Homily for October 28, 2007 30th Sunday of the Year

The Gospel is the story in Luke's Gospel about the two people who went to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee. The other a Tax Collector. The Pharisee recounted his goodness. The Tax Collector beat his breast and said, "Be merciful to me, a sinner." Which one was "saved."

In the past few weeks, we've been talking about planning and finances, and I want to continue that today. But first I want to say a word about the Gospel.
I heard a wonderful treatment of this Gospel this past week when I was on retreat, by a very plainspoken Scripture scholar, who began by saying Luke and the evangelists probably didn't have a clue what Jesus meant by the parables that he told. So when they told them in their Gospel, they added their own meaning.
So Luke adds the interpretation today that Jesus told this parable to people who were sure of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, and made it a nice pious example that if you exalt yourself you'll be humbled, and if you humble yourself you'll be exalted. That's all very good, and nobody would disagree with it. But if you look at it from within the parable, the trajectories of the parables of Jesus have certain things in common.
First, the Pharisee's not a bad guy. When I think of it, don't we all look forward to the time when we could stand up and describe ourselves to God by saying, "Oh, God, I thank you that I've done my best. Thank you"?
If you're Catholic, and a traditional Catholic, you'd say, "Oh, God, I thank you that I've kept my faith. I go to Mass; I contribute to the church; I follow all the rules. I thank you that I've been able to hang in there." Wouldn't we all like to say that?
If you're a fundamentalist, wouldn't you like to say, "Oh, God, I thank you that I've accepted you as my Savior, and that I'm saved, and that I'm not like the people who aren't saved"  or however you define goodness in your life? Are you with me? Don't you look forward to being able to say, "I've fought the good fight, I've run the good race, I've kept faith; I've done my best to do what I'm supposed to do, and I thank you oh, God"?
That's not a bad prayer, is it? And that's not a bad thing to hope for. I think all of us in our own way hope for that. And so you imagine Jesus telling the story to his audience, and he said, "Two people went up to pray. One was pious and holy and just, and kept all the rules, and did everything right. And the other was a no good tax collector who made his living by cheating and extorting money from his own kind. Which one is saved?"
Well, if you were in Jesus' audience you'd say, "That's a no brainer  I mean, the Pharisee, of course."
And Jesus would just smile and say, "No, I tell you, not the Pharisee, but the sinner."
Well, what's the point? And by the way, Jesus had a fondness for telling stories that took us out of our comfort zone. He had a fondness for telling stories that shook up our way of looking at what's right and what's wrong. What's the point?
Maybe the point is, “You're not God. You don't know how God thinks; you don't know the way God looks at things. God is God, after all. God can do whatever he wants. And you're not privy to God's plans and to God's judgments, so don't be so sure of yourself, whatever area of your life you apply it to. Don't be so sure that you know who belongs and who doesn't. Don't be so sure that you know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Don't be so sure that you know who's saved and who isn't, because you're not God.” Does it make sense?
I hope there's something about that that upsets you. If it just makes you feel good, then maybe you haven't been disoriented enough. Do you know what I mean?
Think of the worst person you can think of  I won't ask you to name it  but think of the worst, the least worthy, the person you're absolutely sure has to go to hell. And think of the person that you're absolutely sure would go to heaven. And imagine Jesus saying, "Don't be so sure."
Well, now, I've dug myself a hole. How can I apply that to giving? By the way, did you all get a mailing last week, with a pledge card and an encouragement to give? And you all got a mailing a couple weeks ago from the archdiocese? Well, some of us went to a seminar on faith, money, and giving, and as I thought of this Gospel and how to connect it, one of the people at that seminar said that the thing he hated to hear was, "’Give your fair share,’ because," he said, "I don't know what anybody's fair share is."
I don't know. I think I'm trying to do my fair share, and I've got all I can do to define it for myself. But I don't know what your fair share is.
By the way, I invited five different people to share today, too, about their ministry in the church and what it means to them. And do you know, all five of them responded by saying, "I'd love to, but I won't be there this Sunday"?
