092313 - The Koch Brothers - limiting Life to the young, while they can afford anything

A follow-up on my sermon illustration of last Sunday:

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/sabotaging-health-care-one-lie-at-a-time/?emc=eta1&_r=0

Sermon: Proper 20 C - 18th Sunday after Pentecost RCL Sept 22, 2013

Proper 20 C - 18th Sunday after Pentecost RCL

Sept 22, 2013;  Good Shepherd, Silver City NM

Brian H. O. A. McHugh=

[Jer 8: 18-9:1
;   Psalm 79:1-9;  I Tim 2:1-7;  
Luke 16:1-13 ]

A man arrived at the Pearly Gates with a large box. St. Peter asked, “What’s in the box?” The man answered, “All the news clippings about all the good things I’ve done.” Peter replied, “Just show me your chequebook and your time calendar; that will tell me everything I need to know.”

‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ “

What is the message to us today, as we gather to worship God … as we practice our “religion”, religion being those thoughts and words and deeds which bind us to the path of unconditional Love which defines the essence of God and of our understanding of our potential as human beings?

The message is this, simply put:  If we do not properly tend the root, the plant and its fruit  will be sick and deformed.

Did you know that Jesus was a Canadian? The national humour of Canadians is sarcasm … and the editor of Luke’s Gospel portrays a superbly sarcastic Jesus: “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.” There’s only one response to that:  “Yeah, right!”

The parable from Luke today seems to me a particularly apt one for our World and for our land today. It’s a good story! Like all parables, it contains a test. What do we think when we first hear it? If we are distracted by self-righteous feelings at the dishonest manager being commended, then we aren’t ready to hear the saving message. The message is the same to each of us as Nathan’s was to King David over his murderous lust for Bathsheba:  The man, the woman is you.”

My perspective tells me that the human community is profoundly in an age of the Dishonest Manager. Let’s look at a contemporary example of the Dishonest Manager. I could pick Bill Clinton or Barack Obama; Condolezza Rice or George W. Bush; David Axlerod or Haley Barbour; Goldman Sacks or Microsoft or Phillip Morris … since these latter, according to our Supreme Court, qualify as “persons”. Or … myself, or Deacon Sarah, so we include the so-called 99%along with the 1%. There’s a Dishonest Manager in us all. But I’ll focus on David and Charles Koch. Billionaires; owners of Koch Industries, the second largest company in America. Through their various foundations and political PACs, the have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars per year to organizations and foundations with so-called patriotic but misleading names like The Institute for Justice, Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Partners, to defeat health care for all Americans, the elimination of unions, prevent regulation of banks, deny climate change, and prevent  government supervision of the food industry. Their family funds many so-called “charitable” foundations. They give millions to conservative political parties and candidates. David Koch even supports PBS, the Public Broadcasting System, and sits on the Board of WGBH Boston. But my sense is that the underlying intention of their charity, like that of the Dishonest Manager, is control and power and intimidation in support of their business profit and ideas  -  as is true today of many very rich people and corporations worldwide. By threatening to withdraw financial support to PBS, he intimidated them from airing a documentary that had been done on the Koch brothers exposing their wide range of power and control of vast areas of American business and politics.

I would say that they and many like them throughout the World have leaned the lesson of the Dishonest Manager well. They, like the Dishonest Manager in the parable today, know that power and money can easily corrupt even the best intended; that “charity” can be used to deflect criticism and to deceive.

I have searched for any example where the Koch brothers political, financial, or political activities are to help the poor, the underpaid, the welfare of children, the sick, the poorly educated, the elderly, the victims of discrimination. I would be happy to be proved wrong; I found none. Just self-interest. I see nothing that resembles the Gospel, and nothing that demonstrates a passion or concern for the welfare of the whole American people. There are Koch brothers in every land.

If the prophet Jeremiah were here today, his words, speaking for God, would fit perfectly:

I drown in grief.
 I’m heartsick. 
Oh, listen! Please listen! It’s the cry of my dear people
 reverberating through the country.
 Is God no longer in Zion? Can you tell me why they flaunt their plaything-gods,
 their silly, imported no-gods before me?
 For my dear broken people, I’m heartbroken.
 I weep, seized by grief.
 Are there no healing ointments in Gilead? So why can’t something be done
 to heal and save my dear, dear people?

or Amos:  Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,
 you who treat poor people as less than nothing,
 
Who give little and take much; 
You exploit the poor, using them—
 and then, when they’re used up, you discard them. God swears  ‘I’m keeping track of their every last sin.’ 
God’s oath will shake earth’s foundations,
 dissolve the whole world into tears.
 God’s oath will sweep in like a river that rises,
 flooding houses and lands,
 and then recedes,
 leaving behind a sea of mud.

The Koch brothers are of course symbols. Symbols of what can happen to any of us when our roots are planted in toxic soil. The apostle Paul elegantly describes the good soil in which we need to be rooted in order to produce the kind of plant that God desires:  whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. [1] Paul’s words are, of course, rooted in the Gospel preached by Jesus; in the nature of the God of unconditional love, Justice and Compassion as revealed by Jesus; in God’s desire that every person – because we are one with God and with each other -  share in the divine abundance of life.

Prophets, as Jesus often did, speak forcefully and without much concern for politeness. As to the Koch brothers and those they symbolize, how do I know what is in their hearts; they may feel they are acting in love, even if I see it differently. Do I think that we here at Good Shepherd can change the World? No. Do I think that we can change our local environment? Yes. How? By being, as Jesus says in the Gospel reading today, “faithful in a very little” which makes us “faithful also in much”. We reach out to the young people in the After School Programme. We support the young folk at the University. We try to help young women in Palomas. We welcome the Gayfolk to our place to celebrate Thanksgiving and, as part of the Episcopal Church, affirm their equal rights as God’s children and citizens of America. We invite the Hispanic community to teach us and deepen our understanding of their ancient traditions. And God alone knows what many acts of love and kindness and generosity we each of us extend to our sisters and brothers.

If we are honest about ourselves, we know the lengths to which people will go to protect their material well-being. The wiliness of a Dishonest Manager is in us all. It would be easy to be unfaithful in small things and so in large. That is the warning of today’s parable. We are here to anchor ourselves in the soil of divine Compassion; to remember that our salvation, and the health of the World, rests in our unity with each other and all Existence; to bear the fruit of Christ crucified.

There is an old Jewish story about a rabbi who gave up his family and all other “worldly” concerns in order to study Torah and achieve heaven. When he died and appeared before God, God had only one question: “Where are the others?”

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[1] Phil 4: 8 NRSV