Luke 16:19-31

Pentecost +18 - Year C

Luke 16:19-31

Can you trace back your sense of where authority lies? There are many overlays that will have to be discarded on such a journey. Before moving further a key decision is whether or not it is sensed that a change is needed. If it is, one does not have to travel any further than their present understandings to be authorized to act. If satisfaction, for whatever reason, has set in, you can track an authority back through many generations to Moses and the prophets or to creation and creator before them and never get to an authority authorizing this particular change.

If we are busy defending "what is" as the end point of time or that it will be too risky to move from what currently is, there is no authority, no matter how miraculous or strong that will do to move us off of our present square.

If we see that change is needed to get to a better place, we can get by with an ordinary understanding such as the one my brother sent today regarding math and history as authorities: "Anyone who mentions tax cuts with deficit reductions are idiots, and should be thinned from the herd. It seems simple math, as well as historic perspective has been lost to the Right wing."

Unnamed rich people, unable to see a poor person, are not good candidates for seeing a needed change. They have come to understand the present rules and to shape them to their attain their privileged positions. So intrenched is this privilege that they try to order Father Abraham (euphemism for G*D) to serve their thirst for surface comfort. Even when called on that, they try to help their own class, unable to see the need to help the poor (which would help heal their own). [Note Paul Krugman's editorial, "The Angry Rich", in today's NYTimes.]

We need to develop a way of looking that used both eyes to have a three-dimensional view of life. What will actually help our own group and others? Helping the rich (trickle-down theory) has yet to do anything to the divisions and to really help the poor not still be the poor. Helping the poor, on the other hand, actually does help the rich return to community. As you choose what charities to give to, what causes to support, look for those that emphasize the least. This is not just for their assistance, but your salvation/wholeness.