Spiritus Christi
Father Jim Callan
November 15, 2020
You might remember the big Enron scandal in 2001. At the time Enron was one of the largest corporations in the United States. It was a giant in the field of energy and utilities. Fortune had named it America’s most innovative company six years in a row. It had revenues of 100 billion dollars a year and employed 29,000 people. But it was not an ethical company. It did fraudulent accounting. Sherron Watkins, the Vice President, uncovered a $700 million dollar unethical mess. Assets were missing, numbers didn’t add up. So she blew the whistle. She was the famous whistle blower. Others knew about the problem but she was the only one to blow the whistle and of course Enron retaliated and she lost her job. But you might remember that Time magazine put Sherron Watkins on its cover for the person of the year. When Time asked her if being a woman might be the reason why she was the only one to confront the institution, she said: “Women aren’t part of the old boy’s club. And so a woman is not concerned about being kicked out of the club because you don’t belong in the club to begin with.”
Surveys show that women take more risks in the social and moral areas whereas men take more risks in the physical and financial areas.
Being a whistle blower can be toxic. When you try to stop something that is wrong you are dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t. When you are in the news for doing something courageous some will say, “Hey! You’re just a media hog! You just want some attention.” Some accuse you of not caring about your own people. Watkins became a whistle blower because she was a person of faith. She was raised to follow her conscientious. She believed that actions do matter. In her job at Enron she came across a memo with a quote from Martin Luther King. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” When she took action on something that mattered she was fired.
Now you get blackballed for telling the truth. A whistle blower is labeled as somebody who’s loyal to the truth but not necessarily to their company. It makes all the people feel uncomfortable because they are willing to take the same risks for the sake of truth. So they end up sometimes criticizing the whistle blower too.
Sherron Watkins was shocked at how hard it is for people to take responsibility for their mistakes. She said, “It is almost impossible for people to admit that they have done wrong.”
The night before the election, maybe you saw Frontline. It detailed the earlier lives of Donald Trump and Joe Bidden. It said that one of President Trump’s mentors taught him three things: 1) Never admit you are wrong; 2) Never apologize; 3) Always blame others. Never admit you are wrong; never apologize; always blame others. His mentor taught him this. I don’t know about you but when I start blaming people I have to stop myself and I say what truth am I avoiding about myself? If I’m just blaming other people.
In Matthews gospel today there is a story about an unethical master. He gives $10,000 to one servant, $5,000 to another and $1,000 to a third. The first two servants double their money. They play the system and the master is happy. The third is a whistle blower. The third man who gets the one gold piece. He is a whistle blower. He calls out the master: Hey! You harvest what you don’t plant. In other words you take what is not yours. You cheat people. You are a corrupt manager.
The whistle blower refuses to play the game. Refuses to be part of the corruption so he gives his $1,000 back. He says, “Here you can take this.” The master is outraged that the servant refuses to work the system and in his anger (isn’t this interesting?) the master even admits that he is corrupt! He says: So you knew I harvest where I don’t plant. So you know I cheat people. Yes. You are right about that. He admits it. What does the unethical master do to the whistle blower? The same thing that happened to Sherron Watkins at Enron. He ridicules him and throws him out. It often happens, doesn’t it? When you speak truth to power.
Now these two whistle blowers stand in a long line of people standing up to oppressive leaders. The first time this happens in the Bible is in the Book of Exodus. The Egyptian Pharaoh was concerned that Hebrews were getting too numerous. Having too many children. So he summons two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah to the royal palace. The Pharaoh orders them to kill every male baby they deliver. Now what a dilemma for Shiphrah and Puah. Do they follow the Pharaoh and kill their own Hebrew babies or do they disobey the king? They disobeyed the king. They left the male babies live. Pharaoh was outraged. He calls them in, demands an accounting. Shiphrah and Puah say: Well, these Hebrew woman are robust people and the baby just pop out of them even before we can get there to help. They risked danger by refusing to abide by an unjust system. That is the first act of civil disobedience in the Bible followed by many, many others.
