Let us pray:
Startle us, O God, with your truth. Open our hearts and our minds to your word and to your love, so that we might respond by loving you with singleness of purpose and our neighbors as ourselves. In the spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Our epistle reading from Saint Paul’s letter to his young friend Timothy, and Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus, are not easy to listen to, are they? We hear more than we want to hear. Their meaning is clear and so we understand more than it is comfortable for us to understand.
Theyare the lectionary readings for the morning. As most of you know, the lectionary is a selection of readings for each Sunday of the church year. There are four readings for each day: one each from the Old Testament, from the Book of Psalms, from an Epistle, and one from the Gospels. The Epistle and Gospel which were read this morning are being read all over the world today wherever churches follow the common lectionary. If you should care to poll your church-going friends this afternoon, chances are they listened to a sermon this morning based on these readings.
The lectionary compels the preacher to wrestle with passages he or she might otherwise be tempted to avoid, such as our readings of the morning. For no one with an iota of common sense would choose to bring you a message on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus were it not thrust upon him or her by the lectionary. Why else would I choose to make you feel uncomfortable and run the risk of you leaving unhappy on this lovely September morning? For this is most likely to be the outcome of the comparison between the rich man who lives well in this life and the poor man who begs crumbs from under his table.
It does not take a seminary degree to figure out that there is here a reversal of fortune. That’s the clear and uncomfortable part. The rich who are up come down and the poor who are down come up. Why is this uncomfortable? It is uncomfortable because most of us aspire to be rich – as in “Who wants to be a millionaire?” We see nothing wrong with dressing well, eating well, and living well. In fact, if you are not careful we find ourselves envying the life styles of the rich and famous.
In much of Christianity in our country, unfortunately, virtue is equated with wealth, and wealth is seen as the reward of virtue. There used to be an evangelist on television who was fond of saying, “The best thing you can do for the poor is not be one of them” Sometimes in the evening when I am annoying Della by surfing the television, I will come upon some evangelist promising if I will send money, I will be rewarded by God beyond my wildest dreams. Now there is a gospel that is good news!
But stop for a moment and think about that. If God wants you to be wealthy, and the wealthy end up as the rich man in Jesus’ parable, then God must have a perverse sense of humor.
Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus is the story of an anonymous rich man and a poor man, Lazarus, the only person to be named in all of Jesus’ parables. (If you should ever, by knowing this, win fame and fortune in a trivial quiz, kindly remember where you first heard it.) Lazarus (whose name means “God helps”), although poor and hungry, is dignified with a name, even though he is ignored by the rich man who “dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously everyday.” We are to see this as a repeated encounter between the rich man and Lazarus.
Jesus says, the poor man died and was carried to Abraham’s bosom – taken there not as a reward for his poverty but for his humility and virtue. He was faithful. He kept as best he could the law and teachings of the prophets. The only way to the bosom of Abraham. He who was ignored in life was openly rewarded in heaven. The rich man was punished not because he was rich, but because his wealth got in the way of his faithfulness. His arrogance hid his unfaithfulness. He neglected his moral duty on earth and now he must pay. .
In the Middle Ages this parable was a strong motivator to acts of charity and philanthropy. In more recent times here in America both John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were told by their pastors that their wealth would kill them if they did not make provision for the poor and do good works. Does anyone really think that Mr. Rockefeller was such a nice man that he freely gave his money away? Do you think that Mr. Carnegie scattered libraries here and there across the country simply because he liked to read? No! Out of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the teachings of Jesus and Saint Paul about money, has flowed a river of Christian charity and generosity.
Now that there are fewer people laying awake nights contemplating the fires of Hell, we name other considerations which we trust will motivate your generosity. The early church, as it passed on its memories, remembered how Jesus taught so frequently about money and how his teachings were filed with references to wages and debts, offerings and taxes. Jesus lived in an age marked by an inequitable distribution of wealth, similar to our own. Jesus knew that money mattered and that money talk could be used to speak vividly of how the priorities of God clashed with the culture of the present age. Jesus’ “preferential option for the poor” is a constant theme in the gospel of Saint Luke (consider the Magnificat and the Beautitudes as two memorable examples.)
Paul echoes this teaching of Jesus in his letter to Timothy when he observes that “We brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it.” As someone has observed, “I have never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul.” Paul goes on to say that the love of money – not money – is the root of all evil. Paul also writes, “In their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains” – exactly as did the rich man in Jesus’ parable.
The economic and social justice implications of this parable for a country that thrives on riches and ambition are and ought to be terrifying. I doubt if this parable is often heard in many Washington prayer breakfast homilies or in any of the places where those who cherish their earthly rewards and ambitions are gathered. At the end of the day the parable is not so much about wealth and poverty as it is about humility and arrogance - the callous disregard for one another, which results in this ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor.
History tells us over and again that the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humankind has survived this. This presidential election will say something about what happens to ours. The signs are not encouraging. The nation is in debt up to its eyebrows, thanks to the generous tax cuts for the well fixed. Legislation is written to alleviate the suffering of billionaires; we are headed toward a dead end of debt which will finally paralyze the government.
