Pharisees, who are edescribed as lovers of money, start ridiculing Jesus. Jesus response to them is that they may try to justify themselves in sight of others, but God knows their heart. Returning to the question about our earning the living and accumulating wealth: How could we stay faithful servants of God in the midst of our daily activities? I don't have any straight answer. I think we all need to struggle with this. We need to acknowledge that our way of dealing with issues of money may not stand God's scrutiny. As individuals, and as a church in an often unjust society, and as a nation in a seriously unbalanced wordwide economy, we must look at our ways and be willing to repent and change our ways. God's preference, if we are to trust the scriptures, is to side with the poor and needy. We read: He humbled himself and became poor for our sake so that we may become rich in him. If we are to be Christ's followers, we have to ask ourselves: Where is our wealth? Is it in God or is it in what we possess?
Rev. Kyllikki Pitts
Sept 19, 2004