IN is for INtermission

Time out, in other words, to muse too briefly on two big matters.

Notice first how the Enron horror is a big example--a useful metaphor -- of the human horror. There are things in which human beings, even American human beings, have absolutely no choice. As already noted, every person who draws a breath has to be a believer -- a person of faith in something; actually, in an infinite number of things. Every person alive also has to be a spender, or in the fancier term, an investor. There is no evading this. Beneath every gravestone lie the remains of a creature that spent her life, or his. They spent it on something; actually, on an infinite number of things. They poured their time, their stuff, their abilities from moment into moment, day into day, always on the lookout for that thing, big or small, that promised to enrich the moment or day beyond. They all wound up dead.

Enron is hardly the only investment that goes sour. They all do. The fact that some of them, things like great universities or wholesome families, don't appear on the surface to involve human crookedness can only serve to increase our sense that we are all saps and suckers. It also ratchets up our critical outrage. For who, then, is the real crook, if not the One who owns that desk -- where all bucks stop?

But notice now how this same One, the very owner of the divine desk, has lately been pushing a huge investment scheme all his own. Over this past year people who have showed up in churches where preachers use the lectionary have gotten a massive dose of the sales pitch. It spilled torrentially, you may recall, from Matthew's Gospel. Sunday after Sunday it hounded us to sink our last red cent both as investors and as brokers in an operation called The Kingdom of Heaven -- KOH, Inc. for short. The promises were wild ("they shall inherit the earth"; "they shall see God") the arm-twisting severe (again and again the drumbeat about non-investors "weeping and gnashing their teeth"). The commitment demanded was nothing short of total ("sell all you have, give it to the poor"; "whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me").

In the best of times even practiced Christians will wince and squirm on being exposed to this stuff. What happened, we may wonder, in this year's post-Enron times? How when everyone's best bet has gone so terribly bad do we take a whirl on what seems the flimsiest scheme ever proposed? More acutely, how shall we do this when the author of the scheme is the one we finally hold accountable for all those other schemes that keep leaving us belly up, metaphorically for now, though in a future dreadful day quite literally?

Back, then, to IN, which is also for INvestor-In-Chief and the total INvestment.

"KOH, Inc.," writes Matthew, repeating words he got from Jesus, "is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (14:44). Did you think when you heard this a while back that this was another instance of the pitch, another twist of an arm already on the verge of popping its socket? If so, fancy this: You thought poorly!

For isn't Jesus here describing not only our behavior, but also, and first off, his? And not only his, but also that of "my Father in heaven" who, by the by, is "your Father" too?

"Inc.", remember, is short for "incorporated," which means embodied physical, tangible, unmistakably real. The embodiment of KOH, Inc. is Jesus' own body, quite specifically the body of Jesus splayed and nailed on a cross outside Jerusalem. As some frightened Roman soldiers are the first to surmise (Mt. 27:54), here is the totality of Jesus and his Father's own investment in everything Jesus has been promising from the time he first opened his mouth and started the big pitch for other investors to climb on the KOH bandwagon with everything they've got (4:17).

Assuming that this year's preachers preached well on Good Friday, they pointed out how the Son of God, crucified, is suffering a criminal's fate. Did any, pushing the verbal envelope, dare also to point out how the one we call the Big Crook willingly embraced the very fate that crooks deserve? He did so, why? How many answers do you want? How about a) to comprehend our fate in his fate, our future in his future. b) To give us all the reason we need (and then some) to quit calling him a crook. c) To scream at God for us ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!") so that you and I can stop the screaming we do and start laughing out loud, with joy no less. d) To kick open the door to the only future that really is a future because it's completely open-ended and is crook-and-scandal free and offers a limitless return on Jesus' own massive investment on behalf of all the crooks, saps, suckers, and outraged critics who ever have or ever will draw breath before the door of the Enron age finally slams shut and KOH, Inc. stands alone as the only show in town.

Notice, by the way, how the contrast between Enron and KOH, Inc. could not be sharper than at this point. Enron's CEO impoverishes countless others to make himself rich. The CEO of KOH hands over everything, his very life, to turn the poorest and least deserving (remember the Canaanite woman, Matt. 15? the two blind beggars at the edge of Jericho, Matt. 19) into persons of wealth beyond telling.

Isn't this but one more example of how the death of Jesus gives human beings the first and only chance they've ever had -- the only one they'll ever know this side of eternity -- to act in genuinely good faith? Good faith is faith that doesn't disappoint, that will never let you down. On Easter Sunday a handful of people discovered to their utter astonishment that good faith was finally possible on earth. One of these people was a crook (Matthew the tax collector). Another was a sap (Peter, would be rock turned bitter denier). Still others were suckers (think women trudging piously up the path to finish burying a fraud). "He isn't here," said the angel. "He is risen, just like he said!" Imagine the joy.

But don't just imagine the joy. Much more to the point, believe it. Better still, do it.