Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 138​

But you, man of God, pursue righteousness,

devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.

Compete well for the faith.

Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called

when you made the noble confession in the presence of many witnesses.

A brief article in Wikipedia describes nineteenth century Muscular Christianity. Never organized, the movement was promoted with literature and songs, and especially popular in English and American schools. President Theodore Roosevelt lived by the doctrine and promoted it. Muscular Christianity drew upon the New Testament, especially Saint Paul and the Letter to the Hebrews, for its scriptural foundations, citing such passages as today's exhortation, "Compete well for the faith!" 

I have heard that successful business people are not actually driven by greed. Although many began with little and have amassed enormous fortunes, their real fear is not poverty but losing. They play to win! They cannot "give a sucker an even break" unless they're fairly certain of coming out on top. They might be willing to play on "a level playing field" if the risks are not too much and the profits, substantial.

They've learned these attitudes, of course, from our culture of games and sports, which has the enthusiastic support of Muscular Christianity. "Winning isn't the important thing," they say, "it's the only thing."

Before he died at 101 earlier this year, I often played cribbage with Father Maurice. He may have learned to play the game before my father was born. He played well enough but he often miscounted his meld, usually to his own disadvantage; and I scrupulously helped him, making sure he got all the points he had won. We always played three games, never more or less. The score was usually 2-1; and occasionally 3-0. I didn't keep a record of wins and losses but I think we broke even over the long run.

However, sometimes his play was sloppy, perhaps because he wasn't wearing his oxygen cannula. If I couldn't persuade him to wear the tube, I was in a moral quandary. Should I intentionally misplay my own cards, or miscount my own points, to offset his disadvantage? We never played for money, of course, and it really didn't matter who won. In the middle of the second game he often asked who won the first. We played because we were friends!

But I really had a hard time with cheating to lose. It feels immoral; it violates The Game. If he won the first game, I played to win the second. I had lost enough! If he won the first and second games, I gave no quarter in the last game. Does God care who wins the game so long as both players play by the rules? What would the Muscular Christian say about this moral dilemma?

If someone begins a business career on an uneven playing field not of their own making, a field clearly tilted in their favor, what obligation do they have to set it straight first? Or ever? (Winning is the only thing!) When people play in the game of business and succeed beyond anyone's expectations, they can reasonably expect to send their children to the best schools and finance their way into successful careers. Isn't their first duty to their own children?

The rich man in Jesus' parable might never have pondered this dilemma. Having won the game of life, he believed this was right and just,. It's how God intended it. As far as he was concerned, the poor man at the gate, with the dogs licking his wounds, was also in his right and just place. The impassable chasm between wealth and poverty had been established long before either was born. As the Bible says, "The LORD makes poor and makes rich." and, "The poor you always have with you."  No philosophy would challenge that doctrine before the twentieth century, and not many religions. Most people regard it as an intractable fact.

Imagine then the rich man's astonishment in the life after death. He was not alone in that. When Jesus said, "...it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” his disciples were astonished. "Who then can be saved?" they asked. It made no sense. 

What's most baffling about this parable is that the rich man did not foresee the inevitable judgement. Does anyone see it coming? Some people in prison still insist they're innocent. Or at least their crimes were not so bad as the punishment. They never saw it coming. Do I see it coming? 

Our faith tells us that Jesus has atoned for our sins. His death was reparation. Some preachers argue his last, dying remark, "It is finished!" may be translated as, "Paid in full!" But in the study of my indebtedness I must contemplate the full horror of my sins, including the guilt I have inherited with the comfortable circumstances of my present life. If I cannot repay the poor what was stolen from them and bequeathed to me, neither do I dare to turn a deaf ear to their cry for justice. In the end the Lord will cast down the mighty and lift up the lowly. I hope that, when I am cast down, I will have the good sense to praise God's merciful justice.

Lazarus is still at the gate, and the dogs still lick his wounds. We must still do justice, love goodness, and walk humbly with our God.