September 22, 2019

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." Archbishop Helder Camara - Recife, Brazil died 1999

Today's Gospel passage (Luke 16) is quite demanding. I wonder what they called Jesus when he posed these questions. Whenever morality moves from voluntary acts of charity by individuals to suggesting large scale or systemic change, people get nervous. Sharing from our surplus, every once in a while, we can accommodate. But if the Bible asks us to budget it in as a way of imitating Jesus, that scares some. Christ is telling society it cannot treat people as "things" that are simply disposable ingredients of a robust economy. The Gospel reminds us that our regular outreach to the poor must be integral to our faith.