How rich are you?

I recently found a website called "globalrichlist.com," where we can enter our salary and find out where we fall on a global list of the richest people in the world. I entered a few numbers and found that any salary over $33,700 puts us in the top 5% of the world's population, and a salary over $47,500 puts us in the top 1% of the richest people in the world. Many of us fall there. How does it feel to suddenly be thrown into a grouping with the Forbes list of the richest people?

And from a spiritual point of view, what should we do with the wealth that we have and have accumulated? What should we use it for? Who should it benefit?  And in asking these kinds of questions we need to keep in mind that the story of Lazarus and the rich man is spoken to those who consider themselves in positions of power and blessing because they are good people – and this includes the disciples and the Twelve. We are not told that the rich man was dishonest in the building up of his wealth nor are we told that Lazarus is particularly pious as he lays there at the gate, unable to fend off the dogs who are licking him.  Is it possible that maybe the rich man was good and Lazarus was once the rich man’s servant and that is what puts him at the gate – outside of the fellowship he once enjoyed? We are not told who these men where or how they got to be where they are now. But we are warned about the kinds of choices that we make and what we do with what we have been entrusted with in terms of material possessions. And why are we warned? Because possessions or thinking that we have possessions can be a dangerous thing. Having possessions affects our “I” sight. We will suddenly become very myopic when we believe that our possessions (and therefore our identity and our security) are threatened. We lose sight of everything else and focus in on what we believe is ours. And in being so focused on our selves we find ourselves insulted and isolated from the needs of other people.

So what gets you to pay attention to the neighbour? Is it the noise of a party last night in the backyard? Is it when he drives his truck across your lawn? Is it when she is in the driveway struggling to carry in groceries?  Is it when she is aged and left all alone with no one to “look out” to her? This story is not about having the right theology and the rules so that you don’t have to endure hell. This story is about being careful to not be unaware of the people around you, not allowing anything to come between you and your neighbour so that you become unresponsive to them and therefore to God.  Let us remember that there is a gate between the rich man and the outside world beyond those gates that includes many Lazaruses and Miriams. The guard dogs could see the languishing state of Lazarus and they did what they could: they licked him. And believe it or not the salvia from a dog’s mouth has curative properties. This story is about what happens to people who choose to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to other people’s needs and struggles. We cannot claim that we did not know either. There is lots of instruction in the Scriptures about how to handle such things. Moses and the prophets include numerous provisions for decent treatment of the poor and vulnerable:  

·         Jews are not to mistreat aliens, widows, or orphans (Ex. 22:21-22; 23:9; Lev. 19:33; Deut. 24:17-18).  

·         They are to leave gleanings to the poor (Leviticus 19:9-10; 23:22).

·          They are to bring tithes to support Levites, aliens, the fatherless, and widows (Deut. 14:28-29; 26:12-15).

·         They are to cancel all debts every seventh year and to be openhanded to the needy (Deut. 15:1-11).  

·         They are to include aliens, the fatherless and widows in their celebrations (Deut. 16:9-15).  

·         They are to observe justice (Isaiah 5:7-10; Micah 3:1-3).

·          They are not to exploit workers (Isaiah 58:3).

·          They are to plead the case of the fatherless and to defend the rights of the poor (Jer. 5:25 -29).

·         They are warned about using dishonest scales (Hosea 12:7-9) and taking advantage of the vulnerable (Amos 2:6-8; Malachi 3:5).

So what do we do then? How do we begin to work this all out? We as the Church need to be a sign of hope – buying a plot of land when there is no earthly reason to expect there to be a return. As a community of faith and as individuals we must be aware that God is faithful in the present and God is going to be faithful in the future too. God is going to be there on the other side of judgment and so we are called to Trust in God in the moment. Moreover we need to be familiar with the reality that being a sign of hope is costly. It is costly and the patience to wait for what is to come is demanding. And in coming closer to the new life and the kingdom that God offers is hard because we have to go through judgment so that we can be tried and found justified in Christ. Faith and trust are not the same as surety and security. We have to take risks and to be willing to live and to die when necessary that we might rise again in Christ. We need to live not only the life, we need to live his death and resurrection too.

The first step is to open the gates to our lives and to let people in who really need us. And then we need to go through those same gates  and invite them to table with us that they too can enjoy all the blessings of this life and God’s inestimable love.  How rich will we all be then?