Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31
September 25, 2016: Proper 21C
Much thanks to Helen Montgomery Debevoise for her insight
into this text:
Once upon a time in a tale of two worlds,
in a tale of two worlds within two worlds
there were two men: a Rich Man and Lazarus.
At first the two worlds seem to simply be: this mortal life
and the life beyond this one.
And death is the gateway from one life to the next.
The Rich Man, in the mortal life, has all that he needs
plus more….much more. We do not know much about him, not even his name. What we do know is that this Rich Man has
invested all that he has into his own self.
He has invested into his comfort, his desire, his pleasure, his luxury,
his wants, his temptations, his preferences.
We might say he’s living the American Dream.
And then there is Lazarus. Unlike the Rich Man, we know his
name. Lazarus is a Greek name meaning: God is my help. And the other thing we know about Lazarus is
his need. He thirsts; he hungers; he has wounds on his body. All Lazarus is able to do is lie at the gate,
looking toward the abundance of the Rich man, and hoping that some crumbs, some
of that audacious abundance, will trickle down to him, meeting his extreme
need.
We don’t know how Lazarus came to this low point. We don’t
know if he had bad luck, if he made poor choices, if he was injured and
couldn’t earn money, if he blew it all at games of chance, or if he is just
plain lazy. We don’t know why he is so
poor and destitute. Jesus doesn’t tell
us; it must not matter.
But it is clear that there are definite boundaries between
the worlds of these two men. And it would seem the twain shall never meet.
But then a pivotal event comes along that changes it all. The moment when the Rich Man realizes that
all that he has hoarded, all that he has kept for himself, is just dust in the
wind. None of it is eternal. None of it
remains after the pivotal, transformative event: Death.
Death changed it all and turned the two men’s world upside
down. Because when the deaths happened,
the wealth was redistributed, and now we have a completely different
story. Now Lazarus is resting, whole and
comforted, filled and fed, quenched and at peace, in the bosom of Abraham
(Abraham which means the Father of multitude….) A different definition of
“rich” arises, a definition that doesn’t require luxury or accomplishments or
money or possessions, a meaning that is not bound to position or power or
status---but instead an understanding of “riches” that is all about where you
place your bets. Do you put your trust
and your security, your hope and your future in what you can achieve, what you
can pile up, what you can accomplish…..or do you invest your time, your talent,
your treasure in what the Creator can accomplish, what God can secure for us,
what Yahweh can make happen? (Lazarus…God is my help)
Beloved, this parable, or at least one level of this
parable, is not all that difficult to understand, but it is mighty hard for us
to hear. We don’t want anyone---not even
God---to tell us what to do with our money.
But God tells us anyway. Jesus
uses this parable to redefine the meaning of “rich” or at least to provide an
alternative understanding for those of us who choose to listen.
But this parable isn’t solely about where you go when you
die because this parable is about God’s Kingdom, and God’s Kingdom---if we
believe Jesus at all---has already come near.
So what else is going on here?
This is a tale of two worlds: the haves and the have nots
or in today’s language: the 1% and the 99%.
Now hear me out: this isn’t about one’s political party---the Gospel
doesn’t really care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, a Socialist or
a Libertarian----the Gospel doesn’t proclaim any political party. The Gospel simply says: Love your
neighbor---as you love yourself. Love your neighbor…as Jesus has loved you.
In this parable we hear the Beatitude from Luke 6 lived
out: you know the one: “Blessed are the poor…for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”
Lazarus, the poor, inherits the Kingdom of God---resting in
the bosom of Abraham. The nameless Rich Man, on the other hand, chooses eternal
separation, eternal torment, eternal thirst and hunger. And Death is the transformative moment.
But remember, this ultimately is not about where you go
when you die. This is all about where you are while you live. We don’t have to experience a mortal death to
move from one world to the next, one kingdom to the other. We can rest and experience our restoration in
the bosom of Abraham, right now.
We can know God’s Kingdom right now. But, only if we are willing to go through the
cross. Jesus is not joking around when he says we must pick up our cross---an
instrument of death---if we are to follow him into new life.
