To Remember About God

This is a story that has inspired the work of Love Must Act.  It is a story about a young girl from Grahamstown, South Africa and a group of volunteers from Lexington, Kentucky.  They all met when the Kentucky volunteers came to introduce Reading Camp in South Africa.  Reading Camp is a ministry of the Episcopal Church in Lexington, where I served as bishop from 2001 to 2011, that helps children who are seriously behind grade level in reading ability.  It takes second and third graders who are at least a year behind grade level and helps them make significant remedial progress over the course of a very fun week at camp, which is an experience the children we work with would never have had.

Blessed are the Poor

There are two versions of a collection of saying known as the Beatitudes because they all begin with “Blessed are.”  There is a version in Luke (6:20-23) and a version in Matthew (5:1-12).  Matthew’s version is better known, in part, I suspect, because it is easier to take.

Luke’s version is shorter but harsher and starker.  Take the first beatitude.  In Luke it is, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”  We’re much more used to, and comfortable with, the way Matthew records it:  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Or look at the one about hunger.  Luke records Jesus as saying, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”  The message seems a little different in Matthew:  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Scholars generally agree that Luke’s version is closer to what Jesus actually said.

The End Begins Here

Bishop Stacy F. Sauls reflects on one of the most challenging and difficult-to-explain of Jesus's statements: "You always will have the poor with you."

Once, in the home of Simon the Leper, “as [Jesus] sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head” (Mk. 14:3).  With their minds on caring for the poor, some of the disciples complained and scolded her.  In her defense, Jesus said,  “For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me” (v. 7).

I have always found that a very strange thing to say, especially for Jesus, who had devoted so much of his life to the care of people who were poor and who was, at the time the event occurred, transgressing social boundaries by dining in the home of a leper. 

The Shoe-Shine Man

A reflecton on poverty and mission, by Bishop Stacy F. Sauls, originally delivered as a keynote address in June 2013 to the Episcopal Church's Asiamerica conference in San Francisco.

It’s funny where you run into Jesus if you’re paying attention.  I met him once in the Cincinnati Airport, which when I was Bishop of Lexington, we preferred to call the Northern Kentucky Airport. On this particular day, Jesus was shining shoes, and mine happened to need shining.  Isn’t that just like Jesus?  On the night before he died, he washed the disciples’ feet.

Just Another Rich Man

Bishop Stacy F. Sauls reflects on the parable of poor Lazarus and the rich man.

OK, this one is troubling.  It’s the story of a rich man and Lazarus, the poor man just outside the rich man’s gate.  (Luke 16:19-31)

The rich man “was dressed in purple and fine linen and . . . feasted sumptuously every day.”  On the other hand, there was Lazarus, “covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table.”  It is quite the contrast.

Lazarus died.  The rich man also died and was buried.  Only in his torment in Hades does the rich man realize the chasm between him and God.  He asks Abraham to have Lazarus bring him water.  Abraham refuses.  “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things.”  Then he asked Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers so that they would not meet a similar fate.  Again, Abraham refuses.  “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” 

More Hope

Bishop Stacy F. Sauls reflects on the parable of the sheep and the goats, and the teaching that the Son of Man and the poor are one in God's eyes.

As you well know by now, this week’s gospel reading (Mt. 25:31-46), the parable of the sheep and goats, is particularly important to me.  It forms the basis of a lot of my theological thinking, and it is the lens through which I see the church, the world, and the interaction between the two.  In truth, it is the passage that forms the basis of how I understand the basic interaction between God and humanity, Christian or not.  It has everything to do with how I understand mission. 

You remember the story.  The Son of Man gathers all of humanity together and separates them as a shepherd separates sheep from goats.  The sheep, gathered at the right hand, are blessed; the goats, gathered at the left, are condemned.  The basis of the judgment has to do with how one has responded to the needs of the poor, giving them food when hungry, drink when thirsty, welcome when lonely, clothing when needed, and whether one has visited them when sick or in prison.  “Truly I tell you,” says the Son of Man, “ just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”  The Son of Man and the poor are one.  It is a radical teaching.

A Subversive Ash Wednesday

Bishop Stacy F. Sauls writes, for The Huffington Post, about reclaiming Ash Wednesday.  He writes: "What if instead of fasting from hamburgers and chocolate, we instead took up a fast from injustice? What if instead of giving up worldly pleasures, we gave up oppression? Wouldn’t we end up actually happier? What if instead of being unhappy, we proclaimed freedom and liberty from what binds us? Wouldn’t we end up actually happier?  What if instead of denying ourselves nourishment, we shared our bread with the hungry?"  March 6, 2014.   Read more.