This election season is concentrating on how our wealth is distributed. It seems to me that there are those who think that the wealthy ought not only to keep what they have, but to radically increase it. They ought to pay small taxes and use their riches primarily for themselves. The logic behind this is that they are “job creators”, although there is scant evidence that lots of jobs have been created by them. Job creators is a name that the rich have chosen for themselves to sound as if they are the creators of benefits for those who don’t prosper quite as well as they do. It is a little less than a lie, it is only a gross exaggeration, but it has the effect of raising the rich to a level above the rest of us. They are our benefactors. We ought to place them on a pedestal and allow them all of the benefits that they have earned, whether they have really earned them or not.
There seems to be a lot of concern on the part of God about what we do with our wealth. We have another of those perplexing statements from Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. I think that I have heard that one all of my life. I can remember kids in Sunday school cutting camels out of paper and somehow getting them through the eye of a large needle. What Jesus is trying to say to the disciples is however, as it is categorically impossible for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, so it is also impossible for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.
When I think about the Kingdom of God, my mind doesn’t automatically go to Heaven, where God constantly reigns. I think of this planet where we live, where Jesus came to teach us, and where he gave his life for the salvation of all of us. It is also here where the poor live constantly among us and where all of our wealth resides. The words of Jesus about the Kingdom of God is about creating it here on earth; in the words of the Lord’s Prayer: thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is the mission of Jesus, to create on earth the same powerful conditions that govern what goes on constantly around the throne of God. We never quite get that straight because we become so focused on our wealth that we can conveniently ignore the poor who live all around us.
In Amos’ prophecy, he talks about what God will do to those who not only neglect the poor, but use them for their own gain. He says:
Therefore because you trample on the poor
and take from them levies of grain, you have
built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not
live in them; you have planted pleasant
vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
Quite an indictment by God and a warning to all of us about the use of our wealth for things other than what God has in mind. We ignore it, of course, enticed by what we can gather for ourselves from the bounty around us.
So what are we to do? I know that our very existence depends on what we do for those who have nothing. Caring for the poor needs to be the business not only of our churches and our communities, but of the whole nation. None of us will really be rich until all of us are provided for. That is what creating the Kingdom of God is all about. Sops thrown to the poor to keep them quiet are not enough. We need to focus all of our wealth on the care of all of us. That is the only thing that really makes sense.
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