18th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 21
Lectionary 26
September 30th
Luke 16: 19-31
Sermon
"Eat, Drink ?"
9* “There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.
20* And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores,
21* who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table; moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22* The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried;
23* and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame.’
25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.
26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’
27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house,
28 for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’
29* But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’
30* And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’
31* He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.’”
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen
"It’s probably too late. The damage is done. Perhaps I should have handed out ear plugs earlier. The least we could and should have done is to have printed a warning in the bulletin or newsletter. Maybe I should have cautioned you ahead of time about the contents of the message today from Luke’s gospel: this parable is problematic and quite possible hazardous to your peace of mind! The parable seems to gnaw and nags on people’s hearts. It lingers and lasts- like those greasy foods you know that you shouldn’t have eaten- but that you snuck anyway- and you know that you’ll pay the price for hours and even days to come. So if you find yourself sitting in traffic this and you find yourself thinking about Lazarus, just remember that I told you so! If the parable pops up as your poking around the park, well what can I say? And as you go about your daily work, don’t be surprised to find the parable working its way to the surface when you least expect it. You might even find yourself pushed or pulled you in a direction that you never dreamed of going. This parable is powerful and it has changed peoples lives in totally unexpected ways. .
And that’s what happened to Albert. At the age of 29, Albert had it all- fame and fortune and a fantastic career as a concert organist and interpreter of Bach. He was well respected. He was happy- that is , until he heard this parable about Lazarus. And this parable gnawed at him and nagged at him. Albert couldn’t get this story out of his heart and his mind. It wouldn’t let him go until he gave in- and gave it up. And so he did. Albert gave up his brilliant musical career up to enter medical school. Now most of his friends thought he was crazy to give up his musical career. to train as a physician. But Albert knew that God was calling him and that he had to answer God’s call to be a missionary doctor and to go Africa. And so Albert Schweitzer, one of the great humanitarians of our century, established a missionary hospital in Africa and ministered to the physical and spiritual needs of thousands of people. This story changed Albert’s life. And who knows maybe, this parable will change your life too!" (1)
Does this parable gnaw at you? Do you feeling guilty when reading it? Should you feel guilty hearing it?
This is a most difficult parable. Does this parable condemn wealth?
What do you think about Dives? What do you think about Lazarus?
There are a lof of questions this parable asks of us. We are going to try and answer a few of them this morning.
The parable is straight forward. A rich man who lived a coomfortalbe life on this earth died. When he died he went to Hades. But the poor man who lived off the scraps of food given him by the rich man went to heaven. A simple straight forward parable, so why does it make us so uncomfortable.
But when his life on this earth ended, he was willing to give up all his riches for just one drop of cool water because in the afterlife he was living in anguish the flame of Hades. What was this man’s sin? Why did he end in eternal hell, while the poor man Lazarus was in the comfortable bosom of Abraham? What was Dives sin? We can call this rich man Dives for it is the Latin word for rich.
By itself, wealth is not a sin. God’s blessing often rains down in material as well as spiritual ways. You and I do not need to be embarrassed about all that we have. We do have the highest standard of living in the entire world. Instead, we ought to recognize the Giver and look for ways to express our thanks for his grace toward us by sharing a portion of it with others. The rich man’s sin was not simply his great wealth. It was his belief that he had the right to do with it as he pleased. His sin lay in his choosing to ignore the poor man Lazarus who was laying right at his door.
Dives was os wrapped uo in imself that he did not see the poor man lazarus outside his door. Yes, he gave him scrapes of food, but as he did so he could handly bother to see the man himself, the man Lazarus laying there. He saw Lazarus as nothing. He was so wrapped up in himself, that he could not see beyond the end of his nose to the plight of this poor man with sores all over his body. Dives sin was not what he had done to Lazarus, his sin was what he had not done to Lazarus. Dives never saw Lazarus. He was so caught up in his own world he never took notice of the other person. Dives could not see the poor man who was outside of his door.
So the question can be asked of us. How is your eye sight? What do you see? How is your eyesight? Do your eyes see the pain and brokenness of this world, or are they only focused upon your own navel, upon your own wants, pleasures and comfort? Can you see the brokenness of someone in sorrow, can you see the pain of someone living in a broken relationship and wanting someone to listen to share the pain? Can you see someone dependent upon the crutch of drugs or alcohol and wanting someone to assure him/her that they are worthwhile people, special people in the eyes of God. Can you see the hungry people out in the world who are crying for the means of learning how to successfully grow and harvest their own food supply? How is your eyesight?
A movie entitled, "The Pawn Broker" illustrates this point about not feeling the pain of society very well.
"The movie is about a Polish-Jew named Nazerman who runs a pawnshop in East Harlem, New York.
Nazerman survived a Nazi concentration camp where he saw the worse of humanities inhumanity. The way he survived was by promising himself that he would never feel anything else again. He had lost his best friend in that camp and he saw his wife die a slow death. He become a numb wreck of a man and does survive the horrors of the camp. Twenty-five years later, he is running a pawn shop, taking pitiful objects from these poor wretched people enmeshed in poverty, drugs, prostitution, sex and alcohol. He just takes their personal possessions without any kind of feeling. With cold detachment, never batting an eye, he plies them behind him as he sits in the shadows behind that iron fence in the pawn shop. A young Puerto Rican man named Jesus Artez, formerly a gang member who had split and changed his life, comes to work for him. The young man admires Nazerman and wants to be just like him and one day opened his own pawn shop. One day, his old gang comes to rob the pawn shop. They start to shoot Nazerman, but Jesus Artez steps right in front of him and takes the bullet in his stomach. The gang runs, leaving Jesus Artez dying in Nazerman’s arms! The play ends with Nazerman holding Jesus Artez and suddenly feeling begins to come back to him, but he denies that he can feel. To prove to himself that he can no longer feel, he takes the spindle that sits on his deck and spears it through his hand. It goes all the way through his hand, and he does feel real pain. He does bleed real blood and cries real tears. He does feel. The play comes to an end as you see him locking the door of the pawn shop on that dark street and walking away. His soul is now free, his life is out of hock, because he feels for his neighbor.’’
