Privilege and comfort
This week's heat wave goodness is a short bit on hell and charity: Luke 16:19-31:
Jesus rails against rich people a lot. It's not that he hates rich people or wealth. It's just that the sort of shrewd behavior that makes people wealthy is often counter to his purposes for us on earth. In this case, we have a super rich guy, like so rich that he can't possibly not know it, and we have a super poor guy, like so poor that he can't even afford to feed or clothe himself, or even to take care of what seem to be fairly serious health problems. How does that happen? How can the rich guy whose wealth is obvious walk past the poor guy, whose needs are equally obvious, every single day without helping him?
I think the wealthy guy was just comfortable. He was so comfortable that all he could think about was himself. He was so comfortable that he was completely insulated from his own needs, and so he had no compassion on the needs of the poor guy. When did the rich guy ever feel deep hunger? When did he ever have the shame of ripped filthy clothes? When did he ever have the agony of festering infected sores? When was he ever not able to just purchase what he needed? He was so rich and so comfortable for so long that he was completely out of touch with the rest of the world. He wasn't even curious, let alone compassionate. He felt nothing from the world. Everything else was TV and billboards in his world, and he was the only real person.
But yet obviously God makes some people wealthy or powerful. What is it for? Is it to be comfortable? Or are we supposed to be helping our fellow man with those privileges and connections and those resources? The Bible tells us to be charitable and compassionate. Even if we never found ourselves in the rich man's place of eternal torment, we should know better than to just burrow ourselves deep into a fluffy pillow of materialism. But it's human nature. Look at how many public officials, missionaries, bureaucrats, and so on end up doing the same thing. Look at how easily they justify spending the resources meant for others on their own comfort.
Imagine a manager of a dairy on his first week on the job. He's paid a salary and the farmers deliver truckloads of milk. After a week or so, he starts to yell at the farmers and at the guy who owns the company. "Stop it! Just stop bringing me milk! I have too much already! The whole place stinks from it. I can't even put it anywhere I have so much of it. The refrigerated storage is full and it's all I can do to put the fresh stuff in and take the old stuff out and then it spoils before I can drink it. I only drink a gallon or so a day, and I'm already sick of cheese, so what am I supposed to do with it? How could you make me work in a place that stinks of rotting sour milk all day? And what kind of idiot builds a milk facility that can only store a few days of milk? Basic math would tell you that we either have too many cows or too few refrigeration units. And what if the cows stop making more milk before I'm finished drinking it? What if I can't afford to pay any more people to make it into cheese and ice cream? And while we're on that subject, can you get those people to stop coming by begging for the stuff? Yes, I know they want to sell milk in their stores, but its not their warehouse, is it? I don't see their names on my door. If they wanted milk that badly, they'd get a job managing their own warehouse instead of bugging me at mine. Can't you people hire some security guards?"
Yeah. That's what comfort looks like. It's probably how we look to God when someone has a need and we ignore it and focus on ourselves. The rich man probably walked by Lazarus every day, or more likely rode, and thought to himself some variation of "Not my problem." Some people sleep more deeply than others, and the rich man died without ever waking up. By then, it was too late to fix Lazarus or the rich man. The scary ironic thing is that if their positions were reversed, if the rich man ended up in heaven and Lazarus ended up in hell, Lazarus probably could have chalked it up as just more hardship, and the rich man would have settled into more comfort without even noticing much had changed.
In the comfort we live in in the west, it's pretty obvious we're the rich man in the parable. We're so wealthy that we don't even know we're wealthy. In the context of worldwide poverty, we're the rich people in the gated compound that don't know how to cook or drive cars. We just fly from place to place in private jets, never talking with anyone who isn't also in a similar situation. The scary thing here is that even the poorest of us lives in more luxury than the condemned rich man in the Bible. Could he have tropical fruits grown and picked for him and then flown in from the other side of the world while they were still fresh? Could he call for a delicious meal at a moment's notice and have it brought to his door in thirty minutes or less? Could he take medicines to dull the pain of old age or injury? Could he keep the summer heat off with air conditioning and the winter chill away with central heating? We don't have people to carry us around in plush chairs when we want to go places, but we do have robots to do that for us. They're called "cars."
What about poor people who only own a couple shirts, who dream of some day having a bicycle, whose teeth hurt constantly because they've sanded them down with bits of gravel from their stone-ground bread? People who have never heard about Jesus because they don't have the Internet or a radio, or a Bible, or even the literacy needed to read it? Are we going to be held accountable like the rich man for not spending our luxury money to help these sorts of people in the world? I'm not saying that we should live in hardship so that others can live in pampered luxury (welfare queens, if you are out there, I'm talking to you) but really, when in history did people have such a thick budget for fancy clothes, entertainment, and various toys? And is it coincidence that we ended up with that excess right around the time we started having the ability to communicate globally and reach other cultures?
The first step, I think, is seeing the neediness of the beggar outside of our gate as our problem. We can't solve every problem, but if we see one over and over, chances are that it could be meant to be "our problem." Why was Lazarus outside of that rich man's gate, and not the gate of some other rich man? And what is wealth for anyway? A seasons pass to the football game? Premium cable channels? Cigarettes? Sexy shoes? Video games? Gold teeth and spinny rims? Do those things really make a difference? Or will we wake up too late to discover that we're the dumbest milk plant managers in history, and all the cheese we fought so hard to protect is nothing but food for the rats?
