Pay It Forward

by Justin Boeding

 

The reporter raced down the highway in his brand new BMW driving nearly twenty miles over the legal limit when he turned onto Birch Street, flew around the corner, and slammed his foot down on the brakes. The car had barely come to a stop before the reporter had jumped out of his seat and dove behind the line of police cars that  surrounded a beautiful, two-story home. "What did I miss?" he asked. "Has anything happened yet?" "Do you think he is going to shoot her?" "What do you want to say on the record. ..come on, just one line!" he begged as he stretched out his arm with the pocket tape recorder held firmly in his right hand.

The policemen and women shook their heads in annoyance, this obviously was not the first time this reporter had disturbed them. But this was, they soon realized, the first time he had ever caused them to loose track of their suspect. During his acrobatic arrival, the police had taken their eyes off the suspect. They discovered this when they heard the suburban start up and fly down the long driveway as fast as it could go. Before they could react, the suspect had made the nearly impossible sharp right onto the residential road and was driving away leaving only a single reminder of his crime behind. 

In his frantic quest to escape, the man's suburban had crashed into one car before speeding away. Yes, you guessed it. The suburban had run into the reporter's brand new BMW.  While the collision did not seem to harm the suburban in the least, the reporter stood in the rain with his arms dangling at his sides and his mouth hanging wide open. As the police jumped into their cars and pursued the man down the street, the reporter was left alone with what had been a beautiful, brand-new BMW but what was now a worthless, unrecognizable BMW.

But then something fairly incredible happened. From a nearby home an older gentleman emerged from his doorway dressed in full rain gear ready to walk his odd-looking dog. He walked towards the reporter who still stood in a trance staring at his beloved BMW. When the man was within a few yards, he stopped and said those incredible words...those incredibly annoying words, "Having Car Problems?"

"You might say that!" the reporter replied with an equal amount of disbelief and frustration in his voice. Then the man did something no one saw coming. He reached into his rain jacket, pulled out a set of keys and flipped them to the reporter with these words, "Take Mine!"

He motioned towards his driveway where the reporter saw the beautiful and brand new Lexus staring back at him. The reporter did not know what to do. His initial responses were not surprising. "What are you crazy?" "Is this some kind of set-up or something?" "Did somebody put you up to this?" The man just shook his head back and forth dismissing all the questions. He simply said, "Take it...it is yours." And with that he turned and began walking down the sidewalk with his dog at his side.

But the reporter, still not sure what to do, had one more objection. He asked the question each of us would want to ask. "Why? !" When the man heard the question, he paused for a moment, turned and said these three words...these three words that changed the reporters life, "Pay It Forward."

An odd story certainly. Perhaps you recognized it.  It was a scene from a movie called, "Pay It Forward." An odd story that we will return to, but it is definitely not any stranger than our Gospel reading for today. Did you hear it? Did you hear this strange  parable Jesus spoke?

It is the story of a rich man and his money manager but it has a strange twist in it. The rich man finds out that his employee has been squandering his money. He calls the manager in, but rather than firing him on the spot, he asks for an accounting of the manager's actions. Perhaps the rich man wants to give his employee an opportunity to defend himself. Or, perhaps the rich man wants to get his accounts in order so that when he fires the manager his next employee will know where to begin. Either way, when the rich man dismisses his employee, the man uses his last chance as a money manager to prepare for his next life.

Frankly, the money manager sounds like a fairly unlikable guy to me. First, he does not sound like he was very good at his job. After all, he is getting fired for squandering his employer's money. But then he says that he is "not strong enough to dig." Essentially, the man is saying he is too lazy to do any sort of manual labor. But yet, he is too prideful to become a beggar. This guy is some piece of work. He is bad at his job, he is too lazy to try something different, and he is too prideful to do nothing. With all that baggage, it is difficult to say anything nice about the man. Except of course, I guess one could call him resourceful. That is the most positive way of calling the man exactly what he is-a cheater. He uses his last chance as a money manager to go to his employer's debtors and slash their debts. "Fifty percent off for you! Twenty percent off for you!" He does this in hopes that these people will welcome him into their homes when he is finally dismissed as the money manager.

And that point in the story it seems like the moment his employer will send him packing is right around the comer. But then something happens that I am not sure I understand, the rich man who was robbed by one of his employees COMMENDS the dishonest manager for acting shrewdly! It is probably not the ending we had anticipated.  It is certainly not the ending l wanted. I wanted justice. I wanted this man to be fired for his behavior, not commended. I wanted him to be sent packing, not rewarded. 

So why does Jesus tell this story? What is he trying to say? Is this a lesson for employers around the world? Is Jesus telling them not to worry about how much their employees steal from them? Or is this story told for employees? Is Jesus telling them that they need to look out for themselves no matter what? Is Jesus saying, "Forget the rules, forget doing what you think may be right, disregard the law and do what you need to do in order take care of yourself." I hope not, because if that is what this story is about then this story is foolish. And Jesus is foolish for telling it. In fact, he is as foolish as the man who gave away his brand new Lexus to a reporter he did not even know.

