September 24, 2004
Wheels
Pentecost 17/21C
At the Wheel Museum* there was on display what was perhaps the world’s largest collection of wheels ever brought together in one place, both the invented and the reinvented.
These hundreds of authentic examples were carefully documented, even carbon-dated. The Curator and the team of docents were well-trained, each of them articulate in explaining handily the function, use, history, ethnic, and cultural place of each wheel on display.
There was, however, a deep and growing concern among the Museum staff about the diminishing attention from the public to this collection of wheels. They realized that something must be done once again to get people’s attention to this valuable and priceless resource of the world’s greatest collection of wheels.
Then someone suggested that if the public is not going to come to us, then we must take the Museum to them. But how? said another. This is a massive old and ponderous place. There is no possible way it could be moved.
And so they formed a committee, some trained and certified wheelers, others not so trained, but who just liked to join things. Then they went to work on the problem of finding a way the Wheel Museum could become mobile and reach the people.
Segué…
In last Sunday’s saga in our biblical family history, Amos and Jesus are at it again. Apparently for them, nothing beats the old adage to Follow The Money. But this time it’s not just the rich, or the shrewd steward. It’s what the rich do with their rich. Trickle down economics was just as voodoo then as it is voodoo now.
Neither Amos nor Jesus condemn wealth as inherently wrong. The more the better, it seems. The danger is the preoccupation with wealth and the callousness to the needs of others. The texts call for repentance from all who seek to be so secure or comfortable that they no longer need to be concerned about anything or anyone.
Most of us would not consider ourselves to be among the “idle rich,” but we live in one of the most prosperous nations on earth and can scarcely extract ourselves from the pursuit of wealth, leisure, and economic security that is endemic to American culture. Materialism and over consumption are two of the clearest characteristics of 21st century American life. The church’s preoccupation with its own precious orthodoxy and its subsequent indifference to the needs of others, the nation’s disparate attitude toward the poor and their well-being and its own fundamental ethic, and the distortion of the Word of God in the name of God continues in new forms, but its consequences are no less severe.
That’s all well and good. But it shouldn’t be anything new and probably isn’t to anybody who pays attention. What really intrigues me about us and about Jesus’ parable is what the rich man is up to when he dies and is torment in Hades and what he says to the living.
He realizes there’s no hope for him, but even then he can’t get out of his arrogant rut. He doesn’t ask Abraham for water, he asks him to send Lazarus for water. And the answer he got in effect was, “Lazarus ain’t gonna run no mo’ yo’ errands, rich man.”
Then probably for the first time in his life, he thinks of someone else. “Then I beg you, father Abraham,” he says, “(I beg you) to send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.” But Abraham answered — and here’s the punch line — “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (Lk 16.27-31).
That parable was never more alive and relevant than it is now. We’ve got Moses and the prophets plus Jesus and two thousand years of history. We are the brothers, and we are the sisters. And are we convinced?
The deeper the national deficit — and the bottom recedes from view — the richer some seem to get. The Asians are bankrolling us, the economists say. They literally own us on paper. Any prophetic reminder we may make to them about human rights comes across as a timid and pointless “tut-tut.” It’s like complaining to your mortgage company about their employment practices. Wealth is the great sacrament of western civilization, and what we do with it is the true measure of our evangelism.
And oh yes, there’s that Wheel Museum, and how were all the docents going to get it mobile and out to the people. Last I heard, that committee was still meeting and working on the problem.
*Wheels redux, but couldn’t resist it. — Lane