“Give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with the food I need” is the prayer found in Proverbs 30. The world is filled with extremes, extremes of poverty and extremes of wealth. There are those who are extremely poor. Those who are happy to own the clothes on their back, and if they are fortunate enough, to know where their next meal will come from.
And then there are the very rich. Those who don't know any financial limitations, who are able to afford a lavish lifestyle and flaunt their wealth with exotic purchases. Cars, homes, vacations, parties, they have lots of money and lots of friends. Whether we are talking extremes of wealth or extremes of poverty, the world is filled with both.
In the prayer from Proverbs, neither one is to be desired. Whether it be poverty or wealth, we are better off without it. Either extreme provides Satan with an opportunity. Those who are poor are tempted to covet, and the covetousness tempts them to steal. Those who are rich are tempted to feel self satisfied and secure in their wealth to the extent that they forget how greatly they need God. And so the author prays, “feed my only with the food I need, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. “ Would that the Lord preserve us from both.
But while we might pray that prayer, God still deals with us according to his will. “The poor you will always have with you,” says Jesus. “There will always be the poor in the land.” writes Moses. And likewise, there are also those who are rich. Indeed, scripture acknowledges the fact that riches are a gift from God. After all, God gave wealth to Abraham, to Job, to David and to Solomon. There are times that God allows for his people to have plenty and times that God allows for his people to be in want. And this being the case, there are those of us who are could likely fit into either category. Here in our own little church family, there are those of us who are abundantly blessed with the world's goods and there are those of us who are very limited in these blessings. But it doesn't matter which category is yours, whether we are rich or poor, the word of God speaks to us all.
In our Gospel text for today, Jesus tells a parable that encompasses both extremes. Jesus tells the parable of two men, a man who is wealthy beyond measure and another man, a man named Lazarus, who is poverty stricken. The rich man would throw lavish parties, with tables filled with food. The poor man would watch from the outside and he would have been happy to have the food that they threw away. The rich man had plenty of friends, as it seems all rich people do. Lazarus was accompanied only by dogs. The rich man had the best that money could buy. Lazarus had nothing.
Well it turns out that while the rich man was well equipped with all of the world's goods there was one thing he lacked, one thing that Lazarus had in abundance, and that was the wealth of heaven. Lazarus possessed faith and by that faith he grabbed hold of God's goodness and grace and the promise of God's salvation. So when the two died, the rich man went to hell, where he was in torment and Lazarus was taken by the angels to the side of Abraham where he was comforted and at rest. The roles in life were reversed in death. The rich man could watch with longing while Lazarus received all the good things given by God in heaven. The rich man wished for a simple drop of water, while Lazarus was comforted even by heaven's dignitaries.
There are times when people have misunderstood this parable. There are times that people assume Jesus condemns the rich and favors the poor. That the rich man's crime was being rich and that Lazarus was righteous because he was poor. This isn't the case. Whether you are poor or rich we are all in the same boat. We are all equally impoverished when it comes to our relationship with God. Whether you are poor or whether you are rich, it doesn't make you any closer to God or further away from God. In the end, what matters is faith. In the end, what matters is the Word of God. It's like Abraham said in the parable. “They have Moses and the Prophets, let them listen to them.” And so do we. We have Moses, the Prophets, the Gospels and the Epistles. Let us hear them.
Today, our Old Testament text is written against the sins of the wealthy. It condemns those who have made an idol out of their wealth. They eat the finest and richest of foods, they drink their wine out of bowls instead of cups, they lounge around on fancy imported furniture and make up songs to sing about their wealth. It sounds like the subject of many a music video. It all amounts to idolatry. Diamonds and gold and mansions and luxury – the things of this world can lead one to fashioning a false god out of their wealth.
“You will be the first to go into exile.” says the prophet.
Worshiping wealth and holding on to money as your God is profoundly foolish. Money can't save you. Wealth can't provide for you. Possessions will not protect you. Only God can do these things. Only God can save us.
Our Amos text is written to those who cheated out the poor to make themselves rich. It's almost like he was writing to us in 21st century America. You only need to say, “Enron” or “Wall Street” and you will get the picture; the people at the top of the heap made themselves rich by taking everything they could get from the people at the bottom. Meanwhile, those people they stepped on as they were climbing up the ladder were suffering. And they didn't care. Just so long as they had their wealth and their riches, they didn't care.
This is wrong. It is sin. It's like we said, God allows some to be poor and he allows some to be rich. Neither one is more righteous and neither one is more sinful. Both are gifts from God. Both are opportunities for Christian faith and service.
Through poverty God teaches us faith. Those who are poor struggle to get by. They struggle to pay their bills and keep themselves fed and clothed and sheltered. It's not easy. But God provides. God knows what we need and while it might not be in abundance, God does take care of us.
As the Israelites were preparing to enter in to the promised land, Moses reminded them of how God provided for them in the wilderness. Even though they were living in the desert without the means to buy clothes and shoes and all those things, God took care of them. Their clothes didn't get wear out, their shoes didn't get holes in the bottom. God provided for them and they probably didn't even realize it. Consider that for just a moment, generally speaking, we don't stop to consider the condition of your clothes until they need to be replaced. We don't stop to consider the condition of the roof over your head until it starts to leak, or your car, until it breaks down. We have a way of taking these things for granted. Likewise with the Israelites, they probably didn't even realize it until Moses said it. But God had been providing for them and taking care of them all along and the same can be said for you. God is providing for you in ways you haven't even realized. Whatever bill you are worried about paying, God will provide for you.
That's the thing about being poor. You get to see God's providence. When you have to worry about covering your expense, you wind up having to depend on the goodness of God to provide for you. You have to pray about clothes for your kids and finding the money to cover the bills. You have to turn to God in faith with these things and then depend on him to provide. And then when he does you get to witness his providence. The rich don't have this blessing. They pay their bills out of their abundance and don't ever have to worry about it, they don't need to pray for God to provide. Depending on God is a blessing.
But there are also those of us who are rich. There are those of us to whom God has given an abundance of the World's goods. This too is a good thing. This too is a blessing from God. The danger lies in the temptation, to let that money become your god. To depend on your money to save you and to be your security. But wealth is also a gift and a blessing and an opportunity. God has given that wealth to you and that he wants you to enjoy it, but also that he wants you to use it to serve him and to serve your neighbor. He wants you to avoid the temptation to horde it like the rich man in the parable or to worship it like those mentioned in the passage from Amos.
When I was younger, there was a friend of my family who happened to have been blessed by God with wealth. He owned a lumber business that had done very well and that provided him an opportunity to get into real estate investments that also were very successful. As a result he had become quite well off. This man, rather than hording this money and keeping it all to himself and to his family, was very generous. He was in fact, very generous in his gifts to support education in general, but especially Lutheran education. He gave large sums of money to the Lutheran day school I attended. He gave to Concordia universities, he donated tremendous sums of money to the seminaries. He even gave support to me as I was making my way through the seminary. God had given to him a great abundance of wealth and he in turn used that wealth to help support the training and teaching of pastors and teachers and church workers, all for the building up of the kingdom of Christ.
In the end, what matters the most is the Word of God. God has given us Moses and the prophets. God has given us the Gospels and the Epistles. These things are the means by which he sends His Spirit to us to establish us and strengthen us in the faith. This word convicts us of our sin and points us to his salvation found in Jesus.
In his letter to Timothy Paul writes “As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.”
To the Church in Philippi he writes “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
Amen.
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