Ordinary Time 26th Sun C

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: AM 6:1A, 4-7
Responsorial Psalm: PS 146:7, 8-9, 9-10 
2nd Reading: 1 TM 6:11-16
Gospel: LK 16:19-31

Before I begin I should apologize because this is probably going to be long. And secondly, when it’s over, you might want to kill me. And if the acoustics in here are not good and you could not hear the readings, you should look at them in the missalette in the pews.
 
Today’s readings make their point very powerfully. That is to be expected for a reading from the prophet Amos. We don’t hear from him too often in the Liturgy, perhaps because his message is so direct and makes people feel uncomfortable.
 
Amos was one of the so called minor prophets. He was from the little Kingdom of Judah, from a town just south of Jerusalem. God called him and sent him on a most difficult mission: to go and prophesy, to speak for God, to the great Northern Kingdom of Israel, centered on Samaria. Now the northern kingdom had no use for Jerusalem, the temple or any prophet from south of the border. So the cards were stacked against Amos right from the start. Nevertheless he went north and fearlessly spoke God’s word. Now Samaria at this time was a powerful kingdom, and had regained much of the empire once ruled by Solomon.  So business was good. They were in a bull market up there and everyone in business (and lots of people were) was experiencing big profits and returns on their investments. Of course there were taxes, so the great King could afford a large army and a palace suitable for the ruler of such a rich place, of so large and prosperous a nation. Public works too were necessary, so they could suitably impress traders and ambassadors from other lands. But still, the businessmen and artisans really had an extraordinary amount of discretionary income.
 
Now these businessmen, artisans and the civil servants were very busy people; they didn’t get rich by being idle, mind you, and they didn’t have a lot of time for prayer. But they could pay for sacrifices, which they did big time, LOTS of sacrifices. After All, didn’t God like sacrifices? And the bigger the animal the better. The priests in Samaria were frantic to keep up with the demand, but they did, and Samaria was awash with the blood of these sacrifices and the priests were also getting quite rich off of their share. Now what could these people do with all this surplus wealth? It was a problem: if you invested it, you just got MORE wealth and made the problem bigger. So their answer was to spend it. They became avid consumerists: whatever luxuries that could be imported, from Persia, from India, from Egypt, from China and the East Indies, they bought it and did their best to support the global economy and its trickle down benefits.
 
Life was good, real good, except for one thing. There were a lot of really unpleasant people that weren’t part of the system. They didn’t own land, or flocks or a business; as a matter of fact all they owned was the clothes on their back. They had no trade or skills, only their muscles. It was supposed that they were suffering perhaps for the sins of their parents. These people didn’t bathe often or use perfumes; they smelled. They had too many children, so they had to beg, and often they had to borrow, but the only collateral they had was their only substantial clothing, a cloak, which was a necessity for warmth at night and in the winter. What could you do for such people? Well, the Samaritans gave when they begged, and even lent to them – at least you could make a profit that way. But just to make sure that these poor people didn’t think a loan was a gift, or get any ideas about not repaying, the Samaritans held on to their cloaks at night, even when the law said you had to return a cloak at nightfall so its owner could use it as a blanket. If only those people would work harder and smarter, they thought, then life would be so much better.
 
As you can imagine, these Samaritans were not happy with Amos, preaching about justice and righteousness. He was shunned and mocked, told to go back where he belonged, down south.  After all, there were LOTS of official northern prophets in Samaria, and the status quo was just fine with them. Didn’t they speak for God, and weren’t there more of them than one little Amos? Well, After a serious run-in with Amaziah, high priest and  friend of the king,  Amos either returned to Judah or was murdered.  He had kept faith with the Lord and fearlessly spoke his word. God’s word was this: I hate, I despise your festivals. I want mercy, not sacrifices. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
 
Then as now, God’s word cannot but be fulfilled. The Samarians were indeed successful in impressing others by their wealth and power. They certainly impressed the Assyrians. About twenty years after Amos prophesied, Sargon II conquered Samaria  and exiled all the educated and wealthy to the far flung outposts of his empire, and Ten Tribes of the people who followed Moses from Egypt and Joshua into the promised land were forever lost.
 
