Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?” He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.” He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.” And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.’ (Luke 16: 1-13).
I've always liked that last line. It's simple, direct, and hits you pretty hard when you really let it sink in. If you serve wealth, you don't serve God and everything that word represents (think principles rather than persons). And it seems to me the world is such that we're all but forced to serve the latter whether we want to or not. We spend most of our time during most of our days serving the whims of capital/wealth, using our labour to create the wealth that we, in turn, receive only a small portion of in order to live. Our entire economic system revolves around this process, the creation of profit being the summum bonum of capitalism.
It's not even really out of greed that we do so but logical necessity. The system compels us to do so, just as a master compels their servant, under threat of punishment, violence, and privation. If money isn't constantly turned into more money, the system stalls and people lose their means of survival. And this system influences our ethics and behaviour, how we treat one another within this competitive arena, by setting the stage for our relations on the most fundamental level, that of the means by which we materially reproduce society.
It also seems clear to me that, if we want to serve God, which to me represents love, charity, compassion, and a more just and equal world (i.e., the kingdom of God in which "some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last"), then we have to find a way to create a world with less exploitation and competition, less greed and consumerism, a world characterized by the sharing of wealth and opportunity and by cooperation. And to achieve that, we need a new socio-economic system, a new ground of being for our material lives that can in turn nurture our hearts and minds.
Religion isn't something we necessarily need to achieve this. But religion, if it's to be of any use to anyone but the rich and powerful, should be inspiring and radical. It should compel us to be better, to break our shackles and the shackles of those around us. It should compel us to turn away from the things that deaden our spirits and lead us to turn a blind eye towards the suffering of others. And above all, it should be something that stokes the spiritual fires of our heart and fans the flames of love, charity, compassion, and justice.
That's why I enjoy visiting communities like Central Lutheran Church. Communities that truly seek to serve something other than wealth. Communities that speak out against our harmful treatment of the environment and of other people. Communities that acknowledge oppression and seek to educate the oppressors and liberate the oppressed. Communities that care about one another and seek to make a difference in a world far too subservient to the whims of wealth. They inspire me to have hope when things feel hopeless.
Today, for example, their confessional prayer at the beginning invoked our treatment of the environment and the looming ecological crisis and extinctions that has resulted from our greed, negligence, and mismanagement. They used a Native American version of the Lord's Prayer written by Hattie Corbett Enos, a member of the Nez Perce. At the suggestion of nonwhite members of the community, the pastor added her own translational twist to the reading from Genesis, changing words like light and dark, which reflect linguistic racial biases equating light/white with good and dark/black with bad, to make them feel more comfortable and help dissociate dark/black from things that are considered to be bad or evil. And they talked lovingly about members who were sick and dying, as well as those who were moving away.
It felt good just to be there. To be around people who make caring, inclusion, and the doing of good deeds a special part of their lives. People who notice when you're not doing ok even when you say that you're fine. People who want to learn and grow and be better. It felt good because those kinds of people often seem few and far between. Because the world sometimes feels so horrible and unilluminated.
When things seem lost in the murkiest of shadows, it's always nice to find a spark to help rekindle that inner fire.
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