18 Pentecost/Lectionary 25 Year C September 22, 2013
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie Guengerich Hutson
Amos 8: 4-7 + Psalm 113 + 1 Timothy 2: 1-7 + Luke 16: 1-13
God our Savior, as we hear your Word, send your Holy Spirit to be our teacher of truth. Amen.
“I’ll remember what you did” says God, in the reading from Amos today. Or more precisely “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.”
If I am honest, I’m not sure I want God to remember everything that I’ve done or left undone. And that’s one of the reasons we begin our worship with confession. So that, although all that we do or leave undone is known to God….we receive God’s great mercy and forgiveness.
This morning Vicar Anja invited our children to give a portion of what they have to support the CROP walk. Participants in the CROP walk get pledges from their friends, families, and communities to support them and raise money in the fight against hunger and poverty. It is a worthwhile thing to do with our resources. You will also have the opportunity to give to this effort following our service this morning.
What we do with what we have is the theme that connects our first reading from Amos to the Gospel reading from Luke today.
The prophet Amos doesn’t pull any punches. He never did. In our reading today he puts words into the hands of those who trample on the needy. Those words give voice to their actions: deceitful business practices, oppressing the poor, and finally, selling the sweepings of the wheat. That seems a small thing to us, doesn’t it…selling the sweepings of the wheat. Who cares whether or not the leftovers are sold?
This practice of gathering up what is left over from the fields was known as gleaning. It was mandated by Hebrew law, that what was left in the fields and at the edges of the field, after the harvest, was to be left there for the poor. That law is found in Leviticus 19: When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.
Essentially, gleaning is what happens to what we might call leftovers.
I don’t know what happens in your house, but here’s generally what happens in mine. If there are leftovers from dinner, they get wrapped up and put in the fridge and we declare that we’ll certainly enjoy them for lunch or dinner later in the week. As the week goes on, those leftovers make their way to the back of the refrigerator shelf, passed over in favor of something new and fresh. Finally, much later, when they are completely unidentifiable and are growing something on their surface that might be the cure for the common cold, we throw them out.
The average American tosses 25% of the food they purchase. For a family of four, it means that somewhere between $1365 and $2275 worth of food is thrown out annually. The United States spends 1 billion dollars a year….one billion….disposing of food waste.
The other lesson that speaks to what we do with what we have is the Gospel for today. This story is one of the most difficult of all of the parables of Jesus to understand. Why is Jesus telling the story of the dishonest manager? After all, nothing happens to him. Not only doesn’t the master not punish the manager….the master commends him! This is not how the world is supposed to work! If you have been squandering the property of your boss….you are supposed to get fired! Not commended!
After all, look at us! Look at what we are doing with our master’s property! Look at how we are caring for creation!
Of course, the point I am making is that we are not good stewards of what has been given to us. More than ever Creation groans because of our abuse and neglect. We cannot anymore suggest that the environment is not in critical condition because all of the science supports the evidence that it is. And yet, overwhelmed, we look the other way.
Lynne Twist, in her book “The Soul of Money” captures just what we have done with what God has entrusted to us. She writes:
In the name of money, humankind has done immense damage to Mother Earth. We’ve destroyed rain forests, damned and decimated rivers, clear-cut redwoods, overfished rivers and lakes, and poisoned our soil with chemical wastes from industry and agriculture. We’ve marginalized whole segments of our society, forced the poor into housing projects, allowed urban ghettos to form, exploited whole nations to get cheaper labor, and witnessed the fall of thousands – in fact – millions of people, many of them young, caught up in selling drugs for money, hurting others and wasting their own promise on a life of crime, enslavement, or incarceration. We’ve perpetuated age-old traditions that assign men and women different and unequal access to money and the power we place in it, subjugating women and distorting men’s expectations and obligations with their privileged access to it.”
I find her words to be overwhelming. In a paragraph she encapsulates what we have done and what we have failed to do. It seems insurmountable. I hardly know how to respond. I am convicted of my sin.
Perhaps, though, like the bad manager, we can create some small steps that will at least attempt to make amends. Here at Luther Memorial we are working hard at being a green church. All of our paper products and utensils are recyclable. We recycle all that we can. We use green cleaning products when possible. We garden the earth organically. We recycle plastic bottle caps so they don’t end up in the stomachs of birds or in the landfills. We don’t do this because it’s cool to be environmentally aware in the Northwest. We do this because it is good stewardship. It is how we care for what God has entrusted to us.
Let’s face it, like the dishonest manager, we have been squandering God’s property. We’ve been treating it as though it were ours and not God’s. What God entrusted to us to care for and tend, we have mistreated and abused.
And in the midst of that we have not even been willing to part with the sweepings of the wheat. We cling tightly to what we have, afraid that if we give it away, someone will have more than we do. Our fear of not having enough for ourselves drives us to make sure that we’re not the person, or our loved ones aren’t the people, who get crushed, marginalized, or left out. And in the process we become blind to those who are sitting on the margins of society, just barely getting by.
Whenever I begin to feel fear around what I have or do not have, it seems that the opportunity to host Mary’s Place rolls around again. And I get to meet and know and be with, in small ways, women who in the most unimaginable of circumstances are in many ways, more certain in their faith than any of us who gather in on a Sunday morning. While we ask: Will we get home in time to see the game? They have no home to go to. While we ask: Where should we go for lunch? They depend on others for their meal. And it is so easy for us to turn away, to essentially ignore God’s clear call for us to care for the poor. To not sign up when Karen asks for help. It’s easy for society to turn away….for our elected leaders to say that taking money from the programs that feed our most vulnerable is somehow an acceptable option.
Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land….The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob; Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.”
The unfaithful steward in the Gospel story knew that he could count on the faithfulness of his master. I don’t really think there is a moral to be learned here so much as there is an acknowledgment that we have been unfaithful in what God has entrusted to us. That we have thought only of ourselves. That we confess that which we have done and failed to do. And that we can trust, not in ourselves, but only in the faithfulness and the mercy of our master and our God.
The story from Luke ends with words to ponder in these days and in all days.
You cannot serve God and wealth.
Who will we serve and how will our choice be known?
Thanks be to God. Amen.