Prosperity Gospel? (Luke 15 and 16)

The fifteenth chapter of St. Luke’s gospel recounts three parables. We read them at Mass two Sundays ago… Lost sheep. Lost coin. Prodigal son. Images of Divine Mercy. Comforting, and not difficult to understand. Luke 15. [Spanish]

But Luke 16, on the other hand… First, the parable of the Dishonest Steward, which we heard at Mass last Sunday. And the painful tale of Lazarus and the Rich Man.

Dogs licking the poor man’s sores in this world. The rich man dying of thirst in the next life. A chasm between heaven and hell that no one can cross.

Lord Jesus addressed last Sunday’s parable of the Dishonest Steward, the first part of Luke 16, to His own disciples. But the Pharisees overheard Him. So then the Lord told the story of Lazarus and the rich man for their benefit, the Pharisees’ benefit.

It’s no accident that, in the story, the bosom on which Lazarus comes to rest belongs to Abraham. One way for us to understand all of Jesus’ dealings with the Pharisees is to grasp the fundamental question in dispute.

Namely: What does it mean to be a child of Abraham? God Almighty chose the children of Abraham as His own, His people. But what precisely makes you a child of Abraham, one of the Chosen?

Abraham lived before the ancient written law came down to Moses on Mount Sinai. Abraham lived way before Solomon built the Temple. But what Abraham had was: true humility, true faith in the Providence of God.

Now, most people know that life in this world isn’t fair. Bad luck can hit good people, and the wicked often prosper. The ancient pagans expressed this by inventing a special goddess, the goddess of Fortune. She spins the wheel of arbitrary and unfair fate.

Anyone ever heard of the “Prosperity Gospel?” If God loves you, and you’re good, then you will have a comfortable house, a shiny car, a well-padded bank account, and good teeth.  On the other hand, if you’re a loser, and can’t pay your bills, it’s your own fault.

the goddess Fortuna

The Prosperity Gospel lets comfortable, self-centered people like the rich man in the parable sit at their tables, while a neighbor starves–without thinking twice about it.

But the arbitrary spinning of Fortune’s wheel does not deal out justice on earth. That’s not what believing in God’s Providence means. Material prosperity does not measure interior virtue. Being wealthy doesn’t make you one of God’s Chosen.

God has given us sinners a means by which to purify our selfish hearts. We have to do battle with something. The concept of “mine.”

What did the rich man discover, when he went to meet God? He learned that all the stuff he thought was his was only temporarily his. He didn’t own his wealth. He had the stewardship of it, for a time.

He thought he had enjoyed his money thoroughly. Turns out he stewarded it very poorly. He actually owed some of it to the poor man Lazarus. And Lazarus didn’t ask much; he would have been happy with the scraps that fell from the table. But the rich man loved his sumptuous lifestyle so much that he did not even know that Lazarus existed.

We conquer our selfishness by giving things away. In this fallen world, the children of Abraham, the children of God, learn to forget the word “mine” by giving away stuff, giving away time and energy for other people’s benefit.

I think the most haunting part of the gospel passage is the end. The rich man, suffering in hell for his selfishness and gluttony, begs Abraham to send Lazarus back. ‘Let him warn my selfish, gluttonous brothers!’

Abraham answers: ‘But they already have the words of the prophets to warn them. They should know better. Just like you should have known better.’

‘No, no,’ cried the rich man in hell: ‘They will listen; they will repent; they will turn to God and live generous lives—if someone rises from the dead. If someone comes back from the dead and teaches them that only self-sacrificing love can get you to heaven!’

The thing is: It happened. That teacher has risen from the dead. The poor man of Nazareth.

Hustle Like the Dishonest Steward

Most gospel commentators agree: Of all the Lord Jesus’ parables, the Parable of the Dishonest Steward is the hardest to understand.

First-century Palestine had a corrupt farming economy. Absentee landlords. Exploitative sub-leasing arrangements. Dishonesty at every level.

The Lord addressed the Parable of the Dishonest Steward to His disciples. This is not a parable about converting from serious sin to a life of obedience to God’s commandments, like the parable of the Prodigal Son we read at Sunday Mass last week. The Parable of the Dishonest Steward is for people who are already trying to follow Christ to heaven.