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Jesus rails against rich people a lot. It's not that he hates rich people or wealth. It's just that the sort of shrewd behavior that makes people wealthy is often counter to his purposes for us on earth. In this case, we have a super rich guy, like so rich that he can't possibly not know it, and we have a super poor guy, like so poor that he can't even afford to feed or clothe himself, or even to take care of what seem to be fairly serious health problems. How does that happen? How can the rich guy whose wealth is obvious walk past the poor guy, whose needs are equally obvious, every single day without helping him?
I think the wealthy guy was just comfortable. He was so comfortable that all he could think about was himself. He was so comfortable that he was completely insulated from his own needs, and so he had no compassion on the needs of the poor guy. When did the rich guy ever feel deep hunger? When did he ever have the shame of ripped filthy clothes? When did he ever have the agony of festering infected sores? When was he ever not able to just purchase what he needed? He was so rich and so comfortable for so long that he was completely out of touch with the rest of the world. He wasn't even curious, let alone compassionate. He felt nothing from the world. Everything else was TV and billboards in his world, and he was the only real person.
But yet obviously God makes some people wealthy or powerful. What is it for? Is it to be comfortable? Or are we supposed to be helping our fellow man with those privileges and connections and those resources? The Bible tells us to be charitable and compassionate. Even if we never found ourselves in the rich man's place of eternal torment, we should know better than to just burrow ourselves deep into a fluffy pillow of materialism. But it's human nature. Look at how many public officials, missionaries, bureaucrats, and so on end up doing the same thing. Look at how easily they justify spending the resources meant for others on their own comfort.
Imagine a manager of a dairy on his first week on the job. He's paid a salary and the farmers deliver truckloads of milk. After a week or so, he starts to yell at the farmers and at the guy who owns the company. "Stop it! Just stop bringing me milk! I have too much already! The whole place stinks from it. I can't even put it anywhere I have so much of it. The refrigerated storage is full and it's all I can do to put the fresh stuff in and take the old stuff out and then it spoils before I can drink it. I only drink a gallon or so a day, and I'm already sick of cheese, so what am I supposed to do with it? How could you make me work in a place that stinks of rotting sour milk all day? And what kind of idiot builds a milk facility that can only store a few days of milk? Basic math would tell you that we either have too many cows or too few refrigeration units. And what if the cows stop making more milk before I'm finished drinking it? What if I can't afford to pay any more people to make it into cheese and ice cream? And while we're on that subject, can you get those people to stop coming by begging for the stuff? Yes, I know they want to sell milk in their stores, but its not their warehouse, is it? I don't see their names on my door. If they wanted milk that badly, they'd get a job managing their own warehouse instead of bugging me at mine. Can't you people hire some security guards?"
Yeah. That's what comfort looks like. It's probably how we look to God when someone has a need and we ignore it and focus on ourselves. The rich man probably walked by Lazarus every day, or more likely rode, and thought to himself some variation of "Not my problem." Some people sleep more deeply than others, and the rich man died without ever waking up. By then, it was too late to fix Lazarus or the rich man. The scary ironic thing is that if their positions were reversed, if the rich man ended up in heaven and Lazarus ended up in hell, Lazarus probably could have chalked it up as just more hardship, and the rich man would have settled into more comfort without even noticing much had changed.
In the comfort we live in in the west, it's pretty obvious we're the rich man in the parable. We're so wealthy that we don't even know we're wealthy. In the context of worldwide poverty, we're the rich people in the gated compound that don't know how to cook or drive cars. We just fly from place to place in private jets, never talking with anyone who isn't also in a similar situation. The scary thing here is that even the poorest of us lives in more luxury than the condemned rich man in the Bible. Could he have tropical fruits grown and picked for him and then flown in from the other side of the world while they were still fresh? Could he call for a delicious meal at a moment's notice and have it brought to his door in thirty minutes or less? Could he take medicines to dull the pain of old age or injury? Could he keep the summer heat off with air conditioning and the winter chill away with central heating? We don't have people to carry us around in plush chairs when we want to go places, but we do have robots to do that for us. They're called "cars."
What about poor people who only own a couple shirts, who dream of some day having a bicycle, whose teeth hurt constantly because they've sanded them down with bits of gravel from their stone-ground bread? People who have never heard about Jesus because they don't have the Internet or a radio, or a Bible, or even the literacy needed to read it? Are we going to be held accountable like the rich man for not spending our luxury money to help these sorts of people in the world? I'm not saying that we should live in hardship so that others can live in pampered luxury (welfare queens, if you are out there, I'm talking to you) but really, when in history did people have such a thick budget for fancy clothes, entertainment, and various toys? And is it coincidence that we ended up with that excess right around the time we started having the ability to communicate globally and reach other cultures?
The first step, I think, is seeing the neediness of the beggar outside of our gate as our problem. We can't solve every problem, but if we see one over and over, chances are that it could be meant to be "our problem." Why was Lazarus outside of that rich man's gate, and not the gate of some other rich man? And what is wealth for anyway? A seasons pass to the football game? Premium cable channels? Cigarettes? Sexy shoes? Video games? Gold teeth and spinny rims? Do those things really make a difference? Or will we wake up too late to discover that we're the dumbest milk plant managers in history, and all the cheese we fought so hard to protect is nothing but food for the rats?
Comments
Post a Comment