Across the Pastor's Desk - 16 September 2005

Donald F. Rose

Mansfield and United Lutheran Churches

Across the pastor’s desk for September 16, 2005

Caring for Those in Need

 

It has long been a common saying as well as perception of life that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This saying can be illustrated in many ways in the current news headlines.

Machinists asked to take $10 less per hour for their work while airline executives cash in large amounts of stock options gaining hundreds of thousands of dollars. State budgets are balanced by reducing benefits to those who make up the most economically weak and defenseless portions of society. Tax benefits are given to those who are most wealthy because somehow there is the belief that they have more to offer to the world than others do. Thousands who have been victimized by hurricane and natural disaster are once again victims when it is suggested that because they have only known poverty, their plight really isn’t that important.

Unfortunately there are any number of other reports and stories that tend to support, this culture’s misplaced emphasis on wealth and status as the mark of success, value, and worth. Though such attitudes and their subsequent behaviors are not new, one would like to think that we have learned something throughout the ages.

The prophet Amos gives an example of the understanding that no nation can be right with God as long as the poor and oppressed remain the victims of injustice and poverty as a result of the economic greed of a few. The prophet clearly understands that every day and life and practice is much more important than simply mouthing the words and/or going through the right motions of worship. The prophet speaks of faith and a relationship with God as being measured in the person’s relationship with the neighbor no matter the economic status. In the time of Amos there was a much clearer understanding of the importance of the community as a whole rather then an exaggerated emphasis upon the individual and the individual’s rights. For Amos and the prophetic tradition of Israel, the strength of the community was found in its faithfully living in the word of God.

For Christian believers, Jesus continues in that prophetic tradition and has more to say about wealth and its misuse and pitfalls than virtually any other subject. Jesus clearly understood how easy it is for individuals and/or nations of wealth to begin to believe that their security is of their own making and that they more they can obtain or acquire, whatever the cost to others, will only increase their place in this world. Jesus saw such attitudes and behaviors as stumbling blocks to a living relationship with God, the source of all life and security. The early church understood the hazards of granting status based upon wealth and economics rather than faith.

Misguided economic biases have long plagued the world. It is time for the community of faith to heed the word of warning and blessing that come to us from Scripture. In so doing we will care for those who are most in need rather than simply looking out for our own wallets and ourselves.