In other words: dishonesty and double-dealing are bad, we know that. That’s not the point here. The thing we have to focus on is this: this steward thought quickly and acted practically. He honestly identified his own difficult situation. He took decisive action to prevent personal disaster.

So, with this parable, the good Lord asks us to think of the worldly people we know, the people bent on seeking pleasure or wealth or fame. Their goals are not worthy. And yet look at how energetically and how cleverly they pursue them! Look at their dexterity and skill!

Meanwhile, you so-called disciples of Mine say that you are committed to living for My glory, You say you seek heaven–something infinitely more worth seeking than what the children of the world are after. And yet you sit around slack-jawed and passive, like Homer Simpson staring at the tv.

How can we mope around clueless and idle, while Satan’s servants are filled with uncanny zeal? We should be a hundred times more creative, more resourceful, more realistic, more prudent in rendering faithful service to God than the children of this world are in chasing after the shadows of selfishness and greed.

The Lord added: I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Throughout His life and ministry, Christ certainly preached the message, “God is love.” No doubt about it. That God is love was Christ’s message. But He also preached another message, which went hand-in-hand with the “God is love” thing. We have to open our ears to this other dimension of Christ’s teaching, too. God is love. True. But guess what else? Life is short.

Don’t be a woolgathering, slack-jawed, passive disciple. Be a disciple who is more clever than the cleverest Las-Vegas hustler. Because everything we have in our hands now, everything about which we even can be clever now–it will all pass away. Everything we see or touch now will pass away. Life on earth will end. And only our acts of genuine love will endure. Only the pure love we share with God and our neighbor will endure. Everything else is just so much straw.

It’s not a sin to have a million dollars. The sin would be to think that a million dollars will do me any good after I die–which I will soon do. It’s not a sin to hold power and influence in this world. The sin would be to think that I have any power over death and judgment. Death and judgment will come when they will come, whether I like it or not.

Let’s use a Las-Vegas metaphor. God holds the cards. All the cards are His. He deals me a hand to play in this short life. And He tells me, “Son, play your hand to win friends for eternal life. Play your hand so that when the game is over–which it will be, very soon–the other players will say of you, ‘That’s a kind person. That’s a God-fearing person. That’s a person who listens before he speaks and gives with no thought of taking.’”

The steward in the parable thought of his future, and it put the present into perspective. The Lord asks us to do the same. Life is short. Pray hard. Love. Let go of everything else.

Lazarus, Dives, and the goddess Fortuna

Remember, my rich child, you received what was good during your lifetime, while Lazarus received what was bad. But now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. (Luke 16:25)

The goddess Fortuna. She plies her wheel. She has no true justice and therefore no eternal power. But, during our pilgrim lives, she exercises a foresight far greater than ours, and she wields her immense power over us with arbitrary cruelty.

She doles out the privileges of birth. She teaches the smooth language of ingratiation, and all the other people-pleasing skills. She schools her attentive pupils in the acts of cynical worldliness. She maintains a shallow but vast system that rewards cowardice and mediocrity with affluence and prestige.

Meanwhile, she buffets the humble. She slaps and punches the sincere. She crucifies the honest. She drowns the truly great in an ocean of obscurity.

Fortuna seduces the souls that serve her. They gradually start to believe the she does, in fact, dole out justice. They begin to measure themselves by their material wealth and media fame. They think: Oh, isn’t this nice! I have succeeded, thanks to my talent, my charm, my extraordinary skill! And the losers at the gate? Let them rot.

But Fortuna has no real love for anyone. She will always take away everything she gives. Then her followers, whom she has seduced into slavery—they have nothing in their hands but dust.

Why has the Lord God Almighty conceded to Fortuna so much clout, so much worldly power? Is it because His justice gets served when people fall for Fortuna’s specious ‘prosperity gospel,’ and then, in the end, wind up in hell, right alongside their mistress?

Maybe. But one thing we know for sure: God lets Fortuna exercise her shallow but extensive authority in order to purify us for higher things. When we suffer her blows, but then look to heaven instead of whimpering, she loses, and we win.

The good God who sent His eternal Son to suffer and die, as the world’s greatest “loser”—that true God offers us something that Fortuna can only look at from a distance and wish she could have.

Merciful Steward + Thanks, Borromeo!

At Holy Mass today, we read the parable of the dishonest steward.  It has many complicated and difficult aspects.  The steward’s own dubious moral character.  His desperate honesty with himself vs. his dishonesty with his master.  Then his master’s apparent approval of his dishonesty…  Who can understand all this complexity?

