Sept. 23, 2007

By Harry T. Cook
Amos 8: 4-12 & Luke 16:1-13
It is a fact that the gospels are replete with statements, stories and morals about money. Some of us who conduct research in the New Testament documents have come to see that, in particular, the gospels’ focus is frequently on economics, that is to say on how resources should be viewed and distributed.
The companion reading to the Luke passage before us – the prophet Amos’ editorial against economic oppression of the already poor – leaves no room for doubt about how he thought things should be apportioned: In favor of the poor and needy.

Luke’s point is veiled some in a difficult text, but it finally gets around to the blunt truth that human beings can behave charitably toward one another, or they can focus on their own ambitions. Luke puts it this way You cannot serve God and wealth.

This is where the New Testament gets close to the socialism of Karl Marx, and therefore under the skin of a lot of American Christians who are accustomed to the tenets and practice of capitalism.

This sermon should be taken neither as a screed against capitalism, nor as a brief for socialism. It should be heard (or read) as commentary proceeding from careful research and analysis of the literature of our religion.

If we take Genesis with the proverbial grain of salt (and we do), and if we are content to say, for example, that the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is surely a metaphor of some kind, then it is only fair and logical that we take Amos’ denunciation of economic disparity and Luke’s dim view of wealth for wealth’s sake with equal skepticism.

And instead of quoting scripture to support a political or economic hobbyhorse, why not use it as one guide among others to help us make up our minds about the complexities of life?

We are more less bound by the baptismal covenant under which we supposedly conduct our lives and govern our behavior, and that covenant definitely makes justice, peace and human dignity paramount values. And furthermore, we know, if only through commonsense, that if there is no economic justice, there will be no peace, and that without either dignity is only a dream.

So how to unravel the tangled web of if not deliberately created injustice then of a kind of injustice that has grown up around preoccupation with our own individual aspirations?

We start with this kind of honesty: When I first came to St. Andrew’s 20 years ago fresh from living in Detroit for the previous 20, a rather outspoken person then a member of this congregation, told me he never ventured below Eight Mile Road, that is out of the Oakland County suburbs and over the border into Detroit.

I was, of course, ready for an argument. But he went on to say that he had a hard time with the idea that he got to live in the leafy suburbs while other people had to live in urban ruin. He said, “I just had better luck and more opportunities than they did.”

Of course, I had been ready with the usual outraged liberal counterattack, but his bald honesty stopped me in my tracks. I finally asked him how the playing field could be leveled to give those others better opportunities. His response was, “Why do you think I come to church? I keep hoping that one of you guys will tell me what God’s will is.”

There, finally, was my opening. I told the man that there was no way to know such a thing. The Bible is not going to tell anyone what any will of any god is. No priest or bishop can do it, even though some of them think they can and should – the whole idea of a god and a god’s will being at best subjective speculation.

Yet human beings at their best know right from wrong, fair from unfair. They know that, to use the images from Amos, it is wrong and in any event counterproductive to trample the needy and bring ruin to the poor. And furthermore, it’s the rare human being who would set out deliberately to do either of those things. What, then, was Amos saying?

He was saying it 2,750 years ago more or less. Participatory democracy was another 400 years or so in the future, and not in that part of the world, either. But you and I are players in a participatory democracy, and despite the egregious corruption of the lobbyists and campaign finance, we still have the vote. And if we know with our best selves, what is right and fair and good for all concerned, we should find issues which and candidates who reflect the values we know are right and fair and good – and so cast our votes.

If one is uncertain about what is right and fair and good, go get informed and involved. Try not, though, to rely upon the flaccid and incompetent media. Ask, rather, what an Amos or a Luke would say to America of 2007. Would they not say that we should fix our tax structures so the enormous disparity between the super-rich and the super-poor is narrowed through the application of distributive justice? Would they not say that the poor without health care and health care insurance should be given both?

Amos in his time was banished for asking his 8th Century B.C.E. version of those questions. Luke’s undisputable insight about the inability of people to pursue wealth and giver higher loyalty to love and care of neighbor is routinely shrugged off as liberal claptrap.

Yet, more people remember who Amos was than remember the one who banished him. And Luke lives on to challenge every Christian who ever goes to church or reads the Bible. Maybe it’ll all catch on one of these days and give the clichéd phrase kingdom of God some real human power and presence. And that’s exactly why we’re here.

© Copyright 2007, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.