Rejecting an eternal home built by and for the rich
Recently in my community, a new development was announced. A luxury fallout shelter.
In the late 1950s, in the days when nuclear war seemed to be imminent, 6 underground bunkers were built in locations across Canada with communication systems, food supplies, and lodging for government officials in the event of a nuclear attack. One of those bunkers was built just north of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I live.
A couple of weeks ago it was announced that this particular bunker was being renovated into a boutique underground condominium for the very wealthy to use as a fallout shelter. It comes with:
High end accommodations
Elevated security
Gourmet dining
Spa
Healthcare
Self-sustaining water, energy, and food systems
Suites are sold by invitation only, and there are already rumours about which of the world’s wealthiest people have bought 11 of the suites.
It brought to mind a parable of Jesus, written in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 16:1-13 if you want to read it for yourself). A manager is fired by his boss for “squandering” her wealth. So the manager, wanting to avoid becoming destitute, goes to each of his boss’s clients and asks them how much they owe. The manager then gives each of them a handshake discount. “You owe 900 gallons of olive oil? Let’s make it 450, shall we?”
The manager gives this discount in the hopes that these people, his former clients, will take him in when his job is gone. It’s a risky move. He risks being arrested for fraud—I imagine that was a thing in Jesus’ day. And who is to say they would want to work with him when it gets out how dishonest he is? I might repay the favour, but I am not going to trust you.
This scheme of his is eventually going to run out. What will he do when he doesn’t have his boss’s wealth to promise to others? And, yet, this is the way in which so much of the world’s wealth, grown on the backs of the poor, circulates. Does it have to? Of course not! It is entirely possible to be wealthy and not exploit others. It just seems so incredibly rare, especially the more that wealth is concentrated among the top 1%.
So when Jesus says, “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes,” what do you think of that? What kind of eternity is that? An eternity of constantly wondering who is going to take what you have from you? No thanks.
I think I will turn down that invitation to the luxury fallout shelter when it comes in the mail. I’d rather take my chances with the people who actually figure out how to survive, who lose everything but stay alive and stick together. That is my kind of apocalypse.