But at the heart of the parable lies one simple detail:  The steward reduced the debtors’ burden.  They owed 100.  To one, the steward said:  Make if 50.  To another: Make it 80.

The debtors experienced sudden, unexpected relief.  Instant reduction of anxiety and strife.  Like a jubilee.

It’s like the day during my senior year of college when my Spanish Literature professor walked into the classroom a couple weeks before the end of the semester.  He announced that he had been offered, and had accepted, a new job at a different university.  He intended to report to the registrar our grades as they stood at that moment, because he was leaving town the next day.

He had assigned us a crushing 30-40 page research paper, to be turned in at the end of the semester.  Few of us had had the time or the courage even to start working on it.  He said:  “If you have a paper to give me today, I’ll read it tonight and include it in your grade.  If not, Don’t worry about it!”

A miracle of mercy.

St. Charles Borromeo died 432 years ago today.  Everyone knows the relationship between St. Charles Borromeo and the greatest book of all time?  The greatest book of all time is, of course… Okay, after the Bible. …the Baltimore Catechism!  Thanks to Cardinal Charles Borromeo, we had the Roman Catechism. Baltimore Catechism is based on the Roman Catechism.  So:  Thank you, St. Charles Borromeo!

We make things complicated.  But they’re not.  They’re actually simple.  We are not God. God is God.  And He is, above all, merciful.

Wheel of Fortune

The fifteenth chapter of St. Luke’s gospel recounts three enchanting parables.  We read them at Mass two Sundays ago…  Lost sheep.  Lost coin.  Prodigal son.  Vivid images of Divine Mercy. Comforting, and not difficult to understand.  Luke 15.

But Luke 16, on the other hand…  First, the parable of the Dishonest Steward, which we heard at Mass last Sunday.  Then the chapter continues with a few lines about entering the Kingdom of God by violence.  Then the painful tale of Lazarus and the Rich Man.

Dogs licking the poor man’s sores.  The rich man dying of thirst in the afterlife.  A chasm that no one can cross.  And father Abraham saying that no one else can go to warn the rich man’s brothers.

Now, most people know that life in this world isn’t fair.  Bad luck can hit good people, and the wicked often prosper.  The ancient pagans expressed this by inventing a special goddess, the goddess of Fortune.  She spins the wheel of arbitrary and unfair fate.

Like what happened to the king of ancient Troy.  The Greeks snuck into the city, hidden in a big wooden…  horse.  Then a young Greek warrior mercilessly slew the old Trojan king.

Any fans of Shakespeare’s Hamlet?  One scene in Hamlet narrates the fall of Troy and the murder of the king.  Old and feeble, the king couldn’t even lift his sword.  The scene of his death is so sad, so wrong, so utterly unfair, that Shakespeare curses the goddess:

Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,

In general synod, take away her power;

Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,

And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,

As low as to the fiends!

—

The “Prosperity Gospel:”  If God loves you, and you’re good, then you will have a comfortable house, a shiny car, a well-padded bank account, and good teeth.  On the other hand, if you’re a loser, and can’t pay your bills, it’s your own fault, and God doesn’t love you.

That’s the Prosperity Gospel.  A doctrine which lets comfortable, self-centered people like the rich man in the parable sit at their tables, while a poor man starves, and think:  “Well, it’s his fault that he’s so poor and such a loser.”

But the arbitrary spinning of Fortune’s wheel does not deal out justice on earth.  To live in the truth, we must utterly reject the Prosperity Gospel for the nonsense that it is.  Material prosperity does not accurately measure interior virtue, and it doesn’t make you one of the Chosen.

Lord Jesus addressed last Sunday’s parable of the Dishonest Steward, the first part of Luke 16, to His own disciples.  But the Pharisees overheard Him. So then the Lord told the story of Lazarus and the rich man for their benefit, the Pharisees’ benefit.

It’s no accident that, in the story, the bosom on which Lazarus comes to rest belongs to Abraham. One way for us to understand all of Jesus’ dealings with the Pharisees is to grasp the fundamental question in dispute, namely:  What does it mean to be a child of Abraham?  God Almighty chose the children of Abraham as His own, His people.  But what precisely makes you a child of Abraham, one of the Chosen?

