Poverty in America--Dead Men Do Tell Tales, But We Don't Listen

Proper 21C 

The 18th Sunday After Pentecost

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."--Luke 16:19-31

Poverty in our nation has reached a level not seen since 1960, fueled by the financial meltdown that began two years ago. In case you've forgotten, the financial meltdown was a result of an irrational belief in the magical power of the Market to regulate itself. Safeguards that had kept the worst sorts of banker avarice in check were dismantled beginning in the mid-1990's and eventually, the Magic Market chewed its own head off. Though economists now say the worst is over, most of them were the same people who said bringing down the regulatory levee walls would result in a rising tide that would lift all boats. That worked well about as well for Wall Street as it did for New Orleans. But this post isn't even about why Glass-Stegall should never have been repealed or whether credit default swaps or other financial derivatives should be banned. It's about how we keep stepping over the poor, making sure that our fine linen garments don't brush their festering sores.

Today's Gospel lesson from Luke gives us the parable of a rich man and the poor beggar who lived ouside his gated community. The beggar died and ended up in the bosom of Abraham and the rich man died and ended up in that terrible part of the underworld, Tartarus, which, according to both Greek and Roman mythology,is a place of torment for sinners of the worst sort. Jesus, as a Jew, didn't even believe in such a place: first century Judaism held that at the Last Day, both sinners and the righteous would be judged according to their deeds. So what's he doing telling a story featuring a gruesome pagan mythology? He's doing what he does best: he's telling a joke.

You see the point of the story is that even if Lazarus comes back from the dead--and remember that John's Gospel features a story of a friend of Jesus named "Lazarus" who actually does--the people who ignored what "Moses and the prophets" had to say about justice for the poor would still ignore him. If you can step over the poor everyday when you're on the way to work or to church, then the sudden re-appearance of a previously dead beggar at your door wouldn't likely impress you. Jesus probably laughed heartily at that point, as did most of his audience, except the Pharisees, who looked about as amused as a group of Congressmen listening to Stephen Colbert talk about immigrant farmworkers.

But let's not pick on the Pharisees, okay? They were mostly good, God-fearing folks, trying just to protect their religion and their way of life. They wanted the same things we want: a nice house, successful careers, low taxes, to be left alone by the government. It wasn't that they hated poor people. They took up collections on the Sabbath day, some of which (a very small some) was used as a charitable fund for the poor. No, they didn't hate the poor. They just didn't want to do anything that would really address poverty, they didn't want to understand their role in creating it, or why it was the main concern of "Moses and the prophets." Just like us.

What if we could fundamentally alter the American way of life so that everyone would really have an opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? What if we really did want to "establish Justice...and promote the General welfare" of all Americans? The first thing that would happen is that Christians would be calling their elected officials to ask what they were planning to do about the rising poverty rate. And if they told us that they were planning to cut taxes of the rich, we would laugh in their faces, and toss them out of office.

But of course, we don't want to do anything about poverty. That would be a "transfer of wealth" or "socialism" or some other shop-worn epithet that means that we want what we've got, and we don't really care if some bum is lying in the street with a dog licking his bleeding sores, we are damn sure not going to pay more taxes. And if somebody came back from the dead, with a warning that our blindness to injustice and poverty would result in our judgement, that wouldn't persuade us either.

We didn't believe Moses when he told them that keeping Yahweh's laws meant justice for the poor or when the propehts warned that all our religion was utterly useless if we didn't work to bring economic equality to our nation. So why would anybody believe it when some ex-dead guy says that the way we treat hungry, homeless, naked, sick and imprisoned people is the way we treat him?

Hilarious isn't it?

The Poor? No Big Deal. They Can Just Get Jobs.

Proper 20 
Pentecost +17


Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.--Amos 8:4-7

The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation.
 

For a century we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.

Your imagination and your initiative and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.

The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what is adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods. But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.--Lyndon Baines Johnson, May 22, 1964

The vision of a Great Society lasted two generations, so maybe that's not so bad, considering the fleeting nature of most human endeavors. But news this week that the U.S. poverty rate has reached levels not seen since 1960 was greeted mostly by yawns. We were far more interested in Lindsay Lohan's cocaine-fueled Tweets than in whether or not our actions have trampled on the needy and brought ruin to the poor. 

Like Israel in Amos' day, we long for a mythical free market, where there are no restraints on buying or selling, and where getting a little extra profit at the expense of public health and safety is no big deal. The problem, we believe, is too much regulation, and too many lazy people who don't want to work. If all those people who are newly poor would just go get jobs, and quit whining about how hard their lives are, we could all get some peace. After all, there are forty million poor Americans in a country with thirty million illegal immigrants. So fully three quarters of our poverty would instantly vanish if we send them all back to Mexico or El Salvador and let the poor pick our tomatoes. Then we could just forget all those ridiculous anti-poverty programs. 

Of course, Amos has to go spoil it all by saying that God isn't going to forget. But what's a little divine wrath if it means lower taxes?