Experiences of God
“The wrath of God is
his relentless compassion, pursuing us even when we are at our worst. Lord,
give us mercy to bear your mercy” – Maggie Ross
Luke more than any of the four evangelists seems concerned with the problem of “Affluenza.” Although we tend to think that most of Jesus’s most ardent followers as those who were land poor, homeless, collaborators with the Empire like tax collectors, the lame, the sick, and the demon possessed. Yet, Luke, writing to a church a generation or two after the Crucifixion, and perhaps a decade after the destruction of the Temple and all of Jerusalem, which now has attracted people of wealth, land holders, the oiko despotos, and there are inheritances at stake.
Luke tells the story of a Prodigal Son which revolves around the inheritance of two sons. And this story which begins with a question about an inheritance: someone in the crowd asks, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." [Luke 12:13-21] Jesus is a shrewdie. He knows what we all know. There are family members who no longer speak to one another because one of them got the tea cup, and the other got the saucer.
I’m no probate judge, he says. “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." What I am is a rabbi, a teacher, and I tell funny stories. There was a man whose farm produced abundantly. What shall I do, he says to himself? I will build more and bigger barns to store all “my grain and goods.” Then I will say to my Self, “Self, we have accumulated all this grain and all this stuff. Let’s eat, drink and be merry. I am set for years to come! Relax!” When suddenly from offstage comes the Voice of God: “Self, you are no self. You are no soul. What you are is a fool. Look at you celebrating all by yourself. You’ve got no friends, no neighbors. All you have is barns full of stuff, and tonight your life will be taken from you. Whose will it all be now? That’s the question for all of us. Whose is it now? Psalm 24, which follows right after the 23rd Psalm, reminds us, “The Earth is the Lord’s, and everything therein.” We are just temporary stewards of what is the Lord God’s to begin with and for evermore.
In case we have all forgotten this comes the punch line: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." Grain is no good stored in barns. Everyone listening to Jesus knows that much. There are rats. And mold. It rots. It’s no good unless it is sold or given away for those who can use it for the daily bread we are meant to pray for. He just taught them how to pray. And he didn’t say to pray for a freezer full of bread, and meats, and veggies for the future. Pray for bread that is given daily. The man in the story could be feeding all those who have no daily bread. That’s what it means to be “rich toward God.” For those called to love God and love neighbor, it’s all pretty simple. We don’t need more and bigger barns, larger investment portfolios, and offshore bank accounts. We need to keep the grain, the goods, and the wealth in circulation for it all to do any good.
As to helping our neighbors, as the hymns says, as the
Letter to the Colossians says, “all are neighbors to us and you.” To those of
us “made new” in Christ, “there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and
uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in
all!” [Colossians 3:1-11] Or as it might be written today: There is neither
black, brown, yellow, red, or white, nor male or female, gay or trans! We are
all humans created in the image of God! All deserving daily bread, forgiveness
of debts, and to be spared the times of trial. The danger is not in having
great wealth, it’s having what the text says in Greek, pleonexia –
literally “the desire of gaining more and more.” It was a problem then, and
surely is a problem today. It is placing one’s life, one’s security, in the
abundance of possessions.
As Father Brendan Byrne, SJ, writes in his commentary on Luke, The Hospitality of God, the theme is prominent in Luke’s gospel is that “nothing is more destructive of life and humanity than preoccupation with acquiring, holding onto, and increasing wealth. The problem is not so much the possession of riches as such. It is that the desire to acquire and enhance them, fed by insecurity, prevents people from attending to the relationship with God that brings the only security that counts. Such desire also erodes the concern for the other that is the basis of true community. Attachment to wealth is incompatible with living, sharing, and celebrating the hospitality of God.” [i] Like the man in the story, you end up celebrating all by yourself.
And now, the rest of the story. Jesus turns to his disciples, which of course means us – we the baptized ministers of his Community of Love we call “church.” The underlying message is to seek the kingdom, for “life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.” [Luke 12:22-34] Consider the birds who have neither storehouses nor barns – but God our father feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And consider the lilies of the field, how they grow – “they neither toil nor spin, and yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these!” Solomon, of course, represents the culture of conspicuous consumption. We are told in 1 Kings 4:22 that “One day's food supply for Solomon's household was: 185 bushels of fine flour 375 bushels of meal 10 grain-fed cattle 20 range cattle 100 sheep and miscellaneous deer, gazelles, roebucks, choice fowl,” and a partridge in a pear tree. While others in the kingdom starved, Solomon’s household ate really really well.
Finally, Jesus urges us, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
How are we to know this? Some eight hundred years before Jesus and Luke, Hosea reminds people that the more they stray from God’s Way, the more God loves them – like a mother with her only child: “The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks… I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.”[ii] The God of the Old Testament is a God of Love.
When we suffer from “all kinds of greed,” when we worship idols of money and possessions, our God suffers with us and wants to hold us with “bands of love, with cords of human kindness.” God calls us to a life in his kingdom, and wants to know, where is our heart? Where is our treasure. Jesus issues a call to a fundamental reallocation of material and social goods according to our knowledge of God’s justice, for this is what can make us “rich toward God.” [iii] This will make us a people who love God and love neighbor. It is this love that characterizes God’s reign, God’s kingdom. And it will be this love that shapes us as a Community of Love.