Jesus spent His earthly ministry trying to help people understand:  Fulfilling the Law of Moses will not bring anyone to Abraham’s bosom.  Not because the Law of Moses is wrong.  But because no one in this fallen world has enough righteousness to keep the divine law.  God does not choose us because we’re good.  Rather:  God chooses to save sinners.

Abraham himself lived before the written law came down on Mount Sinai; he never had the Ten Commandments inscribed in stone.  But what he had was true humility, true faith in the Providence of God.  The opposite of the Prosperity Gospel, the opposite of pharisaism.

God has given us sinners a means by which to purify our selfish hearts.  Provided we are humble enough to see that when someone suffers in poverty, it’s not because it’s his fault.  It’s because it’s our fault, the human race’s fault.  We can enter the Kingdom of God, as Luke 16 says, by doing a particular kind of violence.  Doing violence to the concept of “mine.”

“Mine, mine, mine!” we must utterly destroy.  We destroy our selfishness by giving things away.  In this fallen world, the children of Abraham, the children of God, learn to forget the word “mine” by giving alms.

—

 

 

Parable of the Dishonest Steward

The first part of Luke 16:  Hard to follow.  To try to understand, let us recall three key facts.  [Click para leer en español.]

First:  Everything we human beings do, we do for the sake of some goal.  There are really only two ultimate goals.  Either we live for God, or we live for some satisfaction which we can have in this world—pleasure, power, or vainglory, all of which require money.  The first goal–to live for heaven–is worthy of who we are, the children of God.  The second goal is the sad desperation which takes over when we lose God’s friendship.

slack-jawed discipleship

The ultimate goal we set for ourselves puts us into one of two categories.  As Christ Himself put it:  living for God makes a person a “child of light.”  Living for something else makes someone a “child of this world,” a servant of mammon.

The second fact to keep in mind:  The Parable of the Dishonest Steward is addressed to Christ’s disciples, to the children of light.  The gospel itself says this.  This is not a parable about converting from serious sin to a life of obedience to God’s commandments, like the parable of the Prodigal Son we read at Sunday Mass last week.  The Parable of the Dishonest Steward is for people who are already converted.

And the third fact to keep in mind is this: leaving aside his dishonesty, the steward in the parable did act in a remarkably resourceful, clever, and decisive manner.  We could get into nitty-gritty details about the role of land stewards in the corrupt farming economy of first-century Palestine, which involved absentee landlords, exploitative sub-leasing arrangements, and dishonesty at every level.  But suffice it to say that this steward used his mind, identified his own difficult situation, and took quick and effective action to prevent a personal disaster.

If we keep these three facts in mind, perhaps we can see the point the Lord Jesus is trying to make in the parable.  He was speaking to His disciples, to people like us, who know His commandments and try to live by them.  We already know that dishonesty and double-dealing are bad.

But He asks us to do is this:  Think of the worldly people we know, the people bent on seeking pleasure or wealth or the esteem of other people.  Their goals are not worthy, and yet look at how energetically and how cleverly they pursue them!  Look at the dexterity and skill with which they seek fleeting satisfactions of one kind or another.

Meanwhile—the Lord is saying to us—meanwhile, you say that you are committed to living for my glory, that you seek true and everlasting happiness, which is infinitely more worthwhile than what the children of the world are after—and yet you sit here slack-jawed and passive, with glazed eyes, when you should be bending every effort, honing every skill, and capitalizing on every opportunity you have to grow in holiness and win souls for heaven.

We have been entrusted with many precious resources, and we have been given many opportunities.  God gave them to us to use to further the noble goals that we say we have.  We have to ask ourselves:  Do we have energy?  Then we should spend it all for Christ.  Do we have skills?  Then we should use them for the good of souls.  Do we have money?  It should be used for the growth of Christ’s Kingdom on earth.

How can we stand around clueless and idle while Satan’s servants are filled with uncanny zeal for the wrong things?  We should be a hundred times more creative, more resourceful, more realistic, more prudent in rendering faithful service to God than the children of this world are in chasing after the shadows of selfishness and greed.

I think the Lord actually explained the parable perfectly when He added: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

Throughout His life and ministry, Christ certainly preached the message, “God is love.” No doubt about it. That God is love was Christ’s message.  But He also preached another message that went hand-in-hand with the “God is love” thing. We close ourselves off to the Scriptures if we do not open our ears to this other dimension of Christ’s teaching. God is love. True. But guess what else? Life is short.

