Viewing Life in
Panavision
By Rev. Steven R.
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 9/29/2013
Based on Luke
16:19-31
As many of you know, I am a great fan of
motion pictures, early Television programs, and of early radio programs. As radio gave way to Television, many of the
early 1950 T.V. programs were continuations of radio hits, such as The Jack
Benny Show, or Amos and Andy. One of my
favorite T.V. couples is George Burns and Gracie Allen. For those of you who might not be familiar
with Burns and Allen, both were comedians with George being the person who
would set up the joke or the story line while Gracie was the person who would
deliver the lines that would receive the laughs. She was portrayed as a scattered brained
housewife and would generally be the person who was always able to resolve
whatever the crisis of the day was, in her own unique and very quirky logic!
In
one episode, Gracie was working hard at becoming a member of a prestigious book
club. She enlists George’s help to stage
their living room so that it would look as scholarly as possible. She had George place small statuaries on the
coffee table that were of Shakespeare, David, and Venus De Milo. While
placing a few classical books here and there, George asked her where she wanted
the book, Tale of Two Cities placed.
She thought for a few seconds then decided that it shouldn’t go out on
any of the end tables. When George asked
“why”, Gracie responded with, “I haven’t
read the book yet and one of the cities might be in Florida.” This in her mind was not a good thing.
Today’s
Gospel reading is very much like the title of the book “Tale of Two Cities”. It is a parable of two men and of two
realities; this physical world and the afterlife. It is a story of a rich man and of a poor
beggar, a story of two social classes, and a world of comfort verses a world of
afflictions. It is also a story of reversals. The poor man is given a name, Lazarus, and
the rich man is not named. In the story,
we read where the rich man is dressed in purple while the beggar is dressed in
sores, the rich man has ample food, living in abundance and in luxury, while
Lazarus is praying for just the crumbs from the rich man’s table, and lives out
on the street. Then when Lazarus dies,
it is Lazarus who is in the bosom of Abraham, the Patriarchal Father, and it is
the rich man who is now living in Hades.
Both far removed from their former physical life’s circumstances.
This
parable is filled with such subtle messages that most modern ears will miss if
not familiar with early Jewish understanding.
This story to the original audience was a story so abrasive, I am
surprised that Jesus wasn’t taken out and strung up at its very telling. Every reference to the rich man was a
reference to “being acceptable”, that of “being a righteous man before God”,
while the poor beggar Lazarus would be perceived as one filled with “sin” and his
living in poverty and plagued with sores was the punishment for his sinful
ways. Yet, after death it was Lazarus
who was in the arms of Abraham, which translates into being in the arms of God
(Abraham being the founding father of the Hebrew faith, the highest example of
righteous living) while it was just the opposite for the rich man who finds
himself in eternal damnation. All of
this was a frontal assault on the perception of one’s trust in wealth as an
assurance of your righteousness or right living and your salvation.
Jesus’
telling of this story comes directly after telling the parable of the “Shrewd
Manager”, where he warns the children of the light (those who follow after
Jesus) to be street-wise and as clever as the shrewd manager but only for good.
In
verse 14, we read: 14The
Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. 15Jesus said to them, "You
are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your
hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.
This parable doesn’t portray the rich
man as being cruel or antagonistic toward Lazarus. For in truth, the rich man when he is looking
through his window or even when he comes and goes from his home doesn’t even
notice Lazarus sitting outside his door.
You ask yourself, “How could anyone not notice someone who is dressed
in filthy rages, covered in sores, and begging for food right outside of your own
house?”
One of the criticisms that I hear about Aurora’s
self-perception is the view that Aurora has no poverty, but what portion of
sidewalk on E. Colfax or at any major intersection is there not someone
sleeping in a doorway or holding a sign for help? You can hear them asking you for money but as
long as you don’t look at them, you can walk by them, hearing their pleas as
nothing more than white background noise, thereby having very little intrusion
on your consciousness; they truly are not there. But the minute you make eye to eye contact
with one of these people, you at that point have recognized their plight and at
that point must wrestle with your conscience about whether or not you will help
them with a few coins. Your life has now
been expanded to Panavision, seeing
more than what you previously saw. This
parable is attacking the rich, not because of their wealth, but because of
their lack of responding to the needs of those who are suffering and living without
basic necessities.
