THOUGHTS OF A NUN

Rewards

Luke 7:36-50
December 4, 2005

Recently, my nephew Phillip told me of a time when he was twelve and neither parent was home. The doorbell rang. He answered the door and a man standing there expressed his need for help to at least buy food for himself. On impulse, Phillip told him to wait there. He emptied his piggy bank of all his savings and gave the entire amount to the man. After he left, Phillip said
he’d never felt such sheer happiness about anything as he had at that moment. Phillip’s generosity was rewarded with joy.

The Bible seems like a very practical book as it frequently refers to a reward motive. The Old Testament claims, as we heard this morning, that if you sow righteousness you will reap steadfast love. The New Testament claims if you have faith you will be rewarded by being able to move a mountain or walk on water or be cured or healed. It frequently reminds us that something new and wonderful enters into the life of the person who accepts God’s commands. Those rewards are not material, not wealth of things but wealth of the heart and spirit, as Phillip discovered at his young age.

If we have been sparing in our help of others, it is highly likely that others will be sparing in their help to us. A person who truly goes out to others will always find others who go out to them. The paradox in this is the word truly. Truly going out to others is not going out to others to make sure someone will return the favor, but freely without hope of any return, any reward. The woman who washed and dried Christ’s feet seems to have already received the reward of forgiveness. She was not looking for more.

On one level Phillip was able to give all his savings because he knew that his parents would care for all his real needs. So too, if we truly have faith in the ultimate care giving of God, we can more easily "truly" go out to others. How do we sow righteousness and not the self-righteousness Christ seemed to detect in the Pharisee in this morning’s gospel? The phrase "sowing righteousness" is not the way we speak today. "Do good –avoid evil. Love others as you love yourself" are more easily understood.

Righteousness, simply defined, means right living- moral rectitude. Both of these depend on our understanding of God’s commandments and our own cultural background. One aid that I’ve found helpful in avoiding self-righteousness or being so sure of my judgment of others is to make a list of the judgments I’d made that were incorrect. I’ve listed all the right people who turned out to be the wrong people for me. The good things I insisted on having that turned out to be bad for me. The things I knew that were absolutely correct that turned out to be absolutely incorrect. (It is one advantage of aging-more possibilities of mistakes!)

On Tuesday this past week there was an article in the Post Star about a man who was arrested for knowingly ordering and eating a lavish $90.00 meal at the Queensbury hotel for which he had no way of paying. This homeless man was dressed well enough not to cause any suspicion of his inability to pay. But this incorrect judgment by the hotel workers also got the man free room and board from taxpayers for as long as he is in jail.
We would hardly call his behavior that of any moral rectitude but was the conclusion of the story reflective of any one else’s sowing righteousness? Would there be any other course to follow to find a shelter for the man and a means of his work to repay the money? Without more knowledge of the facts in his case we can’t answer this question, but in our everyday lives we can ask ourselves what will our harvest be like – an abundant one or a meager one?