In the New Testament, we are familiar with Saint Paul writing those famous words: Women should be silent in church. Have you ever heard that one? Women should be silent in church. Why did he say that? Because women were not being silent in church. That’s why he wrote that. Did they obey Paul? No! They refused to abide by an unjust system. They refused to have their church dominated by men and they kept on speaking. Spiritus Christi is actually a product of their whistle blowing.
Going back to the wicked master. When the master rebukes the whistle blower, he tells him: You should have invested my money with the banker so that I can come back and at least got the interest. Ah! Interest. Now this is a clue as to why the third man is the hero of this story. Interest. It is the only time interest is mentioned in the New Testament. But it is mentioned a lot in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures. Exodus 22: If you lend money to the poor you shall not demand interest from them. Deuteronomy 23: You shall not charge interest on loans or anything else that you lend. Leviticus 25: Do not lend your money at interest. And here is an even stronger one: Ezekiel 18: If you charge people interest, you are going to die. Don’t charge interest. For the Jews charging interest was a big no-no. Why? Because it kept the poor in debt. Owing debt put them farther and farther and farther behind. So the Jews said: No interest.
Jesus was very upset with the suffering that debt caused his people. Debt from the Roman taxes, debt from the Temple taxes, from the taxes given to the priests. Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, would be totally free of debt. He announced the jubilee year where all debts are permanently cancelled. No debts.
Today many people are over their head with credit card debt. The average American is at least $3,000 in credit card debt. A church in Norfolk, Virginia is committed to freeing people of their credit card debt. The church holds services where people bring in their Visa cards and their Master cards. The pastor gets up in the pulpit and says, “Are we going to serve the master or are we going to serves the Master card?” And he takes his scissors and he cuts up the card. Then they take a collection to bail out the people one at a time. One lady was given $19,000 from the collection to free her of her debt. She said: “I spend tons of money on clothes and things that I have nothing to show for. So she and others who have been bailed out are asked to take a money management course. Then they give $300 every month in the collection to be used to bail out other debtors. I know Terri Pease you run a money management course here and it is fantastic. You have gotten so many people out of debt.
Third-world countries are also suffering in debt. So we do need to hear this Jewish point of view and not just the American point of view from Wall Street.
Jesus says, “Will you live by God’s law or will you live by the Roman law which allows interest.” Will you build a world with justice for all or a world where the rich keep getting richer and the poorer keep getting poorer?
Notice in the Gospel the wicket master takes the $1,000 from the one who hid it and give it to the one who has $10,000. There it is! The rich get richer, the poorer get poorer. So Jesus is saying bluntly: Do you stand with the greedy or do you stand with the needy?
The Affordable Care Act is under scrutiny right now by the Supreme Court. Why? Because it is the only Federal action in the 21st Century that has helped redistribute wealth in American. It has actually made our society more equal. It has redistributed income in the form of health insurance and subsidies. Groups who did poorly in the previous times are now doing much better. And who are the biggest winners of Obama Care? People 18 to 34, black people, Latinx people and people who live in rural areas. Despite what anybody thinks of the law, it has redistributed wealth and this is very unusual today in our society.
Proverbs 31 that Lou read talks about the virtuous woman that Judy is. You might have used this reading for your Mother’s funeral: A woman who watches out for her own family and the poor. She reaches out her hands to the poor and extends her arms to the needy. In other words she considers the poor to be part of her family. And this is the opposite of the story of the wicked master who looks out only for himself. He has no concern for the common good.
So in this story, and in many stories Jesus is teaching us about justice. To stand up to inequity. To be a whistle blower. To build a world where those who have a lot won’t have too much. And those that have a little won’t have too little.
Somebody once asked Mother Teresa: What is the biggest problem in the world today? She didn’t even hesitate. “We draw the circle of our family too small.”
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