So what does that mean? Well, I think it means they have a life, and their life doesn't revolve around being available to me and my plans for the Sunday homily. I just don't know what to do with these people that have families, and that have priorities in their life, and that have things that they need to attend to. But you know, that's part of reality. We are all trying to juggle and to balance many things in our life. And I'm not in a position to judge the way anybody else does it.
I hope I can say I'm doing my best to do what I think is right, but I just want to encourage everybody else to ask that question of yourself: "What is right for me? What is it that God calls me to do? How important is my faith in my life? How important is this place? What role in my life does the church play? And all of the things the church does  how does God call me to relate to those things."
I read some statistics last week that surprised me. One was that 64 percent  well, one statistic I read, by the way, people who belong to hierarchical churches give less than people who belong to nonhierarchical churches. Does it make sense? I read a statistic that said 64 percent of Catholics want more input into the way their church spends their contributions. I wish that was true. When I read that I immediately thought, "Okay, we'll have a meeting to talk about the budget, and 64 percent of the parish will show up." Doesn't happen! So we must be doing something not right.
Last week, by the way, we asked you on 3 by 5 cards to submit some concerns that you want the committee doing strategic planning to think about, and you'll find a summary of those in the bulletin. And also in my letter in the bulletin, you will find a reflection on "What do your contributions to the church support?" Well, if you looked at it very narrowly, I would say they pay the light bill; they pay the cost of maintaining these buildings; they pay for a very small staff: Myself, full time --  some might question that -- two people who are part time, one of whom isn't even paid for by the parish, but paid for by St. Francis Hospital; and a two day a week bookkeeper; and a secretary.
With the staff that we have, my biggest worry is not how to get work out of them, but how to keep their expectations of themselves within the limits of the time that we pay them for, and how to keep them from wanting to take on more than we can reasonably expect of them.
But I think beyond that, think of the many things that happen out of this place. Think of the ministry to the women's prison, to the people in prison. Think of the many efforts to reach out to the poor and to feed the hungry, to respond to the needs around us. Think of the impact that Holy Cross has had on the neighborhood throughout the years. I think that's a good impact.
Look around you and see the people who are involved in many things. Think of the kids in our athletic programs. Think of the kids in school. Think of the many people in a variety of 12step programs who have come over the years to see this place as a spiritual home. There's a lot of good that is done out of this place, and we can't take credit for all of it. But somehow there's an infrastructure here that supports and sustains a lot of things.
And again, to connect back to the Gospel, I don't have a clue what any of you should be doing. When I look at our finances, I know that what comes in is not enough to pay the bills, so I know we cannot continue to operate the way we are operating. I know there are some people who are very, very generous, and I'm reluctant to ask them to give any more, because I know they're asking, "Where is everybody else?" But beyond that, I really don't know what is fair for us. I really don't know if our giving is what it should be, or if it's way below what it should be. And I don't know how to answer that question. But then again, I'm not God, and thank God for that.
But I think the thrust of the stories that Jesus tells is constantly to invite us to look at this circle of thinking we have, in which we are very comfortable with our assumptions about what's right and wrong, who's good and bad, who's in and who's out, and say, "Don't be so sure," but to constantly challenge us to broaden our circle of thinking, and to broaden the way we look at things, and to be open to God's influence.
Next Sunday, I hope the people I invited to speak this Sunday will be here. I know this is fall break, and a lot of people had plans for this weekend. But anyway, I hope between now and a couple Sundays, that you will just think prayerfully about the role that all of these things play in your life.
And by the way, I think just one other thing. I think it's fair to say that part of our spirit here at Holy Cross is that we do take very seriously the thought that we are not God, and that therefore we are not in the position to say who's good and who's bad, who's in and who's out, but that everybody belongs and everybody is worthy to be here. And we try to be very deliberate about that. And we're trying to be even more deliberate about understanding the ways that we might be called to live that out.

Homily for October 21, 2007. Twenty-ninth Sunday of the Year, Cycle C

The Gospel is Luke 18:1-8. The Parable of the Widow and the unjust judge.

