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St. Andrew's Church
An Anglican Church • Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
Preached by
Stuart Pike
Rector
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Proper 28 B - And the Last will be First
Job 23: 1-9, 16-17 Mark 10: 17-31
Anglican Appeal Sunday
15 October 2006
St. Andrew's Church, Grimsby
Perhaps the most saintly person I have ever met was a man in Uruguay, in South America, called Padre Cacho. The name, "Cacho" is a Spanish nickname which means a little piece of bread. He was born Ruben Isidro Alonso and he grew up a member of the middle class in Uruguay. When he was only 12 he entered religious training and many years later he completed his training in Argentina. He was ordained as a Priest in 1959 and worked in several Parishes in Uruguay. In 1977 he decided to go and live in the Cantegril.
"Cantegril" is the word they use in Uruguay for the poorest barrios. Other countries call them favelas or pueblos jovenes or slums, but they all mean pretty much the same thing. People there live on mud floors in single or double room structures made of wood and plastic and anything else which they can find. Sometimes they have a rusty bit of corrugated tin for their roof.
When I first met Padre Cacho someone had to point him out to me because he looked just like anyone else in the Cantegril. He was a humble and soft-spoken man who was at home in the midst of the garbage and chaos which was the local scene. The people lived in the garbage and they lived off the garbage. Many of the men spent most of their time collecting garbage from all over the city and bringing it back home to the Cantegril to sort it. They would bring it in wooden carts which they made themselves called carritos. Sometimes they would be drawn by a horse - sometimes they would haul it themselves and the cart would look like a giant rickshaw. They would sort the garbage into piles and would try to sell usable things. It was the original form of recycling!
I remember Padre Cacho telling me that sometimes, when he sees a man hauling a carrito he realizes that he is really seeing Jesus carrying his cross. And that is what brought Padre Cacho to live in the Cantegril.
He had lived a comfortable life in some comfortable parishes. But he realized that there was more to life, and there was certainly more to faith. So he started to build community in the midst of poverty. He lived as the people lived and his presence, in their midst gave them hope. No one asked him to do this but as he said in a sermon which he gave, he felt impelled to live amongst the poor - not as any kind of prophetic sign, but rather in order to encounter Christ. He knew that Christ was amongst them, that he spoke in their dialect, that he sat at their table and that he shared in their anguish and their hopes. Padre Cacho wanted to build, alongside the people of the Cantegril, a community of faith as he shared their path.
There are many people today who think that the poor or the oppressed are in some way responsible for their situation. In the time of Job and in the time of Jesus, it was thought that poverty and illness were signs that a person was cursed by God. If you were healthy and wealthy, then it showed that God blessed you. This thinking has been called the Gospel of prosperity, and there are many Christians who preach this Gospel today: mostly wealthy preachers, who live amongst the wealthy.
Job, in the midst of his suffering had his "comforters" who tried to convince him that he had done something to deserve his suffering. In today's Old Testament lesson, Job is crying out for a chance to meet his God, feeling that he would be vindicated. Even in the midst of his anguish he is sure that, despite his situation, he has been faithful to God and is not, therefore, cursed by him. In today's Gospel lesson it says that Jesus' disciples were astonished when Jesus says how hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. They are thinking, "If one who is blessed by God cannot enter the Kingdom of God, then who can?" Jesus slams down on this Gospel of prosperity. The first shall be last!
All too often, it seems, we who are wealthy in this world, show by our attitudes that deep down we believe in this Gospel of prosperity. Somehow, we are better than those who are poor or downtrodden or ill. I think that it is a subconscious desire to distance ourselves from the poverty or disease, so that we won't feel so vulnerable. Perhaps, if we think they are somehow partly responsible, then we won't have to feel that we should care, or, worse yet, share!
And yet we all know that our wealth is not the answer to our deepest desire. We know it in our souls. This is the cause of our great search for meaning and truth. This is why that rich man ran up to Jesus and asked him how to inherit eternal life. He has obeyed all the commandments all of his life; he has had all the material wealth he could ask for and still he feels the lack. Something is missing - everything is missing!
And Jesus puts it out in front of him. This is what you lack: "Go and sell all of your possessions and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and then, follow me." The man goes away grieving because he has many possessions.
Perhaps the reason why they are called possessions is not because we possess them, but rather, because they possess us!
Today is Anglican Appeal Sunday and it is a chance to tell you how you can share some of your wealth with those who are greatly in need. The Anglican Appeal provides for ministry in Canada's far North and overseas in poor countries. Even though there might be few of us who have the same prosperity which the rich man had in Mark's Gospel story, Anglican Appeal gives us the opportunity to join with others, even if we have limited resources, to make a difference in the lives of many who are poor.
In the North, as ordained clergy retire there are often none who can replace them. Anglican Appeal funds training for local people to become clergy without having to leave their families or their jobs.
Through Partners in Mission, your gifts are channelled to Partner Churches around the world. For example, it helps theological students around the world to become leaders in their communities. It also helps to run the Volunteers in Mission program which provides a way for Canadians to go out in short-term mission projects of about two years, to serve amongst those who are in great need. In this way teachers, doctors, nurses, administrators, farmers, librarians and many more have made a difference by proclaiming the true Gospel of Christ through the living of their lives. Even you might, in this way, experience something of Padre Cacho's life, and find Christ in the midst of those in great need. Anglican Appeal funds many other things.
In the same sermon which I mentioned earlier, Padre Cacho said that he thought by living amongst the poor, perhaps he could speak to them, in their own dialect of pain and frustration, that in the midst of them is He: he who can change death into life, and despair into hope.
When I met Padre Cacho he was 58 years old. He lived another 5 years and when he died he was heralded in Uruguay's National Assembly. Yet his body was brought to the Cemetery of the North by a huge procession of the people of the Cantegril in a simple carrito. Of course, Padre Cacho already knew about the Kingdom of God, for he had experienced it. For he knew what the rich man didn't know, but which Jesus tells us: the Kingdom of God is amongst us. And the last shall be first. Amen.
