In the gospel passage this morning there is a great reversal of fortunes for the rich man and Lazarus the poor beggar. Lazarus, after enduring great suffering is taken into heaven, into the bosom of Abraham. This end suggests that he led a faithful life while the rich man is depicted in typical Pharisee mode concerned for the letter of the law and counting his blessings – or perhaps taking them for granted – in response to his charmed life.
The surprise of the rich man and his attempt to fix things up is a bit like the story of the young assistant curate who while peddling his bike to a pastoral visit sees Jesus walking through town heading in the direction of his church. He races back to the vicarage and rouses the vicar. He tells the vicar that Jesus is on his way to the Church. ‘Are you sure?’ enquires the vicar. ‘Absolutely, it was him,’ replies the young priest. ‘This is too much for me I had better ring the bishop,’ says the vicar. He gets straight on the phone to the bishop and tells her that Jesus is on the way to the church. The vicar’s plea for help is met with a stunned silence. Eventually the silence is broken with the Bishop’s sagely reply, ‘Well then, you blokes had better look busy!’
The reversal of fortunes comes at the time of death for both men. I wonder if Lazarus was as surprised as the rich man to find that he was a beloved child of God and not just a cast-off as his treatment in his earthly life might have led him to believe.
The values of the Kingdom of God were found to be in stark contrast to the values of the society in which these two men lived. Yet that society was made up of the very people God had rescued from Egypt and to whom God had given a promised land, and with whom God had made a special covenant:
I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’" Exod 6
This is a promise Jeremiah reminds his fellow country men of three times. They had to be reminded because they broke their side of the agreement. Jeremiah saw the immanent Babylonian invasion as the judgement of God upon his people. It was a difficult message for him to proclaim but he did and he paid dearly as the community hatred and inner turmoil that he suffered bear witness.
In the Old Testament story this morning Jeremiah buys a field outside Jerusalem. Not unusual in normal circumstances, but he makes this purchase having proclaimed that the Babylonians will come and invade and lay waste to the city. He was trying to portray to them that God’s judgement would come upon them in the form of the invasion, but that God would see to it that this judgement would lead to restoration.
Proclaiming that the Babylonians would invade was one thing, but would God not protect them as God had before? To say that the invasion would be God’s judgement was anathema to the people of Jerusalem. Were they not the covenant people of God? Jerusalem was invaded and Jeremiah’s prophecy came to pass. As happened so often in the stories of the scriptures people, even God’s people think they are going on the right course, or at least kid themselves that they are, only to be brought back to reality with a thud.
There is a tendency for us to assign value to that which is ultimately worthless and we even try sometimes to give what we value God’s backing. It is so clear in the Gospel reading this morning that the values of the Kingdom of God are at great odds with many of the things we value.
Through the centuries the Church has been a witness to values of the kingdom but sometimes, because we are ordinary human beings there is a danger our witness will mirror society’s values too closely. For example the 19th century hymn, All Things Bright and Beautiful [Cecil Frances Alexander, 1848] was originally written with the verse:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them all, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
This verse has been omitted from hymn books for quite some time, but it reflects a view of God whose job it was to order society so that all could feel comfortable and justifies in their social positions. It is the view of society in which members get upset if someone speaks out of turn or who has the audacity to attempt to move beyond their station in life. This was a time when Karl Marx could say that religion was ‘the opiate of the people.’ He believed that religion was being used to prop up a stable but unfair society. And by religion he meant the Christian faith as he experienced it in Europe.
In the same century All Things Bright and Beautiful was written, and while Marx too was writing, movements for great social change either begun by Christians or including them were underway for some time and still continue today. Christians were involved too in the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of women, the end of apartheid in South Africa and segregation in the United States.
I wonder where we might challenge society’s values with those of the kingdom in our lives. One area is in our use of time. If we think water is a precious capacity then consider time. Individually we will run out of time before we run out of water or any other of the commodities we need or value. Deep down I think each of us is aware of this. There may be a stage in life when we are resigned to the realities of our mortality but most people seem to be zooming around filling up every moment so as to squeeze the last second from the limits of life. I assume one of the reasons for this is that whether or not one has faith in an afterlife people are not prepared just to wait around to find out! There’s nothing wrong with making the most of life but we do not make the most of it simply by filling up or time with activity.
Jesus believed his mission to be of the greatest urgency, but even so he spent time in the desert to discern the shape of his vocation, he want away to pray in the midst of the urgent needs of those around him and feel asleep in back of the boat when the storm raged around him. The values of the Kingdom call us to quiet and peace amid our frantic lives.
Just as in New Testament times, status in society is held to be something of great value. Within his culture the rich man would have seen his wealth as a blessing from God bestowed as the result of his righteous life. This belief would have had its corollary in the destitution of Lazarus whose bad fortune, it would have been assumed, was the result of his wrongdoing. Even then this idea had holes in it because it was well known that good and just people had to endure suffering just as charlatans and the dishonourable were known to attain great wealth. This is what the book of Job is all about. But it is a hard notion, even today, for people to shake off.
Jesus upturns this notion by hanging out with the poor and outcast and he seems to have chosen their way of life in his claim that the Son of Man has no where to lay his head. When Jesus’ family come to ‘take him away’ he claims that his family are those who do the will of God. He sends his disciples on their mission without spare coats and sandals and bids his followers not to worry about what tomorrow brings.
Another value that might be in need of reversal is an easy sort of spirituality that people build for themselves. They shop around and take some of this and some of that. We all do this to a certain extent and we must use our minds and make choices to avoid extremist points of view and involvement with hardline cults and sects. However in words attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘A religion that asks nothing, costs nothing, suffers nothing, risks nothing, is worth nothing.’ Though we might sometimes wish it were so, our faith does not exist for our comfort. It does exist for our wellbeing, but wellbeing and comfort are not the same things. Because we get comfort and wellbeing confused Jesus comes to upturn our understanding of faith. To be truly well, to be healed and whole we must be willing to undergo the change required of the disciple who follows the master though this life and into eternity.
As we hear in the Gospel story of the rich man and Lazarus. In this story we hear again of the stark difference between the values of the world and the values of the Kingdom of God. As we consider what society tells us about the value of self righteousness, status, time and easy spirituality way we find in the course of our discipleship the true and values of the kingdom.
