“God’s People Sensitive to the Needy”
September 29, 2013
The 20th Sunday of the Christian Season of Ordinary Time/Kingdomtide/Time of the Church
Amos 6:1-7/Psalm 146/1 Timothy 6:11-19/Luke 16:19-31
His Excellency
The Most Reverend Ariel Cornelio P. Santos D.D.
Auxiliary Bishop and Locum Tenens
of the
Archdiocese of Manila
the
National Church in the Philippines
and the
Territorial Church of Asia
International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church
If there is one thing I would like for you to remember of today is, what we said three times at the beginning, that God is blessed and His kingdom is also blessed now and forever. That’s you and me. The blessing of God is in you, with you, and me.
I’m going to say some things that I’ve already mentioned in ROTC, if you were here, and last Wednesday evening, if you were here, but I’m going to repeat some of them. I don’t mind that, like St. Paul said, “To say the same things to you is no trouble for me but it is of benefit to you as long as I speak the truth.” And I hope every time that I do that, speak, is I hope to be able to give you a picture of the truth of what the Kingdom is like, because we have been created by God to be His representative on earth bearing His image and likeness. And He made us to be rulers, to have dominion on the earth not to lord it over them but to serve all of creation. And also to lead them as a priest in offering back everything to God. What He has blessed us with, we are to apply using our hands, and the product of the work of our hands, we offer back to Him in thanksgiving.
This was what was operational in the garden when Adam was ruling reigning in the name of God and this is what Jesus has restored us back into so that we can continue the longstanding, actually, never-ending mandate that was given to man -- rule over all of creation, take care of my creation, cultivate and keep it. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, given everything to us pertaining to life and godliness, and equipped us for every good work. As long as we operate using those things that God has blessed us with, there is harmony. Like in Eden, there will be harmony as long as we operate in God’s will, that is, as God’s steward and representative. Not owning or thinking we can own things, but as God’s steward, ruling and leading all creation and offering all activity, all daily activity, to God in thanksgiving and acknowledgement of His ownership and His provision. God is the creator and owner of all things and we acknowledge that. And if all things are done for the glory of God, there is worship without ceasing, there is praying without ceasing, and all things are done for the glory of God.
I call this, in my own words, the Catholic Eucharistic Liturgy of Life because all, always and everywhere in thanksgiving, do their work for God. Catholic, because all, always, and everywhere; Eucharistic because in thanksgiving; Liturgy because everybody do their work for God. But you know the story, Adam fell, he succumbed to the lie and was deceived by a serpent. And he allowed himself to be deceived and let his flesh lose the honorable, the unflawed simplicity and dignity of his creation. What happened was this: he stopped acknowledging that God owns everything. What he did was he took a grab of that perfect fabric of creation and then pulled on it. What happened was the fabric was torn and what he clenched in his fist was sadly, tragically, known to be what we call now “secular.” And we understood it as “that which is not acknowledged as God’s or God’s property, which is, like I said ROTC Wednesday night, a misnomer. It’s a lie! It’s not true because God owns everything. Secular is a non-category. It’s a non-entity. Everything is owned by God but we believed the lie that we can own something. And so what happened was the perfect fabric of creation was torn and we stopped acknowledging that God is the owner of all things. And we look back to the garden and we ask Adam, “Why did you have to do that? Why did you have to grab the fabric of creation? Everything belonged to you! The whole earth was given to you to take dominion over!” God said, “Rule over all: the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, everything that creeps on the earth, every fruit of the tree except for one, I have given to you”. All things belong to you, in the words of St. Paul. Why do you have to grab? In fact, let me tell you a secret: Adam did not have a refrigerator in his tent in the Garden of Eden. You know why? Because the fruit was fresher on the tree. He didn’t have to keep. He didn’t have to go to the grocery store. The whole garden was his grocery store and he did not have to keep something for himself thinking, “Oh, there may be panic buying. I need to stock up so I wouldn’t be without!” No, he would never have been without as we will be never be without if we realize God is the owner of all things and He is our provider.
