<html><body>Uncorrected draft - part 1<div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><div><span style="color: rgb(18, 18, 18); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY </span></div><div><span style="color: rgb(18, 18, 18); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">THE TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(18, 18, 18);">HABAKKUK 1:1-4; 2:1-4 PROPER 26 c<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(18, 18, 18);">2 THESSALONIANS 1:1-4, 11-12 30<sup>th</sup> OCTOBER, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(18, 18, 18);">LUKE 19:1-10 PSALM 119:137-44<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(18, 18, 18);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(18, 18, 18);"> I had an interesting conversation last week. It was not about politics, at least in the usual sense. But, strictly, <b><u>EVERYTHING</u></b> is about politics – the name comes from the Greek for “City” – both buildings and citizens. So there’s nothing in life that isn’t about politics. We were talking about economics – <b><u>THAT</u></b> word comes the Greek word meaning “household management”, how we care for one another, making sure that there is justice, and equity, and peace. And, of course, morality came into the picture too. After all, it’s morality which gives us the framework for all decision making. Without morality, household management – economics, if you will – would degenerate into survival of the fittest, and the devil take the hindmost. And <b><u>THAT</u></b> expression goes back to the early sixteenth century. <sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(18, 18, 18); font-weight: normal;"> But we’re not living in the fifteen hundreds, nor were we talking about the fifteen hundreds. We were talking about what a current book describes as “</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-weight: normal;">Devil Take the Hindmost: a History of Financial Speculation”. <sup>2</sup><o:p></o:p></span></h1><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-weight: normal;"> </span><u><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">THAT’S EXACTLY</span></u><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-weight: normal;"> what we were talking about!<o:p></o:p></span></h1><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-weight: normal;"> For the last decade, if not the last two or three decades, there’s been an attitude, especially in the business world, but not exclusively so, that if you can advance yourself and your company, and manage to keep making money, it doesn’t really matter how you get there. After all, the bottom line is all that’s important. Working the system, taking advantage of averted eyes or sleepy minds, conducting business away from public scrutiny, and recognising that there </span><u><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">IS</span></u><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-weight: normal;"> no Hippocratic Oath when it comes to money and business, for a great deal of time, it seems that anything goes.<o:p></o:p></span></h1><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">Less than three weeks ago, Wells Fargo and Company, for instance, announced<b> “</b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">that Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf (had) informed the Company’s Board of Directors that he (was) retiring from the Company and the Board, effective immediately.” <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><sup>3</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Hmm, a little like locking the stable door, and not making any mention of everything that had stacked up on the inside of the stable! Or of what might be done for customers, for all those who felt coerced to act in order to keep their jobs, or for all the people in other businesses whose livelihoods were tied in with Wells Fargo and are in precarious shape now. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Too harsh? Well, “</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">he still stands to walk away from the bank with at least $102.7 million. That’s slightly more than five times what he got paid in 2015, when people though he was doing a good job, and not overseeing one of the most widespread frauds in banking history.” <sup>4</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(21, 21, 21);">Reaching out to help the disadvantaged without thought And he’ll make even more. He retired before Wells Fargo’s board of directors decided he needed to go, so the CEO will also hang onto $25.2 million worth of unvested stock and options that could pay out for years to come.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> No wonder people wonder about the corporate world. No wonder people seem to have little good to say about what seems to be the cost of doing business. That’s what we were talking about last week. Devil take the hindmost. That’s OK, I’ve got my millions, and I don’t really care what happens to the rest of the community.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Nice sort of a fellow. Imagine making a place for him at your Thanksgiving table in four weeks. Last week, we were musing about what we’d like to do with folk like him, whether re-instituting the death penalty or imprisoning for life without the possibility of parole would be better. What <b><u>DO</u></b> you do when someone sets out to destroy the lives of millions of people, either deliberately or totally thoughtlessly?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Hold on to that thought for a minute. Jump back two thousand years. As John Stumpf may be taken to stand for everyone today who cuts corners, abuses trust and impoverishes people and communities in order to amass such wealth that they’ll never be able to account for it properly, so Zacchaeus. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “The tax collector (was) the agent of Rome and not the agent of God, ad the two can be seen as being at cross-purposes. The tax collecter would have been presumed to have been corrupt, as we see with Zacchaeus, who despite his righteousness, is despised by the people of his town. The tax collector is not the repentant hero; he is likely dishonest.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> But he didn’t occupy a “marginal position within society.” “His problem is that he is a sinner, probably rich, an agent of Rome, and, as a tax collector, (eshad) likely shown no mercy to others.” <sup>5</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-weight: normal;"> Everyone hated him. He was successful, while many in his community were struggling to keep their families together. He could afford new clothes and separate wardrobes for summer and winter. He could probably have vacationed down by the coast when he wished, after all, he was the lead collector. He’d have folk under him who had to do his bidding, whether they liked it or approved of it or not. He was totally despised. But had he chosen his own path? He didn’t have to go to work for Rom, did he? He didn’t need to gouge at the tax table, did he? He didn’t need to forget who his neighbours were, or close his eyes to what his attitude and behaviour were doing to his community?<o:p></o:p></span></h1><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-weight: normal;"> Yet something was going on in his life. Was he simply curious about the itinerant rabbi of whom he’d heard? Did he think he might pick up a few pointers from watching how Jesus worked the crowd, something to help him amass even more?<o:p></o:p></span></h1><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><br></h1></div></body></html>