I read an interesting take on this Gospel that I want to share briefly, and then we have some other things to move on today.
When I was growing up, this Gospel was always presented to me as if, by my prayers, I was going to wear down God and God would intervene to give me justice. The take I read on it recently, that I really liked and will share with you is this. In the story God doesn't cause the crooked judge to wear out; the widow does. What God does is give the widow the courage and the energy to hang in there so she wears down the judge.
So the take I read on this story is that our prayers will not wear down God. Our prayers will give us the energy and the courage to hang in there while we wear down the opposition. Does that make sense to you? I like version, that we're going to wear down our opponents through the energy and the grace we get with our prayers.
I was not here last week, but two weeks ago we commissioned a faith care team to do an exciting new enterprise in working with people coming out of prison, and today I want to share with you two more initiatives that we're undertaking.
It is a Life Together program, which is a strategic planning initiative we're undertaking with the Center for Congregations. And the other is a program  not really a program, but a reflection  called Faith, Money and Giving, that some of our people have participated in, that is a reflection about the role of faith and money and giving in our life. I'm going to invite some of the people who have participated in these to share them with you, and I'm going to ask for your input.
How would I introduce the idea of planning? Frankly, I'm not big on it. We haven't been big on it at Holy Cross over the years. But, I went to a workshop last week that talked about health, and it made an interesting point. Health is not something we possess. We're either maintaining it or repairing it. So when we think of the health of our congregation, it's not a steady thing. Either we're maintaining it or we're repairing it, and I think we need to do that in conversation with each other.
While I'm not excited about strategic planning, I am excited about our having a conversation together about what we want our future to look like. And I'm excited about having a conversation together about a very important topic, money.
How many of you think about money a lot in your life? We all do, don't we? And we have to. And I want to talk about it, not in terms of the church's need for money, but in terms of the role that it plays in our life. And I want to talk about our future in the same way.
I think, back when I came to Holy Cross 11 years ago, I think people were feeling big-time powerless about the future of the parish. I hope we're not feeling that way now. And over those 11 years we've done a lot of things. So I think it's ready to move now towards the next step of asking: How do we envision our future, and what do we need to do that?
I'm going to ask three people to share with us on that today: Melba Hopper, who is our codirector of the planning process for Life Together, John Kirby, and Therese Reckley. And they can either come up or stand up where they are and use this.

Melba: Yes, Fr. Larry can talk you into anything, I've decided. I agreed to cochair this with Nancy McNiece, and I would like to introduce the other members of our team who will be working on the strategic planning with all of you.
And Therese Reckley is one. Therese? I think people know her, but just in case. Lena Hackett -- is she in here? Okay. And Nancy McNiece, and Jackie Ahlborn. Is Jackie here? Okay. And John Kirby.
So, as Fr. Larry said, what we see this as, is a process of conversation with everybody, to find out what people here think is important, what people would like to see happen, and what's working, what isn't working  that kind of thing. I think I can speak for the team and say that we would like to make this a keystone to how this whole thing works, that there's lots of twoway conversation, communication going on the whole time; and that we would like to come out with a good result, good for the whole church, that fits within the mission of this church; and that we want to come out with something that isn't just put on a shelf, but that we actually can and do put into action.
So the project that is being funded will be in three phases. There's the organizational phase, which we've been going through, and it was just exactly that. We got together, we organized ourselves, we did some preliminary things, initial brainstorming, and we met some of the initial conditions of the grant. We expect that to be finished probably sometime in midNovember.
And then the second phase, which is the planning and thinking phase, will happen, and that will be about  we're thinking about a 10month long process.
And then the final phase will be where we implement whatever comes out of that second phase. We don't know how long that will take  at least a year, probably longer.
The second phase  in the second phase we will be looking at three things: We will be looking at our history, the history of our parish, the history of our parish community, and other things and people who are related, who are related in different ways to us. We'll probably actually kick that off with some demographics very quickly then, and then continually carry on these conversations that Fr. Larry and I referred to.