Death is a necessity to move from this worldly kingdom into
God’s Kingdom, and this parable meddles with our personal lives far beyond just
our money and possessions.
Let’s take a look at our characters again. The Rich Man doesn’t seem to resent Lazarus
or hate him or even feel much of anything toward him. In fact, he doesn’t even see him. It is as if Lazarus doesn’t exist. Even when the Rich Man is dead and in Hades,
he still won’t talk directly to Lazarus. Lazarus is a pawn he tries to direct
to do his bidding---through Abraham, of course, but not someone with whom he
will interact. That’s simply the way
things are in this Rich Man’s world. The
Haves need not concern themselves with the Have nots---except when the Haves
want the Have Nots to do something for them. While the Rich man’s death changed
his circumstances greatly, it didn’t seem to transform his heart one little
bit.
U.S. Senator Cory Booker said: “The most perverted kind of
privilege is when there’s a serious problem that doesn’t affect you personally,
so to you, it’s not a serious problem.”
·
4.8 million Syrian refugees
·
15.9% rate of poverty in America; 13.2% in the
State of Wisconsin
·
663 million people lack access to clean and safe
water in our world
·
Every day 90 people die from gun violence in the
United States
·
Despite the fact that violent crime in our
nation has been on the decline, the country’s incarceration rate
has tripled since
1980. Why? One reason is we now have for-profit prisons
which often stipulate that states must keep the occupancy rate at 90%
- Alcohol-related crashes killed 162 people in Wisconsin and
injured nearly 2,700 in 2014.
These are
statements of reality describing the world in which we live…….but we can choose
to live differently. We can choose another Kingdom.
As
individuals, and more importantly as communities, as a society, what deaths are
we willing to experience so we can move from this world into another one---what
are we prepared to nail to the cross in order to experience a new life? A life where there is no hunger, no thirst,
where people see one another, take care of one another, share the abundance so
that all might have enough without asking about worthiness?
Because this
is God’s promise---this is the Good News that Jesus asks us to set our hopes
on, to place our bets on, to invest in with everything we’ve got and all that
we are.
If we
believe God’s Kingdom come, God’s will be done, then it is time to own up to
our ways, our beliefs, our laws, our policies, our systems, and our views that
prevent us from seeing those in need.
And not just seeing them, but choosing to do something to change their
reality. We need not be rich. We not need be a large or a powerful
community. It may be our voice or our vote that is needed to help our
neighbor. It may be our labor that is
required to bring about justice. Our time may be the donation that gives birth
to a new path for a brother or sister.
And, yes, it may be what’s in our wallet that brings about the sustaining
breath for another.
Robert Frost
wrote a famous poem called “A Mending Wall.”
In it he writes:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
Like the
neighbors in the poem, we spend a lot of our time putting up walls, mending
them, keeping them strong and sure---as in today’s parable, we maintain the
definite boundaries between us and them.
In his poem, Frost questions this aspect of human nature, of building
walls and writes:
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
The reality
is when we wall off another person or persons because of differences in
citizenship, creed, ethnicity, worldview, socioeconomic status, health, age,
gender, sexual orientation, political allegiance or any other aspect of our
humanity---when we build walls----we wall out God. For God is the Creator of
all, and all have been made in God’s image.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down."
Beloved, God
is the “something that doesn’t love a wall.”
God sent Jesus to break down all the barriers---to widen the portal so
two can pass abreast. The life and
ministry, the sacrificial love and death of Jesus blew the walls down. God has
already created the passageway between this worldly kingdom we are born into
and the Godly Kingdom in which we are meant to live.
And now God
calls to us: Break through! Break
through the walls and come into the Kingdom.
I have shown you how---Jesus shows you how to live, to choose, to act,
and to be in order to share and redistribute all that has been given so
everyone has enough.
Now is the
time. Let us march in the light of God and follow Jesus as we take up our
cross---put to death those parts of our lives and beings that exist to create
walls and division---and let us serve and live as co-creators with God,
building up the Kingdom we inherit, the Kingdom in which we are meant to
live. The beautiful and peaceable
Kingdom of God.
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