When Christ communicates the message “God is love,” He does not also say, “Therefore, relax. Therefore, take a Calgon bath.” God is love. Therefore, chill out on the couch, and loll around all the time. Because God made this world plush for us.

No. To the contrary. Christ’s message, taken as a whole, could perhaps be distilled like this: “When you die–which could be today–you will go to meet the God of love. Therefore, get ready to meet Him. By loving. Love like today were your last day on earth.”

Don’t be a woolgathering, slack-jawed, passive disciple. Be a disciple who is more clever than the cleverest Las-Vegas hustler. As clever as the cleverest Fortune-500 CEO is–be that clever about souls.

Above all, the parable highlights this fact: Everything we have in our hands now, everything about which we even can be clever now–it will all pass away. Everything we see or touch will pass away. Life on earth will end. And only our acts of genuine love will endure. Only the pure love we share with God and our neighbor will endure. Everything else is just so much straw.

It’s not a sin to have a million dollars. The sin would be to think that a million dollars will do me any good after I die–which I will soon do. It’s not a sin to hold power and influence in this world. The sin would be to think that I have any power over death and judgment. Death and judgment will come when they will come, whether I like it or not.

Let’s use a Las-Vegas metaphor. God holds the cards. All the cards are His. He deals me a hand to play in this short life. And He tells me, “Son, play your hand to win friends for eternal life. Play your hand so that when the game is over, which it will be very soon, the other players will say of you, ‘That’s a kind person. That’s a God-fearing person. That’s a person who listens before he speaks, smiles before he frowns, and gives with no thought of taking.’”

Win friends for eternal life with whatever you have to work with now. Because soon you will die. And then it won’t matter what kind of phone you own. Or whether or not your brother owes you $5,000, and never paid you back. Or whether you were right or wrong when you insisted that the house be painted that particular color, even though your wife wanted it to be a different color.

None of that will matter. Only kindness, honesty, generosity, piety, humility, justice, chastity, and faithfulness will matter. The godly things. They last.

The steward thought of his future, and it put the present into perspective. The Lord asks us to do the same. Life is short. Pray hard. Love. Let go of everything else.

Justice will be Done

Whenever we read about Lazarus and Dives, I think we recall the money passage of Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe Salvi:

“I am convinced,” the Pope writes, “that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favor of faith in eternal life. Only in connection with the impossibility that the injustice of history should be the final word does the necessity for Christ’s return become fully convincing.” (para. 43)

Not everybody believes in Christ. And not everybody who believes in Christ believes in Him enough. But everybody knows that life isn’t fair. Life as we know it, under the blue sky: Ain’t fair.

Cheaters prosper. Lying rogues get elected. Shallow nitwits become famous. Good people get sick. Young ladies with beautiful souls try and try to lose weight, and meanwhile all the boys talk to the cheerleaders in short skirts. People marry their love, and then, a few years later, they discover that they are actually married to their spouse’s mother or father. Promotions go to experts in face-time, while the real hard workers can’t catch a break. Meanwhile, opportunistic talking heads on television fill the airwaves with a steady stream of biased disinformation masquerading as “the news.”

Not fair. We all know this. Hopelessness can, and will, set in, unless we constantly focus our interior eyes of faith on the triumph of Jesus Christ. Again, to quote Pope Benedict:

“This innocent sufferer [Jesus Christ] has attained the certitude of hope: there is a God, and God can create justice in a way that we cannot conceive, yet we can begin to grasp it through faith. Yes, there is a resurrection of the flesh. There is justice. There is an ‘undoing’ of past suffering, a reparation that sets things aright.”

In my book, the Church expresses Her faith most eloquently at a funeral Mass. We sing at the end of a funeral:

May choirs of angels welcome you, and lead you to the bosom of Abraham, and where Lazarus is poor no longer, may you find eternal rest.

We believe: There is place where Lazarus is poor no longer. There is a place where justice is fully, completely, totally, thoroughly, honestly, and truthfully restored.

Sometimes that place seems a million miles away from earth. And sometimes, when a holy soul does good, the Kingdom seems very close.

The Kingdom will come. That’s what father Abraham is saying to poor Dives in the gospel passage. The Kingdom will come, and anyone with any sense knows that it will. The deep longings our hearts have for justice: Christ’s triumph over death confirms them all. By the divine light of truth, cynicism, worldliness, and atheism make no sense. The Kingdom will come.

