Expensive Propositions

I wonder if it is merely a coincidence that there are almost exactly the same number of homeless in America as there are churches.

One day, a member of a church’s finance committee was out visiting members to ask them to make a pledge. One man said he wasn’t giving anything because religion had become such an expensive proposition.

The visitor from the church got a faraway look in his eyes and said, “You know you might be right, but about 20 years ago my wife and I decided to have a child. God gave us a beautiful baby boy.

“Well, we soon discovered that caring for a child was an expensive proposition. Before we knew it, he was six years old and going to school and all those clothes and supplies were expensive, and we didn’t have much money. Educating a child is an expensive proposition. When he got into high school, he needed a car. We bought him a used one, but, still, it was an expensive proposition. He went off to college, and you know that was a very expensive proposition.

“Then, one night, in the middle of his junior year, I got a call from the college president telling me that my son, my expensive proposition, had been killed in a car crash. You know something, since the funeral, my son hasn’t cost me one red cent.”

This past Sunday the assigned Gospel lesson was the story of Jesus forgiving the thief on the cross. When I first read it, I thought it was a mistake, but we all have those times when we feel like a motherless child. I guess fixing that feeling is an expensive proposition.

Jesus didn’t die because we were sinners unloved by God. It was just the opposite. He died to convince us that we are, and ever will be, loved by God.

Although life sometimes can make us feel like we have been exiled or orphaned, Jesus gave everything he had to give to prove that is not true.

By Michael Piazza
Co-Executive Director
Center for Progressive Renewal