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The Camel and Campaign Red
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| 10/6/2006 |
When
the man runs up to Jesus and asks him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” it doesn’t seem like an honest question. Maybe it’s the “Good Teacher,” that
tips me off, the obligatory buttering up of Jesus so he’ll get what he
wants. Rather than learning how to
save his life, he wants to be assured that when he dies, he has all his ducks
in a row to get into heaven
Jesus
recites to him some of the commandments, but there is a tricky test in the
list. “You shall not murder; you
shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal, you shall not bear false
witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and mother.” And the man takes the bait, “Teacher, I
have kept all these from my youth!”
But,
there was something wrong with the list of the commandments. Did you hear it?
That’s
right, “You shall not defraud” is not one of the commandments. The man, if he was so smart about
keeping the commandments, should’ve caught it, or so say the biblical scholars
who think about these things and write them in the dusty books in my
library.
What is happening here,
so they say, is that Jesus knows that he has a man who, in fact, does
defraud. But the man himself
probably has no awareness that he defrauds, for he probably comes by his wealth
by acceptable community standards.
Jesus had different standards as we know: Love your enemies; forgive seven times seventy; let the one
without sin cast the first stone.
If
we have ears to hear, and I hope we do, Jesus is confronting the man’s
standards of justice and economics, and, certainly, we should too. Here is where the words of Jesus have
currency in 2006. Through the
authority and mystery of scripture, Jesus is asking, or maybe it’s better to
say the Spirit of God is calling us to discern through these words of Jesus, “Do
you defraud?”
In
a moment, Jesus will utter those words that often go in one ear and out the
other: “It is easier for a camel
to pass through the eye of the needle than for someone who has riches to enter
the kingdom of heaven.” The Spirit
is whispering to us in those words, “Hey if you answered ‘yes’ to that
defrauding question, are you willing to change, amend your life, restore
economically what you’ve taken?”
I
am sure most of us, including myself, don’t think of ourselves as
defrauders. We’re hard working,
honest, ask for fair wages or pay our employees fairly. But, what if the larger system of which
we are a part does exploit others?
This
man kneeling before Jesus probably is being honest when he says he doesn’t
defraud. Think for a moment about
the economic system that Jesus so often confronted. We’re not talking about a capitalist system with lots of
individual freedoms to make your own way from hard work and ingenuity. Chances are this man is just rich
because he was born rich. He
probably doesn’t work hard like the people who do and are still poor. For him,
that’s just way things are. For
Jesus, well, it’s fraudulent.
I
suppose it makes me twitch the most when I think about how rich I am as an
American. I find myself ignoring
how many resources I consume, like oil, compared to others. I don’t think about the excesses of my
diet, and the food I waste, while I know billions starve. I think it’s okay to spend 2 bucks for
a bottle of French alps spring water, but why, when asked to give 20 bucks to put
a well to bring fresh water to malaria-infested village in the global south, do
I say, “I’ve already done my tithes this year.” Why don’t I just skip 10 bottles of Evian, and send the
money?
Still,
I don’t feel like I defraud anyone.
It is the way things are. I
am trying to be a good steward of what I’ve been given.
The
story tells that Jesus looked at the man, and he loved the man. He cared for him, and he wanted to help
him. But he knew that there was no
way he could just explain to him how he was a part of the fraudulent
system. Because he loved him,
Jesus knew that for this man to change, he would have to experience the fraud
itself. And there is only one way
to do that.
"You
lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you
will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."
Is
there any way we could understand how the poor live in two-thirds of the world
if we live in the other third of the world where fresh water, vaccines,
anti-viral medications, and access to schools that can at least teach us to
read (generally) are accessible to most of us? Well, we might understand to a certain degree, and we might
be willing to do something about it, but Jesus wants, or, as I like to say, the
Spirit speaking to us today through these words of Jesus spoken so long ago,
wants us to go further. Become
poor, feel the fraud, and live in that small margin beyond poverty but short of
destitution where Jesus set the captives free. Follow him there, and be free yourself.
But,
of course, we can’t. Or, we won’t. At least I won’t. I’m like that man. “When he heard this, he was shocked and
went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
Actually,
I think Jesus, after looking at me, and loving me, might say, “Give up your
privilege of safety, comfort, national status, gender and religion. With no veneer of protection and
respect, follow me. I will give
you all you need.”