One of the things we're thinking about doing in that phase is having something sometime in the spring, an allparish retreat  not here at the church  where people will have plenty of opportunity to talk about what's important to them here and what they'd like to see happening. And we'd kind of like to kick that off today.
At either end of the pews there are some index cards with pencils. And we'd like to ask you a question  and I've written it down just in case I might forget it, exactly what we're wanting to ask you -- so if people on the ends could just pass those down. And then after I ask the question, you fill it out, and when the collection basket comes around just drop that in the basket. And what we will do this week is to compile that information, and in next Sunday's bulletin we will let you know what results we've found, and particularly if we're finding any common themes.
So this is the way we want this to work. We want there to be input from you all, feedback from us, input from us, feedback from you all. And we are hoping that this is going to go on, as I said, the entire time.
So, our question is: What concerns or issues do you want us to keep in mind? What is important to you for us to keep in mind as we all go through trying to envision a future for Holy Cross? And it doesn't matter how big, how little  everything matters to us, everything that you're thinking. And even if you're new here and don't know what's going on here, there are reasons you came, and there may be things you're looking for, something that would be important to you. So put that down; we want to know what it is. And, as I said, we'll try to get the results back to you by next Sunday.
So we're looking forward to this, looking forward to having a lot of fun with everybody with it. There's going to be a lot of work involved, and I just invite you to participate fully. Thank you very much.
Fr. Larry: Put it in the collection basket.
John: Well, I feel really privileged to be part of this, and I think it's going to be neat as we share with all of you and grow in our vision.
A couple things that struck me from the giving program: One lady told the story, when they announced the collection in her church, everybody applauds, and visitors are usually shocked by that. But what I think is unique about her story is that most of the time we're reluctant about talking, rather than welcoming the possibility we have to control our future. And that's what I see is the best thing about this planning, is that as we come to understand ourselves better, we will attract resources to ourselves.
If you remember back the last time you were selling your house, perhaps, you notice how many other realty signs are out there. Or when you buy a new car, you notice how many other smart people have chosen the same kind of good car that you did. And I think something about planning that is really powerful is that you begin to attract resources, and you begin to see the world in some new ways, and we begin to tell our story more actively. And I think that's what this is about.
I agree with Fr. Larry that most real strategic planning is pretty boring, and it usually winds up in a big binder that sticks on a shelf. But community planning and thinking together, and knowing that we build our own destiny in so many ways, I think is a wonderful thing. So I'm really excited about being part of this, and I hope you are, too, as we dialogue about all the possibilities.
And being a Holy Cross member now for well over 20 years, I've certainly seen wonderful things happen here, which says that God's blessing is truly abundant and flowing our way more and more.
Therese: The seminar that we all went to a couple weeks ago was given by the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving. And it wasn't about fundraising and stewardship. The seminar focused on conversations about what we believe about giving and how our beliefs shape our behavior.
People of faith are among the most generous people. However money is a taboo topic in the Catholic religion. They talked about many reasons why the clergy didn't like to talk about money. It was interesting to hear that a lot of clergy are afraid of talking about money in their sermons because they are afraid of alienating people from their congregations.
Do you know that Jesus had more to say about money than any other topic when he spoke? Did you know that the Bible has seven times more to say about money than prayer? Money was not evil. It was not to be hoarded.
It was interesting to listen to others at the seminar and hear them speak about their congregations, and giving money was such a joyous occasion, as John has said. They have rituals in giving money. This is a witness to their love of God. We must remember that everything we have is given to us by God. We must enjoy it, use it, and share it.
In studies done, Catholics are among the least generous of all religious givers. Why is this? Probably because we don't engage money into our conversations. Remember, it is a taboo word in the Catholic religion.
I leave you with this question: How do we change the mindset surrounding talking about money in the Catholic religion? I believe that Fr. Larry would be open to any suggestions that you might have on how we can talk about money without making people feel very uncomfortable. So, let's not wait until a crisis occurs until we have to talk about money. Thank you.

Fr. Larry: Thank you. Those two topics will intertwine as we plan, because obviously, you never have a plan until you have in place what you're going to do with it. I want to share with you, in closing, a funny story.
