Henri Nouwen once told a wonderful story, a modern parable
to those gather for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church back in
1985. the story went this way.
“Once there were some people who surveyed their resources
and said to one another. “How can we be
sure that we will have enough in hard times?
We want to survive whatever happens.
Let us start collecting food, materials and knowledge so that we are
safe and secure when a crisis arrives.”
So they started hoarding and hoarding, so much that other people
protests and said, “Hey you have much more than you need while we don’t have
enough to survive. Give us part of your
wealth.” But the fearful hoarders said
“No, No, No! We need to keep this in
case of emergencies, in case things go bad for us too, in case our lives are
threatened.” But the others said, “We
are dying , now! Please give us some
food and materials and knowledge to survive.
We can’t wait, we need it now.”
And the fearful hoarders became even more fearful, since
they had become afraid that the poor and hungry would attack them. So they said to one another, “Let us build
walls around our wealth so that no stranger can take it away from us.” And thus they erected walls so high they
could not see anymore whether there were enemies outside or not. But instead of feeling safe and secure behind
their armed walls the found themselves trapped in the prison they had built
with their own fear. And gradually they
realized that their fear of death had brought them closer to it”
At the conclusion Nouwen said these words. “I wrote this parable to say to you that we
are always tempted and tempted again to become fearful hoarders. I any thing has struck me while talking to
people and friends, it is how afraid we are.”
Think there is any fear out there in our world right now?
Any temptation to hug power, money, and other resources to
ourselves?
Yet Sacred demands that we NOT go to that place
That we not listen to leaders who preach fear and a myopic
individualism.
Paul wrote to a church that had economic inequity. Some had more than enough
Some did not have enough.
He said “Our desire is not that others might be relieved
while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present
time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will
supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: “The one who
gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not
have too little.”
Boom. Mic drop!
God is about equity
Not favoritism
Not making it so that some flourish and others languish
God is about equity
And here is the thing
We don’t have equity.
Almost nowhere in the world do we have equity.
Certainly not here.
Did you know that the U.S. ranks around the 30th percentile
in income equity globally? Meaning that
70% of the countries of the world have a more equal income distribution than we
do.
Ouch! And it is
getting worse daily.
In America the top 20% of the households own more than 84%
of the wealth, and. The bottom 90% now holds only 22.8% of the wealth. The bottom 40% combine for a paltry 0.3% of
America’s wealth The Walton family, you know, WalMart, by itself, has more
wealth than 42% of American families combined.
The evidence piles up.
CEO pay is 347 times that of average worker
Wall Street banks doled out $24 billion in bonuses to their
177,000 New York-based employees in 2016, which amounts to over one and a half
times the combined earnings of all Americans who work full-time at the current
federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Income disparities have become so pronounced that America’s
top 10 percent now average more than nine times as much income as the bottom 90
percent and Americans in the top 1 percent average over 40 times more income
than the bottom 90 percent.
Into this mess come the worlds of Paul
The goal is equality, as it is written: “The one who
gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not
have too little.
This, is not a economic issue
This is not a political issue
This is a spiritual issue
We are to be people who lift other people up
Who have caring and generous souls
Who understand that we need each other
And we are to be people who resist those who call us not
just to be fearful
But to live out our fear
By abandoning the planet
Deporting the immigrant
Hoarding our resources and letting the world starve and die
of disease (think USAID)
As the angels, and Jesus, often say: “Be not afraid”
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