Scraps and  Broken Bricks

In the Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus, Jesus seems to mock at our purple and fine linen, our life of ease and comfort, our love of wealth and our state-of-the-art buildings, our flat TVs, and our golden and blue tooths.

In spite of his strict warning, ‘this shall not happen among you’ we continue to have our purple and fine linen and red buttons as symbols of authority and power. The master wrapped himself with a towel as a sign he came ‘to serve and not to be served’ and stood before Pilate like Lazarus covered with sores and crowned with thorns. He was nailed to a cross, forced to satiate his thirst with gall and vinegar and buried in a borrowed grave. 

Jesus is Lazarus bearing witness eloquently and simply to the truth that money, power, position, and wealth are a lie instead suffering, cross, and pain is the truth. The truth is on Jesus’ side. Falsehood on Pilate’s side.  Pilate asked the question, “What is truth?” He thought he had the truth since he had power, authority, money, influence, an army, a palace, purple and fine linen. Whom do we follow? Truth or falsehood? Facts or fake? God or mammon? Lazarus or the Rich man? Jesus or Pilate?

The rich man living in a mansion, dressed in purple and fine linen, eating the best of food and drinking the choicest of wine was insensitive to the needs of poor Lazarus who lay outside his gate. The poor man wished for the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Even that, he was denied.

There are many who follow the rich man and continue to deny even the scraps to those in need. Scraps take many forms.  I know of a poor man who was struggling to raise four walls and a roof over his head for a small house for his family. Near his village, there was a rich man building a four-story mansion with funds he had obtained for the upliftment and education of the poor villagers. As the big embellished four-story house  was being completed, the poor man went to see it one day. A JCB was at work leveling the place to make a road around the building. The poor man  seeing how the broken bricks and scraps of iron were being buried  under the mud painfully sighed, “ If I  could only have those broken bricks!”

Another rich man got a project approved for the education of the poor villagers. One of his friends who was helping the poor children of the village asked him if he could assist one or two teachers who were voluntarily taking classes for the children.  The rich man thought over it and finally agreed to pay one thousand rupees a month. He thought he was being very generous and making a gratuitous gift to them by offering them a thousand rupees a month.  He too had forgotten how and in whose name the funds had been collected. Even these scraps had to be reminded again and again because he was busy traveling often  by flight to collect more data for more projects!

This is the reality. We often build big mansions with the money we have received from sponsors.  We make detailed projects telling our sponsors about the number of poor people living in our district and the number of poor uneducated children in our social centers. We have no scruples in even exaggerating these facts. At the project-making stage, we are very much aware of the uneducated children and uninstructed faithful. We tell our sponsors how we lack space to gather people, and how we are unable to reach the villages due to a lack of vehicles.  But once our projects are approved and the money is in our account, I don’t say we use it for ourselves, but we tend to forget in whose name and for what purpose we received the money. The villages and social centers in whose name we got the fund  continue to languish. The children in whose name we forwarded the project remain uneducated. The teachers for whom we got the fund get the scraps. Lazarus continues to beg for ‘the broken bricks’ while ‘the rich man’ build memorials more to perpetuate his name and display his wealth than for the genuine needs of the poor. 

Wealth can blind one to humanity. Often the one in command of money and means does not feel the pangs of the poor. We fear others will take advantage of our money. We are blind to their needs. We are deaf to their cry. Even the broken bricks we don’t want to share. We will give long passionate talks and conferences on poverty like the man who was rushing to preach at a service and did not help the one fallen among the thieves. We can hurry to implement our projects not noticing the man lying at our gate. Oftener than not our social centers are our propaganda tools. We hardly visit them, if we visit at all,  it is to gather data for another project for the poor.

-        George Chalil