In each case, with Jesus and with the man we ask ourselves these questions: What are they up to? Why are they doing and saying such foolish things? Why is Jesus telling such a strange story? And why did this man give away his brand new car to a perfect stranger with the words "Pay It Forward?"

The rich man is easier to figure out. As some of you already knew, the rich man is from a movie and to understand why he did such a foolish thing. ...we just have to press play. And as we do, we follow the reporter--the same reporter who received that amazing car--as he begins asking questions of the man. Initially, the man refuses to answer but the persistency of the reporter soon pays off. The man tells his story. You see, just a month before, the man's daughter had an asthma attack in the middle of the night. He rushed her to the hospital but there were no nurses or doctors available. They were all too busy. As she sat beside him wheezing, literally gasping for air, he could find no one to help her. In fact, it seemed like the only person who even noticed the girl was the guy sitting across from her. The father disliked him immediately. The young guy, an African American man with a gunshot wound to his leg, sprayed one profanity after another at the nurses and doctors as they rushed by him. Finally, a nurse and a doctor came to help the man with the gunshot wound. But then it happened...he looked at the girl. You could see in his eyes that he was considering something. And then he did an incredible thing. He said, "No, take care of the girl first." Before the nurse and doctor could resist, he began screaming at them to take the  girl. A moment later, they-gave in and the daughter received the medical attention she needed.

The father, obviously very thankful, tracked the man down later in the night to ask how he could repay him. The young man replied simply, "Pay It Forward." The reporter could not believe his ears when he heard the story. Sensing a front page headline, he tracked the young man down to hear his side of the story. Soon, he found the man in prison serving time for drug dealing. He did not hear the other side of the story however.  Instead, the reporter heard a new story. The reporter heard about how this young man had been chased by the law before but had been saved by a sixty year old homeless person who lived out of her car. She had helped in a time of need and when he asked her how she wanted to be repaid, she had replied "Pay It Forward."

Of course, the reporter used all of his resources to track down this homeless woman. Once he found her, she told him about her daughter who had forgiven her. You see, the woman had been a lifetime alcoholic. Her addiction had caused her to do some horrible things including being a bad mother to her only child. But one day she told the reporter, her daughter found her and said, "Mom, I love you." Those were words she never thought she would hear again and they changed her life. When she asked her daughter why she deserved such an undeserved gift and how she could ever repay her, the daughter responded "Pay It Forward."

"Finally," the reporter thought, "now I have come to the beginning of the story. I just have to talk with the daughter and write the story." But when he found the daughter, she told him she was not the beginning of the "Pay It Forward" movement. Rather, it was her eleven-year-old son. He had come up with the idea for his social studies project. His assignment had been to "change the world." Incredibly enough, when he told his classmates his idea-to do three amazing acts of love for three different people and have them pay the love forward rather than pay it back-his classmates had laughed at him. In fact, they had called him a fool. They called him a fool for believing that love could change the world. They called him a fool for believing that love, justice and caring for people were more important than power, prestige, and money.

Dear Friends in Christ, that is what this parable of Jesus is all about. His story-his very strange story-ends with a series of warnings. There are warnings about the power of undeserved wealth and warnings about the effects of unfaithful practices. And finally, there is a warning that we cannot avoid for it hits to close to home. Jesus tells us plainly that we cannot serve both God and wealth. We can have only one thing at the center of our world. We can grasp the wealth that comes with power and prestige or we can serve God. These are tough words and frankly, they are fairly easy to dismiss nowadays. After all, they sound pretty foolish don't they? These words sound like they come from a well-intentioned person who is tremendously naive. These words sound like they come from someone like that boy who actually thought a simple act of love could change the world.

Well, in that respect, this Jesus is very much like that little boy. For Jesus believed he too could change the world if he just loved people enough. He taught, but that was not enough. Jesus tried healing people but that was not enough either. He tried spending time with the outcasts of society but even that was not enough for this Jesus. So finally, this Jesus did the most 'foolish' thing in the world. He laid down his life for the world. Jesus died on the cross for the sake of the world. Jesus died on the cross for you and for me. And this Jesus, God' s only begotten son, has done something truly extraordinary with this foolish act of love. Jesus has set us free from all that threatens to hold us captive. Sin, death, and yes, even that love of wealth that so often threatens to consume us.

But in our freedom there is another temptation that threatens us now. The temptation is to think we can somehow pay God back for all we have been given. You know what I am talking about. Those thoughts of, "If I can just do enough or I can just give enough then all will be fair. God and I will be even."

Unfortunately, this is how we have often thought about stewardship -trying to pay God back. ...as if we could. Friends in Christ, that is a payment so great we simply cannot make it. And more importantly, that is a payment that God does not demand of us. Instead, God calls us to "Pay It Forward." Pay God's Love Forward in a world that longs to know Jesus Christ. We have been called to Pay God's Love Forward with our words, with our time and with our energy and yes, even with our money. Pay It Forward! As the people of God set free by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, Pay It Forward.