“Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes, and love salutations in the market places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” Luke 20:46 – 47
I raise money for a living.
It’s easy to get caught up in the romance of this profession. We brag to others about how we are ‘enabling’ charitable acts and ‘facilitating’ good works. We enjoy partaking of the trappings of the wealthy: expensive meals, parties at exquisite homes, conversations with those who are at the center of one power base or another. It’s heady stuff.
Just as easy is our tendency to forget that there are people in our universe who can’t give lots of money – for whom a $25 gift is a sacrifice. “We have to pay attention to the 90 – 10 rule” we say. “90 % of the money will come from 10% of the donors. So, we have to spend 90% of our time with those wealthy 10%.” It’s easy to forget that the other 90% exist at all.
Jesus does not condemn the rich because they are rich. He condemns those whose station in life has become so meaningful to them that they put aside the need to behave in a gracious and Christian manner. In exhorting us to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves’ He identifies the linchpin that is the difference between between grateful for the bounty of God’s grace and hording the gifts God grants us to the exclusion of others.
It’s really OK to be a ’scribe’. We just can’t let it go to our head.
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