One day a beggar came to his house. "Where do you come from?" the Miser asked him. "I live in the village," answered the beggar. "Nonsense," cried the Miser, "everyone in this village knows that I do not support beggars!" And he slammed the door in the face of the beggar, who went on his way to next town.

Now in this same village there lived a poor shoemaker. He was the most generous man.

He responded to every person in need, and gave to every charitable cause that was brought to his attention. No one who came to his door was ever turned away empty-handed. He was loved by all in the village for his remarkable generosity.

One day, the man they called The Miser died. The village leaders decided to bury him at the very edge, of the village cemetery, back by the fence. No one mourned his passing; "Good riddance," they said, if they said anything at all. No one even joined in the funeral procession to the place of burial. The local rabbi read the burial rite alone, only the grave diggers and undertaker were present.

The Miser's nephews and nieces came from far away and removed all the furnishings from his house, and, presumably, took his accumulated fortune along with them.

As the days passed the rabbi heard disturbing news regarding the shoemaker. "He no longer gives money to beggars," complained one neighbor. "He refuses every charity that approaches him," said another.

"Has anyone asked about his change of heart?" inquired the rabbi. "Yes," replied the first neighbor, "he says times have changed; that he no longer has any money to give away."

Soon the rabbi decided to call upon the shoemaker. "Greetings, my good friend! How is God treating you and your family these days?" The shoemaker replied, "God is faithful, dear rabbi; just when we come to the end of our supply, God always seems to meet our needs. We are blessed."

"Yes, indeed, God blesses us richly," said the rabbi. He continued, "Since that is so, my friend, may I inquire then, as to why have you suddenly ceased giving money away to worthy causes or needy people?"

Slowly the shoemaker began to speak. "Years ago, rabbi, stranger to our village came to me with a huge sum of money and asked me to distribute it to beggars and charities. I was to keep strict account of it. Once every month he would visit me secretly and give me additional money to distribute.

"What a generous man this stranger," said the rabbi. "Yes, he was," the shoemaker continued. "He made me promise that I would not reveal the source of the money until after he died. Over the years, I became known as a great benefactor, even though I actually never spent a penny of my own money. I'm surprised that no one questioned me earlier. How could anyone who earned the wages of a shoemaker support a family and yet give away as much money as I have over all these years? Sometimes it was more than I actually earned in a year." After a long silence, the rabbi asked, "Since you are telling me this, I take it the true benefactor has died?" The shoemaker nodded, "And surely you know who it is that I speak of." The rabbi thanked the shoemaker and departed.

The next day the rabbi called the people of the village together. "My brothers and sisters, we have a great lesson to learn here today.

The man whose name we had forgotten, the man whom we called 'The Miser' has truly lived by the scriptures, for he has keep his charity a secret, and has not done his good deeds merely for others to see. May we learn to be as generous in giving as he, and do it only for God to see."

With that, the rabbi led the people of the village to the cemetery, where they prayed in thanksgiving for the life and the soul of the Miser.

Years later, upon his deathbed, the rabbi made a simple request: he asked to buried along the edge of the cemetery, back by the fence, next to the man they had all called The Miser.

Like the two sons in the parable that Jesus tells, the Miser and the shoemaker represent imperfect, flawed persons. In both stories, the first one refuses to do what the father expects of him, but later finds himself doing it anyway; the second person gives every appearance of doing what the father asks, but winds up not actually doing it.

We plainly see a disconnection between what is said will be done, and what actually gets done.

Notice that this disconnection does not come from poor planning or over-commitment, as if one didn't have time to do the father's will, and thereby had an excuse. The disconnect is found, rather, in our will, in our hearts, the seat of our emotions and our actions. Here we find the real struggle of the spiritual life, a struggle between our will and God's will.

Clearly, God appreciates the struggle, but God also seeks our right action, even if at first we didn't want to do it. Jesus tells this story against the chief priests and elders in the temple, who came out to challenge his authority. They thought that their way of doing religion understood the will of the father best. But Jesus skewers that self-righteousness.

Look at what the story doesn't say. The story does not say that doing the will of the father is equal to having the father's love. We have the father's love regardless of whether we do his will or not. Also, Jesus did not say that the tax collectors and the prostitutes were going into the Kingdom of God and the chief priests and elders in the temple were not going in at all. He said that the tax collectors and the prostitutes were going into the Kingdom of God ahead of the chief priests and elders in the temple, something which apparently would drive the self-righteous chief priests and elders in the temple nuts, and most likely not phase the tax collectors and the prostitutes.

In other words, we should not be surprised if heaven if filled with people that would surprise us to be there. Because that is likely what's going to happen. And none of us has access to that guest list, nor the power to change or emend it.

Notice also in the parable that the father doesn't preface his request with, "Son, if you really love me, go and work in the vineyard today," as if our work proved our love for the father. Jesus presented it as a free choice; will we do what the father asks of us or not? And apparently, doing the will of the father, even if at first we didn't want to, is better than not doing it after we assured the father that we would.

Even at my worst moments of disobedience in my childhood, I never doubted that my father loved me; he may not have liked me much at a few particular moments, ** but I knew deep inside that he loved me, even if he never said those exact words. For many of us men, my age or older, we might have never heard the words "I love you" from our father's lips. I imagine that was probably due more to lack of cultural permission than to our father's lack of love and devotion to us as his son.

The parable shows us that deep down inside we should never be in doubt about God's love for us. For all of us, the tax collectors and chief priests and prostitutes and elders that comprise this broken world, all of us already have the love and devotion of the father as daughters and sons of God, whether we know it, or accept it, or not.

The question for us today is this: Are we willing to have our words and our actions to match up? Can we possibly say "yes" to the simple request of the Father, and actually choose to honor that commitment with our actions?

In the words of the baptismal covenant, I believe we can say, with all our heart and with all our mind, and with all our strength, "I will, with God's help."

And when we as children of God align our will with God's will, miracles can happen in this world and in our lives, and they do, everyday.

The story used in this sermon, "The Miser" is adapted from how it appeared in Stories for Telling: A Treasury for Christian Storytellers, a collection of stories edited by William R. White, and published by Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, MN.

The Rev'd Timothy M. Dombek
ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL CHURCH
301 Piney Mountain Road
Greenville, SC 29609-3035
(864) 244-6358
timothy@stjamesgreenville.org

Copyright © 2002 Timothy M. Dombek All Rights Reserved.