The Pawn-Broker’s life became real and authentic when he let himself feel the loss of his young friend, when he let him see, feel, the gratitude for the sacrifice this young man was willing to make on his behalf. When he began to feel the brokenness, the pain, the anguish, the heartache of the life that encompassed him, then and only then did he begin to life Then and only then did he feel the real freedom of life. Dives never felt the pain of the brokenness of life, he d never felt the anguish of this poor man outside of his door. Dives prison of non-feeling is symbolized by the great chasm that separated him from Abraham Dives was locked up in his own prison of detachment, hard-hardness and coldness for eternity.
How are your feelings? Can you empathize with the plight of those who are feeling the brokenness of this world? Can you in some small way walk in the footsteps of those who are crying out for someone to care? Can you feel the pain, the sorrow the hurt, the hunger, the loneliness, the guilt, the rejection, of those who are trying out for someone to care, for someone to touch them with a hug of compassion and an embrace of love? How are your feelings?
Here is a story that Tony Campolo tells from his own experience.
I was walking down the street in Philadelphia and a bum came towards me. I mean a dirty, filthy guy. He was covered
with soot from head to toe. You couldn’t believe howmessed up he was. He had this huge beard and there was
rotted food stuck in the beard.
As he approached me, he held out a cup of McDonald’s coffee and said, "Hey mister,
want some of my coffee?"
I looked at his dirty, filthy personhood and said, "Thanks, but that’s okay," and I walked by him. The minute I passed
him, I knew I was doing the wrong thing, so I turned around and said, "Excuse me. I would like some of your
coffee."
I took some of the coffee and sipped it and gave it back to him. I said, "You’re being generous. How come
you’re being so generous today?"
And this bum looked at me and he said, "Because the coffee was especially delicious today and I think that when God givesyou something good, you ought to share it with people."
I didn’t know how to handle that, so I said, "Can I give you anything?" I thought that he would hit me for five dollars.
He said, "No." Then he said, "Yeah, yeah. I’ve changed my mind there is something you can give me. You can give me a hug"
As I looked at him, I was hoping for the five dollars! He put his arms around me and I put my arms around him.
And as I in my establishment dress and he in his filthy garb hugged each other on the street, I had the strange
awareness that I wasn’t hugging a bum, I was hugging Jesus. I found Jesus in that suffering man.
Whenever you meet a suffering person, you will find that Jesus is there waiting to be loved in that individual. ThatÂ’s why Jesus said, "In as much as ye do it unto the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do it unto me."
You cannot reach out to a person in need, you cannot embrace somebody who’s hurting, you cannot minister to somebody who is in desperate straits without having that eerie and wonderful awareness that Jesus is coming back at you right through that person. If there is anything that Mother Teresa would have taught us, thatÂ’s what she would have taught us.” So wrote Tony Campolo. (2)
When we reach out ot those around us with a compassionate feeling we are doing what Paul wrote about in Timothy.
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
-- 1 Timothy 6:17-19 NKJV
Store up a foundation in doing good is what this text is all about.
Martin Luther once observed, "Riches are the least worthy gifts which God can give a man. What are they to God’s Word, to bodily gifts, such as beauty and health; or to the gifts of the mind, such as understanding, skill, and wisdom? Yet men toil for wealth day and night and take no rest. Therefore, God commonly gives riches to foolish people, to whom He gives nothing else!"
To be rich is no sin but what we do with it and our other talents is what this parable is asking us.
I would like to close with a story about a congregation who was able to see feel and hear.
A congregation in one of the many suburbs of a large city was having a special congregational meeting to approve borrowing money from the bank to buy some things for the church. The building committee recommended that a new carpet, a stained glass window, and a new kitchen be added to the church. It would cost around $10,000.000 This was explained to the members gathered and then all of a sudden, a voice from the rear of the church spoke up: "Do we really need these things to be the church?? I believe we should borrow the money to help feed the hungry of the world!!" Never before had anyone questioned the wisdom of those who were in charge. Another voice’ spoke up saying:" Let’s borrow the money and help purchase an electric generator which would supply power for bringing water from a well in Africa." Another voice said, "Let’s borrow the money and give it to a mission school that our denomination runs on the American Indian reservation."
The vote was taken. And there was not to be new carpeting, nor a new kitchen, nor a beautiful stained glass window, but the group decided to borrow the $10,000.00 and use it for the mission projected mentioned.
Amen
(1)A Sermon Opener in What Will Convince You? by Rev. Cynthia Huling Hummel
(2)To give you a sense of how this must have felt, I would like to share a story by Tony Campolo, a Baptist Minister and
Sociologist from Philadelphia in the US.
from GOSPEL_NOTES_FOR_NEXT_SUNDAY.topic@ecunet.org
by Brian Stoffregen