One of the little planning tools we learned at this seminar was called "appreciative inquiry." Think of a story about when you were at your best. So I asked the parish council to think of a time when Holy Cross was at its best, and make it a story.
Well, one of the people said, "We were at our best when you were in the hospital for a year." Sounds bad, at first, but what she meant was, when I was away for a year, we had a constant stream of other priests who were coming in trying to change things.
And you were very good in saying, "No, that's not who we are, and that's not the way we do things here." And that's a real strength. And also, you were very good at pulling together. So I think that's a real goal for me, continuing. Because, you see, I don't see this as my parish. I see it as really belonging to the people, and therefore it's very important for the people to know who we are and what we want to be.
The other story that I thought of was the time when we did all of this beautiful church renovation. When we were first thinking about it, we didn't have the money, and we approached the Archdiocese. We could not do a capital campaign at the time, because it wasn't time yet.
Well, Ron Frazee was like the widow in the Gospel today, who kept pushing and pushing and pushing, and finally I got tired of saying “no.” So, I said, "Well, we can't do a capital campaign, but if you want to write a letter, go ahead, and I'll mail it for you." Well, we did. And lo and behold, the money came in, and we were able to do all of this.
Those are just two stories of, I think, when Holy Cross was at its best. You can probably think of many others.
Anyway, I'm excited about the prospects for our future and I hope you are too, and this whole thing, conversation, will unfold in many more ways as we go through the coming months.

Homily for October 7, 2007 Twenty Seventh Sunday of the Year

Today we're going to be commissioning some members of our community who will be embarking on a new and exciting ministry of ministering to prisoners returning to society. So I want to ask your indulgence to talk about that initiative for a little while this morning. And a book I want to use to talk about it, that I've been reading and find very interesting, is this book: Radical Amazement: Contemplative Lessons from Black Holes, Supernovas, and Other Wonders of the Universe.
Now, you might wonder what that's got to do with prison ministry. First, I hope you're not surprised that I might be interested in reading a book about contemplative lessons from the scientific exploration of the universe, but I want to share with you how I came to have this book. It was one Sunday after Mass at the Women's Prison. A woman who is serving a very long term sentence for two murders came up to me and said, "You've got to read this book. It's the best book I ever read."
And I said, "Oh, sure. Show it to me." Well, this was the book, contemplative lessons from the mysteries of the universe. How many of you are surprised that I would be introduced to a book like that by someone in prison? Really? It's not what you expect. So, first of all, I throw that out to say we always need to let go of all of our stereotypes and of all of the presuppositions we have about what people are like.
But there is a specific thing in this book that I wanted to use to talk about our faith care team. The author talks about -- and this is going to be one of those 75cent words --  the author talks about "morphogenic fields." Now, what is that all about? Well, in explaining it, she mentions a time in 1993, in Washington, D. C. when, from June 1 to July 30, three thousand people came together from throughout the world. They meditated for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening every day for two months, with the specific intention of reducing violence in the city. Do you get the picture?
Well, during those two months, there was a documented 25 percent decrease in violent crime, and the author says the decrease could not be explained in any other way. Do you believe that's possible?
Another question I might ask is, do you believe that it is possible that just by gathering here Sunday after Sunday, and celebrating the Eucharist, and entering into communion  do you think that just by doing that we can have a positive influence on the neighborhood around us? What do you think? Does it matter that we are here Sunday after Sunday? And I think the answer is "yes." How to explain that is a real mystery.
Well, what I see us doing with this faith care team is taking an extra step, to say we want to be very intentional about creating an atmosphere of love, of acceptance and support that can make a real difference in the life of an individual coming out of prison and trying to enter society. Do you think that's possible? And so I see this care team, not as doing it for us, but as being the visible expression of what we want to be as a community, and that is this energy field of love and acceptance that can make a difference.
And we're doing this not just as a parish initiative, but as part of a bigger initiative that began with the United Methodist Church, of trying in a very organized way to involve many congregations in this ministry. Mary Z., who heads up that project, is with us today. The first faith care team was at Wesley United Methodist Church on the west side. We are the second. But the goal is to grow that, so that other congregations are involved in this ministry.