Jesus has fun at the man’s, and my,
expense: "Children, how hard
it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of
God." Harsh words for someone
like me, and they make me uneasy.
But, too often, these prophetic words of Jesus are caricatured to mean
that Jesus wanted people to be poor.
Not true, I think. Jesus
wanted people to change. He wants them to change, not for the
sake of the next life as much as for this life, that we might bring things to
earth now, as they will be in heaven.
Your
objection to my point might be, “What good does it do for the poverty stricken
man in Bangladesh or the AIDS-ravaged woman in Malawi if I make myself poor?”
It’s a good point. Jesus has
another point: Look at your life
here from the perspective of the Bangladeshi and Malawian. From that place, look for the
Kingdom. Do you see the
kingdom differently? Are
possessions important?
Again,
I think Jesus is saying that one’s economic position can skew perspective. Here’s my “in the headlines” example.
This
week, I watched on TV Oprah Winfrey and Bono climb into a cherry-red T-bird and
cruise down Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
They stopped at the GAP, and bought red t-shirts, hoodies and bomber
jackets; they drove to APPLE, and bought a red iPod; they stopped at Armani’s
and picked up a red watch, went into Motorola and bought red RAZR phones, and they paid for all
this loot with a bright red American Express Card. With the purchase of each of these Red products, a portion
of the profits goes to fight AIDS in Africa.
Now,
that’s a good thing to take some profits to fight AIDS, and certainly Bono and
Oprah are humanitarians, using their faith and power for good. But, do you see the pattern in the
products? The stuff is cool, and
when we buy it, these things will make us cool. Sure, we’ll do some good and be cool.
I
hear that the Spirit whispering through the words of Jesus.
Possessions
cannot make us who we are, or tell us if we’re good, or righteous, or
whole. We are good, because God
makes us so through love and forgiveness, not because of our red shirt. We are righteous by living,
non-fraudulently, in God’s commandments of love of neighbor, not because a few
pennies of our cell phone purchase will be directed toward AIDS.
Jesus
seems to be saying today, “Don’t let your possessions possess you. You don’t need that t-shirt. If you care about AIDS, leave that
stuff behind, and follow me to places where AIDS lives.”
I
want to speak softly here, because I do think these sorts of marketing
campaigns do some good, but I also think that if we believe we’re more a
disciple of Jesus because we buy cool stuff that does some good then it’s time
to go back to today’s passage and have its meaning wash over us starkly.
Just
to take this a bit further. I went
on the GAP website for all of these Red products. There, I learned that these red t-shirts are “designed to
make a difference in Africa.” On
the blog describing how cool it is to buy these red t-shirts, the VP for GAP
writes, “Look out America—prepare to accessorize your compassion!” To which a reader comments back, “I am
so excited, and I’m getting my credit card ready. I saw pics of Bono and Oprah, and I confess that I got even
more excited because now I can buy the products too.”
When
I read this, I started writing fiery paragraphs about how compassion cannot be
accessorized, and you can’t save yourself or AIDS-stricken Africans with a
credit card. I researched how the
CEO of GAP made more than $10 million last year, and the woman with AIDS sewing
these t-shirts in Lesotho, Africa, is making about $1.50 a day. I really built up a head of righteous,
prophetic steam when I took a break to update the family finances on the Quicken program on my computer. There was a financial statement that
needed attention from the investment company that keeps my retirement IRA. I typed in my new balance on my IRA
into the spreadsheet. Whoa, I
thought, the stock market has recovered.
Retirement is looking better and better. At that moment, a little marketing pamphlet fell out of the
statement describing what new stocks were in this mutual fund that were helping
it to do so well, and the largest new stock acquisition was. . . .
The
GAP.
And
I haven’t sent the money back yet.
Jesus
is right. Jesus is always
right. It is easier for a camel to
get through the eye of a needle than for a guy like me to get into the kingdom
of heaven, today, in the present.
I
hope, when my time comes, when the kingdom comes again, Christ has mercy, as
Jesus did to people like me.
And,
that is why, once again, I give myself over to Christ’s mercy and forgiveness,
and ask you to do so, too.
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