Haiti and Building Bigger Barns

Here is a chart comparing the population of the US and Haiti:

As you can see the population of the US is 31 times larger than that of Haiti.

Below is a chart of the GDP's of both the US and Haiti [Gross Domestic Product]:

As you can see the USA GDP is around 2,043 times larger than that of Haiti.

The difference in those numbers mean that a person who lives in the US is somewhere around 65 times richer than somebody in Haiti. That's a huge difference. With these numbers the average person in the US makes $46,710 per year and the average peron in Haiti makes $716.00 per year. [That means the average bi-weekly pay check for an average American is 2.5 times larger than the entire year's wage for an average Haitian!]

The problem with Haiti is not that they just went through a massive earthquake. The earthquake that went through was a 7.0 on the richter scale, nearly the same as the 6.9 that hit the Bay Area of California in 1989. The '89 quake caused 63 deaths, injured 3,757 people, and left somewhere between 3,000 and 12,000 homeless. Compare those numbers to the 230,000 deaths that occured in Haiti. Even though the populations are [somewhat] compareable, somewhere around 229,967 more people died in Haiti. Let me say it again, the problem with Haiti is NOT that they went through an earthquake.

In Luke chapter 12, Jesus tells a parable of a rich man who had barns which hold the crops he grows [as a sort of retirement fund]. Jesus says that this year he has a bumper crop. His crop is so big that the barns he has are too big to contain it all. So this man decides to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. He only cared about his own financial security and because of this Jesus calls him a fool. It is not because he is rich, its because he only thinks about himself and his future security - wanting to have his bottom line look good - that Jesus condemns this person. Its not because he's rich, its because he keeps trying to get richer.

The thing is that its responsible to save. Its responsible to protect your future. But if the rich never look to help the poor, how will they ever pull themselves of poverty? If the rich only are concerned with their own safety and security, the poor will only get poorer. Not only do the poor suffer when the rich do not look to help them, the rich also suffer. Jesus in the sermon on the mount goes out of his way to pit riches and money against God [Matt 6.19-24]. So the rich person, when focusing on his own riches, is really making their God their money. It is for this reason that Jesus calls our friend in Luke 12 a fool.

I guess Haiti's problem is not that they went through an earthquake, or that they're poor. I think that their problem is that they have a rich neighbor who keeps building bigger barns.

Who is my neighbor?

We've been talking about neighbors with the students at the church for the past few weeks. Its, for me, been an interesting conversation to think about as I've been preparing for our time together.

We started this month by looking at the passage commonly known as the story about the Good Samaritan [Luke 10]. The point we made that night, is this is not a story condemning the priest and the Levite; in this story Jesus is answering the question asked by an expert in the Law: "Who is my neighbor?" So the story is looking to get this expert to see that the Samaritan is his neighbor. Now what we don't see in our American world, is who the Samaritans were to the 1st century Jews.

To a Jew at this time, the Samaritans were not well liked people. There is record in many ancient histories that, they committed acts of terrorism in the temple of Jerusalem [i.e. scattering pig bones in the temple]. We see in the book of Nehemiah that they did everything they possibly could to destroy the Jews [so they're arch-enemies]. We read in the Gospels, the way that they dispute the Jewish claims about religion [so this has an element of a holy war] We also read in the Gospels the ways that the Jews would go out of their way to avoid all contact with the Samaritans [so they ditest each other so much they won't even have contact with each other]. So if we were to create a 21st century counterpart to the 1st century Samaritan it would be the essense of the enemies of our country [a Taliban/Nazi/Communist].

The question he is asked is really somebody wanting to clarify who they should feel obligated to love. Jesus responds with the most ridiculous possible possibility: the Samaritan. If you read the story, you'll see at the end, that this expert in the Law cannot even say "Samaritan." His response is "the one who showed love." He hates the Samaritans so much that he refuses to even say the word, "Samaritan." When asked who we're responsible to love, Jesus says: "even the one who hates you and wants to see you dead, that's who you're supposed to love."

Let's look at this at two levels:

• personal: who do you need to see as your neighbor personally? Who is your enemy? Who do you hate? Who do you find it hard to love?
• global: who is does our country see as our neighbors? Who is our enemy? Who do we hate? Who do we find it hard to love?

So the question today is: Who is your neighbor?