What's different about it for Holy Cross is, over the years  we do a lot of good things, we have a lot of good will, and I see individuals reach out and do good things. Often they're in a very unorganized way. That's just who we've been over the years, and often people wonder if, from time to time, we aren't, in some cases, doing more harm than good.
Well, what's different about this is a very intentional effort to do it in an organized way. And I want to embrace that and say it's a real challenge for us, and it's a real question for us as a parish that, by the way, we are dealing with in other areas, such as the strategic planning initiative that we're undertaking, that you'll hear more about.
That is the question. Are we ready to take the good things we do and do them in a more systematic and organized and disciplined way, to bring them up another notch?
Now, some of the things that are different about this: The individuals from this faith care team will meet with the inmate for several months before it'll be a he  before he is released. And during that time, they will develop a covenant between us and that inmate that spells out very clearly what we expect of each other, what we're able to do, what we're willing to do, what we won't do, and what we can expect of the individual and what the individual can expect of us.
The other thing that is different about this is a very concentrated effort on working as a team. They will make a covenant with each other that they won't be acting in isolation from one another, but that whatever they do, everybody will be involved in the decision making and in what they do. Those of you who've been at Holy Cross for a long, long time, will that be a challenge for us in our normal way of doing things? It will, won't it? And I think it will be a good and a welcome challenge, and it will be a good and a welcome challenge to be part of a bigger picture.
And anyway, that's what I want to call your attention to today, but within that bigger faith context of violence in our society, of the welfare of our neighborhood, and of the many problems. And in that context  you can forget that 75cent word, "morphogenic fields," if you want to, but I really believe that there is truth in it, that what we do can create a positive energy field that invites life around us in, that organizes that life, and that makes a real difference in our world. And that difference is just rooted in who we are in God, and who we seek to be, and in the ways in which we seek to reach out and involve other people.
So with that, I want to invite you to pray over the faith care team members.

September 30, 2007 26th Sunday of the Year

I have a handout I want to give you today, and I'll get to that in a minute. First, when I read the Gospel today, I was reminded of a time a few years ago at St. Patrick when we had a homeless person who began to sleep on the porch of the church. We met to try to decide what to do about that; we found out who he was; we found out the agencies that he'd been dealing with. the advice that they had given him, and the list of resources that they had given him to go to. So we were satisfied that he had been provided with resources that could help. Finally, we decided that we couldn't let him sleep on the porch.
So it fell to me to go out to tell him that he couldn't sleep on the porch anymore. And I did so, and again gave him the list of resources that he had been given, and encouraged him to use those. And anyway, the conversation went very well, so I thought, and I walked back in through the church. And I thought of this Gospel. And I said, "You know, the rich man let Lazarus sleep at his door, and he still went to hell. And we're not even doing that." So my good feeling evaporated quickly.
Well, I use that story to illustrate something that Scripture scholars tell us, and that is that to understand what a Biblical text means for your life, you have to read two texts: You have to read the text of the written word, but you also have to read the text of your life and of the life that is going on around you.
So I want to askyou the question today: How do you read the text of our society and the existence of poverty and homelessness, and people who are uninsured? How do you read that text? I want to suggest some different ways.
When I grew up, the way we read the text was that people were poor because of some failing on their part, or some vice on their part. Are you familiar -- I'm not asking you to agree with it -- how many of you are familiar with that way of reading the text of poverty? And if you look in the Bible for justification of that way of reading it, you could find a little bit, and it would be in the wisdom literature and the book of Proverbs.
But if you were to read the prophets, you would find a whole different reading of the text of poverty and homelessness. Basically, what you would find would be an interpretation that said God has entered into a covenant with us; God has given us the land, and God has given us the resources, and God has told us to take care of each other. If there are poor people among us, if there are homeless people among us, it's because we have not kept the covenant with God.
