Painless Generosity

The 18th Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 21C), Sept. 30, 2007

BCP: Amos 6:1-7; Psalm 146 or 146:4-9; 1 Tim. 6:11-19; Luke 16:19-31

RCL: Jer. 32:1-3a, 6-15; Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16 or Amos 6:1a, 4-7; Psalm 146; 1 Tim. 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31

One doesn’t need to trek to places like Haiti or Zimbabwe to witness the human devastation caused by abject need and chronic hunger. In too many parts of our own land people don’t have enough to eat — in great swaths of rural poverty and in the streets of our major cities, and increasingly even in our suburbs.

While it’s easy to look away or to blame the needy for their lot in life, today’s readings challenge us to address human need as an urgent matter of faith.

“Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall…who drink wine from bowls,” warns the Lord through the prophet Amos, “but are not grieved over the ruin of [others]!” Ignoring the hungry has spiritual consequences: “the revelry of the loungers shall pass away” (6:4, 6-7).

The psalmist identifies compassion for the poor as an essential to godliness: It is the Lord “[w]ho gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger” (146:6). As well, 1 Timothy insists that helping the needy is integral to “the good fight of faith” (6:12). “As for those who in the present age are rich,” we read, “[t]hey are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share…so that they may take hold of the life that really is life” (6:17-18).

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells of “a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table” (Luke 16). What an apt description this is of many who are hungry among us today. It’s estimated that most affluent Americans throw away nearly as much food as we actually eat. Given our cultural tradition of massive waste, what might happen if we Christians found ways to share with the hungry the huge amount that falls from our tables? It wouldn’t even necessitate giving from our bounty – merely finding ways to distribute what we don’t want anyway. And this doesn’t even address our social policy of paying farmers not to grow crops.

What if we insisted that our government use our tax money to pay farmers the same subsidy to grow excess crops, and we gave that excess production to poverty-ravaged countries? There’s no way of knowing until we try. Perhaps these might be practical ways for all of us to become “rich in good works, generous, and ready to share...so that [we] may take hold of the life that really is life” (6:18). Trying wouldn’t cost anything.

Look It Up

The life of an early Christian community is described in Acts 2:42-47. How did these early believers deal with the needy and the hungry in their midst?

Think About It

How much perfectly edible food do we personally throw out every day? How might we figure this out?

Next Sunday

BCP: Hab. 1:1-6 (7-11) 12-13; 2:1-4; Psalm 37:1-18 or 37:3-10; 2 Tim. 1:(1-5) 6-14; 5-10; Luke 17:5-10

RCL: Lam. 1:1-6; Lam. 3:19-26 or Psalm 137; Hab. 1:1-4, 2:1-4; Psalm 37:1-10; 2 Tim. 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10