When I saw the readings for today, I wished I could change the subject. Here in Portsmouth or in most places we live we cannot escape the fact that life is pretty good for us. Back in 2000, when we were building a new monastery in St Louis, a boy in the Priory school said to me, “You monks take a vow of poverty and yet you have a new seven million dollar house. Some poverty!” Of course, life today is a lot more complicated than it was in Amos’ time, or when Jesus told that story about poor Lazarus in the gospel. A lot more complicated. Perhaps that same Priory boy was in the crowd, when, at an away football game in the heart of the city, the Priory fans and the team were greeted by the chant, “Go back to West County, Rich Boys.” Not very polite or sportsmanlike, but they made the point that there are tensions, economic and social inequity in our society.
 
It’s complicated. We have to admit we do have more than we need, and we are the disciples of the same Jesus Christ who told that instructive story in the Gospel about Lazarus. If there’s any ideology most people, rich and poor, ascribe to in America today, it’s consumerism. Buy stuff!!! Our economy depends on it. It is complicated, but Jesus did not say, “This Gospel of expires in the year 2019.” It still holds true for today and for us. In the Gospel story, Abraham tells the rich man, “Between you and us a great chasm is established.”  The truth is that the rich man dug that chasm while he lived, and we are in danger of doing the same thing. In St Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there is your heart.” If our treasure is money, power, status or things, that’s where our heart is. God judges hearts, and if the heart does not seek God as its treasure, the heart is lost. God is love, and only love survives death, it’s the only thing you can take with you, and death will claim us all one day. And then we must trust in God’s merciful judgement.
 
An ancient funeral chant of the Church puts it this way: “May the angels lead you into paradise:
when you arrive may the martyrs receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem (which was in the poor Southern Kingdom). May the chorus of angels receive you and with Lazarus who once was poor may you have eternal rest.” So when we arrive at the judgement seat of God, Lazarus, the same Lazarus we heard of in the Gospel today, will be there too, waiting to hear where our hearts were. Will we comfortable with that? Will we be comfortable to be in the company of that Lazarus, who was covered with sores, who smelled, who was so unpleasant in this life? St. Paul tells Timothy in the second reading today, and so God is telling us: “Pursue righteousness. Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called.”
 
It’s complicated, and the living out of it is different for each one of us, but if we are NOT comfortable with getting Lazarus’ input at our judgment, we have some time and more than enough opportunities to straighten out our hearts. And here’s one way for us as a community and nation. If you follow the news and words of politicians, you know the matter of immigration is one of the concerns of the President and Congress , but has been mired in controversy. Just this week the US has limited the number of refugees to be admitted to 18,000. In 2016 we admitted 85,000. But the bottom line is this, as taught by the Catholic Church in the official Catechism, and by the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops. Good government has a duty to welcome the foreigner out of charity and respect for the human person.  And persons have the right to immigrate in search of the security and the means of livelihood which they cannot find in their country of origin and thus government, especially of financially blessed nations, must accommodate this right to the greatest extent possible. Much of the objection to the immigrants and refugees of today derives from prejudice against their Hispanic language and culture and their Catholic Religion, a prejudice that lies deep in American culture and history. Their position is not unlike that of Lazarus and the poor in Samaria. In his description of the last judgment in Matthew 25:40-45, Jesus tells us the criterion by which we will be judged, and He assures us: Whatever you do or don’t do to the least of these brothers and sisters, you do or don’t do for me.  So there’s more to protest than inaction on climate change, which we heard so much about this week, although it is part of the reason there are so many refugees.
                                   
These scripture readings today give us a lot to think about, about how we live our lives, how we spend our money, what it means to be a Christian, or a Jew or a Muslim or Buddhist what it means to be a truly good human being, what political choices we make, and whether with our lives and our choices we are building bridges or building walls.