Hard words, aren't they? My handout -- in the Jewish law there are 613 commandments, or mitzvot. I'm not giving you all 613, but I'm giving you a partial list that somebody gave to me. There's plenty for everybody to have one. I want to encourage you to look over them; just quickly look over them. The reason I printed them is that you might take them home with you.
By the way, another little side agenda I have in doing this is, I've been reading Pope Benedict's book on Jesus, and I'm impressed with his emphasis on how thoroughly Jewish Jesus is. Many of us Christians grew up with a kind of Christian chauvinism, where we think we've got it right and they didn't. But everything Jesus taught and knew about love came from the Jewish law, and Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. And the Pope, in his books, goes to great lengths to point out to us all the time how thoroughly Jewish Jesus is.
So anyway, as you look over them, do any of them strike you as -- any of them stand out for you?
Yes? Would you read to me?
"To relieve a neighbor of his burden and help to unload his beast." So, you know, there's one after that that isn't there that says you have to help him, help the beast, too. So even the beast of burden you have to help. That would be good for animal rights activists.
Anything else? (inaudible.) Jay gave a zero to the rich man and gave Lazarus 240, if we're keeping score.
By the way Lazarus, this poor man, is one of the few people in the Gospels who is given a name. It's in my letter in the bulletin. Do you know what the name "Lazarus" means? It's the Greek of Eliezar, which means, "My God Helps." So when you listen to the story, there's a rich man and a poor man named My God Helps at his door. And My God Helps ends up in Abraham's bosom, and the rich man ends up in the abode of torment. Interesting, isn't it?
Anything else strike you in that list, that you'd like to share? Okay, 175, "Do not demand of the poor man repayment of his debt when he can't do it." What would that say about our bankruptcy system today?
Number 222 says to keep the Jubilee year holy. The Jewish law required that every seven years debts had to be forgiven, and every seven years the land had to take a sabbatical and be let rest. And every 50 years you had to go back to the beginning; all the property had to go back to the original family that owned it, because they assumed that in the course of doing business, inequalities would emerge. And then those inequalities had to be wiped out every so often, so we could start again equally.
Part of that mentality, you see, is that we have obligations, and our overarching obligation is to act in such a way that we heal the wounds in our society, that we heal the earth, that we heal the poor. And those obligations take priority over any rights that we have and over any privileges that we would claim. So if there are poor in the land, it's because we are not keeping faith with God. Wow!
Take those home with you and read them.
Yes? (inaudible.) Yes. The "we" is the whole nation. And there are, within Judaism, strands of universalism where the "we" becomes all of humanity. But it's not just my clan or my family, but the "we" is very big.
Yes? (inaudible.) So they're not talking charity, but justice. And again, yeah, it's changing the structures of our society and culture as well, and obligation is there.
Well, it's a tall order isn't it? And needless to say, they never did it. That's why the prophets were forever condemning them. And by the way, when you read in the Old Testament expressions of God's, anger, God's judgment, we grew up reading them as though God is judgmental toward us as individuals in our individual sins. The condemnation is always the sins of the nation, and the judgment is on the nation and on its political and religious leaders. It's not on the failings of weak individual human beings, but it's a judgment on political and religious leadership. Wow!
Anyway, I hope that's disturbing to you, and I hope it triggers a lot of thinking. And last, I want to conclude with a reference to the parable today, and a question.
Robert Frost is quoted oftentimes -- there's a poem, "Fences Make Good Neighbors," and in that poem Robert Frost is walking a fence with his neighbor, and they're repairing the holes in the fence, and the neighbor says, "Fences make good neighbors."
And Robert Frost says, "Before I build a fence, I would like to know who I'm keeping out and who I'm keeping in."
And well, you see, in this parable there is a gate. Gates are there so you can go through them, right, from one side to the other? And in the parable, when the rich man is alive, he has an opportunity to go through the gate to My God Helps. When he fails to do so and dies, what becomes of that gate? It becomes a chasm so deep that you can no longer cross from one side to the other.
So another disturbing question I want to leave you with: Where are the gates in your life, where you might be invited to go through the gate, and if you don't, that gate might become a chasm?