Thursday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 344

Jesus said to his disciples: “Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.

The story is told of the preacher in the Baptist Mission who challenged his congregation, "Now if a fellow has two yachts, don't you think he should sell one and give to the poor?" 

"Yes, Preacher!" they all shouted.

"And if he had two billion dollars, shouldn't he give one billion to the poor?" 

"Amen, Preacher!" they shouted again.

And if someone has two jackets shouldn't he give one to someone who needs it?"

(Silence)

"Well?" 

"Preacher, some of us have two jackets." 

I wonder if there were any wealthy individuals in the  congregation when the harangue of James 5 was first read in public.  

It is easy to blame our problems on other people, be they super-rich or welfare queens. But anthropologists tell us the gap between wealth and poverty first appeared when cities appeared. And cities are not going away because they make survival so much easier. For that reason they have been called Humankind's Greatest Invention. Individuals specializing in particular skills provide their services to others and receive help from others, and everyone enjoys a degree of leisure that rural folks can only dream of. Odd persons who can't relate to their own families find similar oddballs in a large population and everyone's tastes are met, from the edifying to the immoral. 

Disabled and indigent persons also find opportunities to beg in the city as they provide a feel-good-about-yourself moment to more fortunate people. Wealthy persons offer rich gossip to the populace; their tragedies and comedies have provided fodder for high culture to countless generations of urbanites. Some also prove themselves useful as philanthropists.

God's people -- both Jews and Christians -- turn to the scriptures as we seek the good life. (Keep in mind that our scriptures were also written, redacted, edited, translated, and published in the cities where specialists had the leisure to do that kind of work.) 

Saint Augustine observed that, "We often love the things we should use and use the things we should love." What should we love? What should we use? Today's scripture passages remind us to value the people around us and grab opportunities to care for them. The simple act of giving someone a drink of water may be rewarded with eternal bliss. But "your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you..."

Despite James 5 we do better to leave the intractable problem of the ever-widening wealth gap to the cyclic forces of the economy as we find ways to care for the least among us. As Saint Julianne of Norwich said, "All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well" when the Lord returns.