Beyond the Patio

Laughing in our Hearts
Luke 16:1-13

The parable in the Gospel today is a rather strange one but basically it is about how we use resources that we have been given here on earth.  As I see it , the story suggests that we are often more prudent in the use of these resources for our own selfish purposes than using our resources for expressing Godly love and compassion in the world.  Yet, it is in using of our money and resources in a giving, sharing, loving and compassionate way that our true joys are to be found.

Children have a profound way of putting forth this truth. A number of  years ago some of us from across Canada gathered with the National Children’s Unit of our church just outside of Montreal to review the Life in the Eucharist material before it was published. We had the opportunity of meeting with Mm.Franscois Berube who had consulted on the work. She was an outstanding person, a wonderful speaker, and had a number of beautiful stories of her work with children. One of the stories she told was of a class that had gathered for religious instruction. After the class was over the teacher handed out life savors for everyone. The kids had a great a time with them. They gobbled them up, and traded some – a yellow one for a red one, an orange one for a green one etc. There was one little girl who held her life savors in her hand and didn’t share in any of the festivities. The teacher asked, “Don’t you like life savors?” She replied, “Oh yes!” The teacher asked, “Why don’t you join the fun and eat your life savors and trade them with the other children?” The little girl answered, “These children are now laughing in their mouths, but when I take these life savors home and share them with my family who do not have any life savors, I’ll be laughing in my heart.

The burning question always “do we use all that has been giving to us in a way that we laugh only in our mouths or do we use them in such a way as to laugh in our hearts?

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Sometimes we have the sense that our giving is a burden. We think the church, as well as many charitable organizations, are always asking for money. We think that these people are trying to take our money away from us so we don’t have enough for our own selfish pursuits.  But in reality, there is a need for the giver to give if we are to find true meaning and happiness in life.  We don’t gain meaning and happiness from what we accumulate around ourselves. As one person has said, “happiness is not having money, it is having more money” and that means we always need more no matter how much we have so there is never any true satisfaction. The truth is you really only possess what you dare to give away otherwise it possesses you.  If I cannot dare to give away my time, I am possessed by time,  if I dare not offer the money that is under my control it possesses me; I do not possess it. The nature of freedom is discovered by the very ability both to be able to use responsibly what we have for our own good and also to discover the extent to which we can give away what is in our possession for the good of others.  So it is not just that the church needs us to give for it’s work in the world or charitable organizations need us to give for their important causes.  We need to give. For our own meaning and satisfaction in life, there is a need of the giver to give.

I remember being in a parish a number of years ago when I person presented me with an idea that what we really needed to do in the church was to run a lottery. We would have lots of money and the people in the congregation wouldn’t have to give. It would be financed from people outside the church by people buying lottery tickets. My answer to this preposterous idea was simply that it ignores the need of the giver to give.

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That need comes from within us as human beings. Jeremiah presents us with a wonderful vision of what a new covenant with God would be like, a covenant responded to from within us and not commanded from outside us:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:31-33 NRSV)

Our need to give comes from deep within us.  It is written in our hearts. As Christians we cannot help but give in gratitude for what we have been given. It is a highly spiritual matter. It’s part of my conversion to Christ’s way of life.

It is true that we often like to keep some parts of our lives unconverted. I believe it was Charlemagne, who, when he was baptized by immersion, kept his sword out of the water, so that it was not converted and could be used for more dastardly deeds. Many people today might hold their wallets out of the waters of baptism so that it would not be converted and it could be used for themselves alone.

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What is it about money that makes us that way?  It certainly has a hold on us. It is hard to escape from the prison that it builds for us.

Jesus knew how important a person’s relationship to their possessions was. If you were asked what Jesus talked about most about in the Gospels, you probably would say forgiveness, prayer, sacrifice, joy, or peace. He actually spoke more about the way a person relates to their material possession more than any other subject. One third of the parables were on that subject and a sixth of his saying. To Jesus, the use of one’s possessions had the potential of deepening a relationship to God and other human being, or destroying those relationships.

It is said that you can tell what a person really believes by looking at their cheque book and their day-timer. These are theological statements. Looking at the way we spend our money and our time tells more about what we believe than any creed that we might utter.

Money is not good or evil but the way that we use it has the potential for good or evil. Michel Quoist had a wonderful prayer that he wrote few years ago, A Prayer before a Twenty Dollar Bill. Today we might have to change the title A Prayer before a Hundred Dollar Bill to take in the factor of inflation. You can see in the prayer how money can be used for good or ill. Here it is in part:

Lord see this bill! It frightens me. 
You know it’s secrets, you know it’s history.
How heavy it is! It scares me, for it cannot speak,
It will never tell all it hides in its creases.
It will never reveal all the struggles and efforts it represents, all the disillusionment and slighted dignity
It is stained with sweat and blood,
It is laden with all the weight of the human toil which makes it’s worth.

It is heavy, heavy, Lord. It fills me with awe, it frightens me.
For it has death on it’s conscience….
All the poor fellows who killed themselves for it,
To possess it for a few hours,
to have through it a little pleasure, a little joy, a little life.

Through how many hands has it passed, Lord?
And what has it done in the course of it’s long, silent journeys?

It has offered white roses to the radiant fiancée
It has paid for the baptismal party, and fed the rosy-cheeked baby.
It has provided bread for the family table.
Because of it there was laughing among the young and joy among the elders
It paid for the saving visit of the doctor,
It has bought the book that taught the youngster.
It clothes the young girl.

But it has sent the letter breaking the engagement,
It has paid for the death of the baby in it’s mother’s womb
It has bought the liquor that made the drunkard,
It has produced the movie unfit for children
And has recorded the indecent song
It has broken the morals of the adolescent and made the adult a thief
It has bought for a few hours the body of a woman
It has paid for the weapons of crime and for the wood of the coffin.

O Lord, I offer you this bill with it’s joyous mysteries, it’s sorrowful mysteries.
I thank you for all the life and joy it has given.
I ask your forgiveness for the harm that it has done
But above all , Lord, I offer it to you as a symbol of all the labors of men, (and women), indestructible money, which tomorrow will be changed into your eternal life.

(From Prayers by Michel Quoist, Sheed and Ward, 1963, p.32)

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How we use our money and all that we have is sometimes the difference of whether we are laughing in our mouths or laughing in our hearts.

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