You might say, “Well, I don’t have everything.” Let me say this, “What you don’t have, you don’t need right now. When you need it, God will make sure that it’s there, because He is our provider.” So why grab? There is this story of a beggar, black American beggar, who was chosen at random by two very wealthy white American men. And they put him in a big house with expensive furniture and things, dressed him up, and put him in the living room of this house. And then, the two men left the room. What the black man didn’t know was there were cameras in the room and the two men proceeded to the next room where they were watching the black man on the TV monitor. What the black man did as soon as those two rich people left the room, was get pieces of furniture—objects of art—and would store them in his pocket. So what the two rich men did was they went back into the room, went to the black man, and got all those things out of his pocket and explained to him, saying, “These are yours. Why would you keep them in your pocket when they look better on the table? Why would you sell that which belongs to you or given to you for your use? Why? Why would you have to do that?” And they tried to make him realize that everything was at his disposal.
Psalm 83 said about the enemies of God, “Let us possess for ourselves the pastures of God.” They’re God’s. You cannot possess them for yourself but God allows you to use them to fulfill your mandate. Trying to take something for our own is thriving after the wind. It’s vanity. It’s an exercise in futility. But man chose to stop acknowledging God as the owner of all things and he believed a lie. But still it doesn’t change the truth that God alone created all things we call our own.
And so, secular came to be understood as man’s property and affairs and the spiritual was what was left as God’s possessions. So now, when before, all things were done for the glory of God, now only praying and singing and tithing and fulfilling your ministry and going to church are for God. Now, playing, studying, working, washing clothes have been relegated to a lower category and they are not spiritual anymore. They are secular. And we categorize things. They became secular. Work became secular. We called our jobs that are not fulltime ministry jobs, secular jobs. Why is that? Now, fulltime ministry is higher than the secular job. Now, clergy, we of the cloth, are higher than laity, or so we thought. And not only that, even among clergy there are rankings—oh, I am purple shirt; oh, I am black shirt; you’re just a gray shirt. And we started categorizing things. Now, cinema is evil. Now, the arts are less spiritual. Now, we have Christian songs and worldly songs. Because we stopped acknowledging that God owns all things, and so maybe some of these things have been perverted and not offered to God in thanksgiving anymore, that’s what makes them less spiritual, whenever God is not acknowledged as God. Not only that. Now we think, “I’ll give God 10%, that’s His; 90% is mine.” Right? Sunday is God’s or 15 minutes of Sunday is God’s; the rest of the week, mine! Whatever I want to do, I’ll do because I gave God His due. We become the second master and we forget our duty, our make up, as king and priest. When we do that, we become like the rich man in the Gospel read today because this rich man is a picture of the Church.
This rich man was, like I said, blessed with every spiritual blessing, given everything pertaining to life and godliness and equipped for good work, but he was not sensitive to the poor and the needy. And what did he give him? Crumbs! Actually, he didn’t give him crumbs. Crumbs involuntarily fell from his table. Do we see ourselves as acting like that? In the Old Testament reading, the reading talks about the luxuries of God’s people; luxuries abounded, but insensitivity to the needy abounded all the more.
In the Gospel, this picture of a dog licking the sores of the beggar, Lazarus --dogs remind me of this picture in the Book of Revelation--dogs are those outside the city of God, the world, those who don’t acknowledge God as the owner of all things. So what happens when we withhold good from those to whom it is due is that the world now becomes the ill-equipped caregiver of the needy. Do they heal the needy? No. Can dog’s tongue licking your wounds heal your wounds? They become the ill-equipped minister of the needy because the very Church that has been equipped for good work would not do its job. And so the needy turns to the world and they get no healing, they get no deliverance, they don’t have their needs met. The imprecatory prayer of Psalm 109 talks against/prays against he who did not remember to show lovingkindness but persecuted the afflicted and needy man. Herein is where hell is conceived, because hell is when we operate outside of God’s will and contrary to our make up. The real us - our make up, our build - bears the image and likeness of God. We have been created to be GIVERS - ever blessing, ever meeting needs.
