A BEAUTIFUL, WASTEFUL CHAPEL

The moral to the story of an Italian banker’s offering

On a recent sabbatical, I saw firsthand the work of a master, considered the motivation of the benefactor, and reflected upon its meaning then and now.

At the beginning of the 14th century, the brilliant Italian painter, Giotto, was commissioned to fresco a new chapel in the city of Padua. A “banker” named Enrico Scrovegni had purchased a plot of land adjacent to his palace that had long ago been the site of a Roman arena. Scrovegni’s father, Reginaldo, also had been in the money lending business and had died without reckoning with his sins of usury. The son had followed in his father’s footsteps, but fear of eternal damnation moved him to build a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary as a sin offering to God in hopes of gaining mercy on his soul.

Giotto’s works are carefully preserved in this small but beautiful chapel. In themes typical of the day, the painter depicted the life of Christ, along with that of Mary and her parents. A scene of the Last Judgment depicts some souls being welcomed into heaven and others being consigned to hell. Scrovegni is pictured on the side of the blessed, rendering his chapel to the Blessed Mother. He hoped that this gift would compensate for the riches he gained by cheating poor people out of money through the charging of interest on loans. (At that time, charging any interest at all on loans to the poor was considered a sin.)

Did it never occur to him that the better way would be to stop oppressing the poor and to give back what he had taken from them? I mean, what good would a chapel do to correct the misery on others of wealth gained unjustly?

The prophet Micah said: “With what shall I come before the Lord? Shall I come with burnt offerings? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” And then the answer: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

When Jesus spotted the crooked tax col- lector, Zacchaeus, up in the sycamore tree one day in Jericho, the man’s repentance led him to give half his possessions to the poor and to refund four times what he had defrauded anyone. Jesus said in response: “Today salvation has come to this house.”

Today we have predatory lenders (payday and auto title lenders) in our community who charge exorbitant interest (often more than 400 percent) to the most vulnerable people in our society. They are, by any reasonable definition, usurers. Yet some of them, and the politicians who defend their outrageous practices of legalized loansharking, go to church on Sundays, and some even make big charitable donations that curry human praise.

God is no sucker. Ill-gotten gains liberally given to salve one’s conscience never move the heart of God. Only simple acts of right dealing in the first place and repentance that leads to reparations when wrong is done bring God’s favor.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go consider what ways I, too, have been fruitlessly engaged in spiritual bribery.

Education

Luis Juarez-Trevino, an alumnus of T.C. Marsh Middle School and W.T. White High School, was one of nine teachers honored at the White House as a Champion of Change recently. Juarez-Trevino, who teaches math and science at Lipscomb Elementary School, came to the United States in 2004, carried over the border illegally by his parents. The University of Texas at Austin graduate received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, which allows certain immigrants brought into the country illegally as children to stay and work here. “I constantly tell my students that they have to take the initiative to succeed,” he says. “No one else can do that for them. But if you take the initiative and are motivated, great things can and do happen.”

The Lamplighter School wants to expand. The school has plans to add a few buildings to the campus, including an innovation lab, a student services center, a drama room and more. The school also wants to revise its traffic management plan.

The former home of Saints Constantine and Helen Eastern Orthodox Church on Walnut Hill may soon get new life. Highland Park Hurricanes Basketball, a youth athletics club, submitted a zoning change application to convert the church building into practice facilities.

People

Preston Hollow native Megan Sims spent her summer vacation learning about social justice. The Harvard University undergrad attended the Machon Kaplan program in Washington, D.C. The program places students in various internships around the city. Sims worked with the National Council of Jewish Women, where she learned about advocacy and honed her writing skills.

Giving

The Tyler Cup Foundation for 40 years ran the Tyler Cup, an annual running event promoting health and fitness in the workplace. The final Tyler Cup was last year, and the foundation recently bequeathed its entire endowment, $1.3 million, to the Cooper Institute. Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper thanked the foundation for its largesse. He says the institute will use the funds to continue its research on aging and the positive effects of exercise.

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