Now, how do we hasten the coming of the Kingdom of justice? We can hasten it, after all. And it’s not complicated: Pray. Give. Do good. Avoid evil.

Dives Gone to the Dogs

The Lord Jesus often provides vivid details in His stories. We read: The dogs came and licked Lazarus’ sores. Vivid–and painful for us even to imagine. Painful, because something about this picture strikes us as tragically, utterly wrong.

Now, these little dogs: We know that dogs have a sense of love and pity. We know also that they like a salty savor for their tongues. And we know that dogs do not grasp the entire constitution of a man. Dogs are man’s best friend. But dogs do not know that man has an immortal soul.

The constitution of man. A character in a Jane Austen novel declares that the plays of William Shakespeare form “part an Englishman’s constitution.” Englishmen know Shakespeare. It’s part of one’s constitution.

What about the constitution of man? Man–Englishmen, Swedes, Chinese, everybody? Every man, woman, and child on earth?

The constitution of man: Made in the image and likeness of God. Endowed with an immeasurable spiritual dimension. Made for an eternal friendship with the Creator and Lord of all things. A man, a human being, endowed with these gifts, does not belong in a gutter with open sores being licked by dogs.

It’s not the dogs’ fault. Dogs don’t know anything about the constiution of man. The dogs didn’t realize that the spectacle of their licking Lazarus’ sores–that this was a heartbreaking scandal. An insult to human dignity. The dogs didn’t know any better.

Dishonest Steward’s Meaning

See how easy the Bible is to understand? I mean, the Parable of the Dishonest Steward practically explains itself. Who needs a preacher? The meaning just leaps right off the page. Perfectly obvious.

Ok. Not really.

I’ve preached on this one a few times, since we read the same gospel readings every _____ years.

Right. Three. Six years ago, I made three points on the Dishonest Steward.

1. The parable teaches us to clarify our ultimate goal. What am I aiming at?

2. Sometimes Christ invites sinners to repent. Other times, He gives instruction to faithful disciples, who have long since repented. This parable teaches such disciples. The parable does not condone dishonesty. It assumes that we already know that dishonesty is a sin.

3. The steward in the parable acted in a resourceful, clever, and decisive manner. He confronted his situation with sober realism and did the best he could to deal with it. He hustled, in other words. And he hustled solely to avoid having to beg or dig ditches. We, on the other hand, have heaven for our goal. We want to get to heaven and help others get to heaven.

Lazarus and Dives

Even Simsanity cannot altogether prevent death.

Christ’s Church proposes for our faith the articles of the Creed. And God gives us the grace to believe them.

Many of our experiences help us to believe the Christian faith. Perhaps the most decisive experience, when it comes to moving us toward the faith of the Church, is this: We observe that everyone dies.

Everyone dies sooner or later, without exception. No exquisite diet, or comfortable wardrobe, or plush accommodation can prevent death. No spa has ever been built where people can go to live and never die. No bank holds monetary instruments which can pay off the Grim Reaper and keep him at bay forever.

Someday Prince Harry of England will die. Someday Peyton Manning will die. Someday Warren Buffett will die, and Jennifer Lopez, too.

Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and Steve Jobs already did die, just like Abraham Lincoln, Mozart, and Alexander the Great.

Dead. Sooner or later. Everyone.

Makes the Creed a lot more interesting. We believe that dead Abraham actually lives in Christ’s kingdom.

Here’s another observation about life on earth. Everyone dies. Also, it’s not fair.

Life isn’t fair. Some useless oafs have 40-foot yachts. Some brilliant minds dwell in third-world slums. Good people get cancer, and crack mamas keep getting pregnant. No good deed goes unpunished, and rogues win elections with lies. Silly people get their pictures taken on Hollywood red carpets, and serious people can’t make a living.

Unfair.

Will justice ever be done? Of course. Is there a fair country somewhere? A place where cheaters never get away with it, everyone gets measured by the content of their character, and no one has to scrap and struggle just to avoid having to live in a refrigerator box? Yes. There is such a country.

God is just. He knows all and holds all in His sway.

Our days are numbered. Death will bring them to an end.

Then the door of everlasting truth opens, and Lazarus is poor no longer.