While the working poor and the middle class now must work harder and longer to avoid falling further behind – as a result, families are struggling to balance work, raise their children and care for their aging parents. Poverty is on the rise and opportunity for most families is declining. (Many of you know this because you are living it every day.)
All of this is ably documented in Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickled and Dimed. The fact it has been on the New York Times Best Seller list for 87 weeks is an indication of what is taking place in America. Also, David Shipler’s The Working Poor, Invisible in America. The review in the Times entitled “Take this job and be thankful for $6.80 an hour.”
These concerns should be one of the central themes of this election – to find ways as a nation to reverse the course we are traveling while there is still time. These are clearly for all people of faith – religious and justice issues.
The second part of our parable presents a chilling epilogue to the initial story. Both the rich man and Lazarus die, as we each will, rich and poor alike. They end up in different places: the rich man in Hell, Lazarus on the bosom of Abraham. Even in Hell the rich man tries to get Lazarus, whose name he now remembers, to do his bidding “to dip the tip of his finger in the water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.”
Abraham refuses to have any part of this. The situations are fixed and cannot be changed. Verse 26 makes this clear: “And besides all this a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from there to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.”
The rich man tries something different. He now wants to help his five brothers who still live in their father’s house and presumably share in the wealth he once enjoyed. He wants Abraham to send someone to warn his brothers to get their act together while there is still time so they will not end up like him. Abraham says, “No more deals, you’re done, you’re toast, that’s it, forget it.” Abraham’s reply is a show stopper: “They have Moses and the prophets. They should listen to them.” Which is to say, they already know all they need to know. It is clear in the scriptures. The rich man pleads, “But if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” Abraham’s reply, as spoken by Jesus, could not be clearer: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone rises from the dead.” Period. End of story!
This, then, is a parable about hearing the good news and acting upon it while there is still time (a theme we saw last week in the parable of the dishonest steward). It is too late for the rich man; nothing and no one can help him now, but it is not too late for his brothers who have all they need to be saved from the fate of their brother. They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. This is not a rebuke. It is an invitation – an invitation extended also to each of us here this morning.
What God requires of us is not a secret, it does not require a Doctorate in Theology, it is not a mystery, it is as clear as the prophets can make it. What does God require of you, asks the prophet Micah, but to do justice, to love mercy and kindness and to walk humbly with your God. The prophet Amos calls out in the name of God, “Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”
Late last Sunday afternoon, after a long day, I finally got around to the Boston Globe and to the “Ideas” section where all truth is laid out for us to contemplate. The headline on the first page was “The God Gap; How Religion Divides the Democrats.” Not exactly what I had in mind when I chose as our topic for this morning “God in the Gaps.” I was thinking rather of the words of Bonhoeffer, that God is always with us in the gaps of life, that place between places. I might have called it “God in the Chasms” but I didn’t want to frighten you.
God is with us in this tremendous gap between rich and poor, calling upon all faithful Christians to speak up, to do our part to let justice roll, remembering, as Dante said, “The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in a time of crisis remain neutral.” God does not only call us to stand in the gap. God is with us in the gap to empower us, as with the promise in the Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ: “God is with us in the struggle for justice and peace.” Scripture tells us that God stands alongside the poor, the oppressed, the outcast.
Now, we have each lived long enough to know that not all good causes prevail, just as all bad causes are not easily defeated. We know this sadly in our own experience. History is also filed with those noble causes that were defeated, causing them to be counted as losses in their own day, about whom we now know better.
As we have this renewed interest in early American history, John Quincy Adams lost every debate on the floor of the House of Representatives against the monstrous evils of slavery, his marvelous role in the Amistad notwithstanding. No argument of his could prevail against the evils of slavery. Yet we know now, as he knew then, that he was right.
I would rather place my life behind a good cause which is apparently losing today, but which in the long run of God’s history will at last prevail, than to be caught supporting a cause popular today but which at last, in God’s own time, will be defeated. As Christians we are to be encouraged by the words of Saint Paul, “Be not deceived, for God is not mocked. Whatsoever a person sows (add nation) whatsoever a person or nation sows at last they will reap. The wheels of God’s justice may turn slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.”
There is a bit of verse I have known for years and which has sustained me as I have supported unpopular causes throughout my ministry: “Charge once more and then be dumb, let the victors when they come, when the forts of folly fall, find your body by the all.”
What does God require of you but to do justice, love mercy and kindness and to walk humbly with your God? Let justice roll. Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.
To hear these words – not simply to listen to them – but to hear them in such a way you are “inspired to live by them is life itself”
Not to hear them, to ignore them, to make no effort to live by them is at last death, for you are then cut off from God, your neighbor, from the struggle for justice for the poor, by a great unbridgeable chasm.
These then are the words of life:
What does God require of you but to do justice, to love mercy and kindness and to walk humbly with your God.If you hear them, really hear them, and live by them, then life is what you will get, both now and forever.
Let justice roll, let justice roll.
In the spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.