This parable is depicted in the 1927 German
expressionist
silent film, Metropolis, then remade as animation in 2001, and
again retold in the current movie Elysium, where we see the social crisis
between workers and owners in capitalism. The story line is this futurist city where
all of the capitalists live above ground in these marvelous skyscrapers and
enjoy all the benefits of the “good life”, much like the rich man, at the
expense of those laborers (the Lazarus’s of the world) who are doing
back-breaking and life-threatening work far beneath the earth’s surface,
totally un-noticed by those who are benefiting from their harsh existence.
Today’s parable is a call for “Social Justice”! We as Christians cannot claim to have an
active faith in the teachings of Christ, without being active in Social Justice
Issues. This parable is calling us to
task and letting us know that we as “good” people will ultimately be held
accountable for the lack of response to those who are suffering from economic
deprivation, of those who suffer from social alienation, and of our stewardship
of our natural resources.
I used to rent out some of the bedrooms of my house to
college students when I was pastor at the Kittitas church. One housemate in particular wasn’t the best
English student and had transferred to Central Washington University from a
very liberal college in Western Washington.
He asked me to read a paper that he had written because he wasn’t
receiving the best grades from his earlier work.
He was very proud of this particular paper as it was showing
the “evils” of the wealthiest of Americans (such as the Rockefellers, the
Whitney’s for example) and how they have gained, as well as maintained their
wealth at the expense of developing Countries.
Not that there wasn’t a good amount of truth in his report, but I asked
him about his part as a “Wealthy American” who’s life style is supported by
these same under-developed Countries? He
was totally unaware of what I was asking about, after all he didn’t come from a
huge money family and was a struggling college student. So we began a conversation about the amount
of the world resources and how much we as Americans use compared to the rest of
the world and that even our basic, what we would call, average economical
existence is very much based on the cheap labor of under developed Countries. [refer to the www.globalrichlist.com site]
In essence, we are
very unaware of the poverty of much of the world. That doesn’t make us bad people, but like the
rich man, we do not see the true picture of our standard of living and what it
costs those who don’t have enough to survive on.
I wonder as a congregation, at what level of “awareness” and
of action we see ourselves? As students
of Christ what grade would He be giving us on our overall response to social
justice issues? Would Jesus grade us as a Lazarus or would He grade us at the
level of the “rich man”? I think Jesus
would have us be more active in our understanding the brokenness of our
immigration laws. I think He would want
us to be finding those who are disenfranchised in our community and working to
bring them into community. Jesus would
call us to work and learn how we could reduce our carbon footprint for the
benefit of future generations.
This parable is a direct call for us to personally examine
our hearts and to work at making the invisible (these social justice issues)
into being visible within our hearts. It
is a call for us to make that eye-to-eye contact with those in need, and
respond to that need. This parable powerfully calls into question how we handle
not only our resources in dollars, but our time and attention, and whether we
“see” the poor at our doors. It calls us
to realize, as the wealthiest nation in the world, who is suffering at the cost
of what we enjoy on a daily basis. It is
a parable calling us to make visible, within our minds and hearts, the
invisible suffering of those outside of our doors, within the city of Aurora,
of this country, and of the world at large.
Amen
Perspective of Wealth compared to the other 7 Billion
world inhabitants.
U.S. Gov’t standard of definition of poverty in United
States are per household: 1 person $11,490, 2 person $$15,510, 5 person $27,570
If
your income is:
$11,940 you are one of the 13.29% of income in the world (86.71% earn less) $20,000 you are one of the 3.27% of income in the world (96.73% earn less)
$30,000 you are one of the 1.10% of income in the world (8.90% earn less)
$40,000 you are one of the .51% of income in the world (99.49% earn less)
$50,000 you are one of the .28% of income in the world (99.72% earn less)
$70,000 you are one of the .11% of income in the world (99.89% earn less)
If
your net assets (equity in
house/possessions/investments) or Wealth is:
$60,000 you are in the top 13.87% wealthiest people
in the world
$90,000 you are in the top 8.59% wealthiest people
in the world
$140,000 you are in the top 6.37% wealthiest people in
the world
If you are retired and own your home you
could possess wealth at the level of $320,000 putting you in the top 3.65% wealthiest people in the world
($200,000 equity in house, $20,000
possessions, $100,000 investment)
No comments:
Post a Comment