I want us to look at the palms of our hands. In those hands is waiting healing to happen. Healing is right there. Deliverance is right there waiting to happen, waiting to be released. Peace, joy, love, pardon, light - right in those hands just waiting for you to release them to the needy. Right in those very hands.
Like I said, Proverb says, “Do not withhold good to those whom it is due when it is in your power to do it.” But in the first place, provision is not yours to withhold. It has been given to you to release, not withhold for yourself. When we do that, then we are mastered by the possessions that God gave us. In the first reading, actually the verses before the portion read to us from the New Testament, St. Paul says to Timothy, “Godliness is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment or when it is operational within the will of God.” It continues to say that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. And then, in the reading it says, “Don’t fix your hope on riches but on God who richly, abundantly supplies us with all things to enjoy, not to be enslaved by them.” When we become enslaved by them, we stop enjoying them.
We use the things of God according to His will, then we enjoy them. We stop doing that, then we become enslaved by them.
Those of you who have come forward giving their thanksgiving offering, when I give my blessing, I sometimes say, “The fullness of God’s blessing is with you. Claim it, enjoy it, and share it.” Because that’s what the blessing is given for. We are blessed to be a blessing. Be rich in good works, be generous and ready to share, for then you will be storing up for yourself the treasure of a good foundation for the future. What we have been encouraged last week – prepare for the future. This is how: Matthew 6 says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures secure in heaven.” This is also what the Epistle says. So that you may take hold of that which is life indeed; true riches. You can have true riches. We are after perishable things and we are deceived by the deceitfulness of riches. But they are perishable. God says you CAN own something, but what you can own are true riches eternal in the heavens.
I’ll give you an assignment, okay? I don’t know how many of you follow the daily office readings. The morning daily office readings last week, and they do this every time it comes to this week, they skip this portion of the Old Testament which is very, very powerful. I’m talking about the Second Book of Kings, Chapter 7. Write that down, read it at home. Very powerful!
If you don’t believe that God can provide a miracle, read that because in there: one day, the price of a dove’s dung was very expensive; so heavy an amount of silver, so many shekels. And even a head of a donkey which was unclean in those days was very expensive - eighty plus shekels of gold, how ever much that is today. But the man of God, Elisha the prophet, prophesied, by this time tomorrow, fine flour will be sold at less than what you pay for, for dove’s dung. And it happened. God used lepers to accomplish that. But it can happen.
Sometimes, we see the need that it’s big. God is bigger. Everything belongs to us. Our faith should be whenever there’s a need, there’s a provision. And always remember, Jesus restored us and once again made us kings and priests to serve our God among His people, particularly, the needy. And once again, we’re lords over things and not their slaves. St. Paul said to the Galatians, “It was for freedom that Christ set you free. Do not once again be deceived and be subject to a yoke of slavery.”
The things that we have in our hands, let us use them to fulfill the needs of those who are afflicted and needy. Because all things belong to you, use them to serve God and His creation. That’s the surest and best way to lay up treasures that are true and not fleeting. But more importantly, we must never forget we are blessed to be a blessing and we have been created to be a blessing. That is our make up. If we operate outside of that, we will be like fish out of water. You have been blessed to be a blessing but you have been created in the first place to be a blessing. This is God. This is our creation. And that’s the way it is in the Kingdom of God.
LET US CONTINUE OUR REFLECTION
WITH
CARDINAL OF HOLY MOTHER CHURCH
AND
VENERABLE PRIMATE
OF THE PHILIPPINES
THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
WITH
CARDINAL OF HOLY MOTHER CHURCH
AND
VENERABLE PRIMATE
OF THE PHILIPPINES
THROUGH
THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
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