"Tending our Gates"

Luke 16: 19-31

St. Matthew’s

Sept. 30, 2001

There is the rich man. He dresses in the finest clothes. There is gourmet dining in his house every day. His life is one of conspicuous consumption. The rich man is the center of his universe.

There is Lazarus - the picture of deprivation and despair. His skin is covered with ulcerous sores. He lies at the rich man’s gate; his daily rations consist of chunks of bread which those who dined at the rich man’s table used as napkins. Servants gathered these leftovers and threw them out into the streets for the dogs to eat. These dogs were not dainty French poodles, but scavenging mongrels, and they add to the beggar’s miseries by licking at his sores. In all respects, this individual is a wretched human being. However, there is one thing about him we should not overlook. He has an identity. Poor and miserable as he is, he is still a person with a name. In fact, he is the only character in Jesus’ parables to have a name. Lazarus - it means "one whom God helps."

It is important to note that Jesus was telling this story to the Pharisees, the influential religious leaders of the day. They were also, from Luke’s perspective, "lovers of money." What we need to understand is how the Pharisees regarded wealth and poverty. Simply put, wealth was taken as evidence of God’s favor, and poverty was thought to be a sign of divine displeasure. It was assumed that the people on top deserved to be there because they were virtuous. Likewise, the poor deserved to be on the bottom because they were lazy or irresponsible, or both. It’s an attitude that has not altogether disappeared today. However, Jesus proceeds to undermine this self-serving theology.

Lazarus mercifully dies and "is carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom," a place of honor

Since September 11th, the sights and sounds of human misery have been our almost constant companions. Who can forget the picture of an American jet liner disappearing into the south tower of the World Trade Center? Who can forget the cacophony of noise - the screams of people fleeing the falling debris of collapsing buildings or the wail of the sirens of emergency vehicles? These images have been imprinted on our minds and hearts forever. At the same time, we have been inspired by the courageous acts of policemen, firefighters, rescue workers and private citizens. We have been awed by the half billion dollars raised across the nation, and by selfless acts of service to help in the recovery efforts. We should not be surprised. America has a tradition of courage in crisis, and it seems that compassion and generosity are our natural response to a national emergency. We know, too, that our lives have been changed forever. Whether that change is for good or bad is yet to play out.

Today’s gospel story began a revolution in the life of Albert Schweitzer, a German theologian, philosopher, musician, and humanitarian. Seeing the poor in Africa as a Lazarus lying at the gates of a wealthy Europe, Schweitzer turned his back on promising careers in theology and music. He became a medical doctor, left Europe for Africa, and established the famous hospital at Lambarene. We cannot know what use God will make of our hearing of this parable; perhaps no life will be changed by it as radically as Albert Schweitzer’s was. Yet, so clear and powerful is this parable’s message, it is hard to imagine that anyone can grapple with it and walk away unaffected. It’s only fair to warn you that today’s gospel is a par. The wealthy man also dies, but he goes to a place of "torment." It is a dramatic reversal of fortune, to put it mildly, and sure to get the attention of the Pharisees. The significance of Lazarus’ name is now apparent: he is the one whom God helped. But how are we to account for the rich man’s destiny?

It’s not because of his wealth. If wealth were the deciding factor, Abraham would have been where the rich man was, and not with Lazarus, for Abraham had been a man of considerable means. Jesus did warn about the dangers of wealth, because he knew that wealth can anchor us in the attitudes of the world, where we must hoard what we have even as we strive to get more. Jesus had well-to-do friends, but as far as we know, he never told Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimethea they were excluded from the Kingdom. Jesus’ main concern was not so much with the possession of wealth as it was with the use of wealth.

So if it was not the rich man’s wealth that landed him in the "hot spot," what was it? It was his insensitivity; it was his lack of compassion. It was his eyes and his heart that were the problem, not his pocketbook. He did not see Lazarus, or if he did, what he saw didn‘t move him to respond. It wasn’t that Lazarus was lying somewhere out of sight. He wasn’t way off in Africa. He wasn’t even downtown, curled up under a pile of blankets in an obscure alley. Lazarus was right there in front of him by the front gate: Lazarus was a daily presence in the rich man’s life. And the rich man lifted neither an eyelid to see nor a finger to help.

As a result, in the afterworld, there is a great chasm "which cannot be crossed." In shutting Lazarus out of his life, the rich man shut out God, too. He forgot, or ignored, the teaching of Moses to acknowledge that that all our blessings are a gift from God. He paid not the slightest attention to the prophets’ insistence that love for God and care for the needy go hand-in-hand.

Even as he finds himself in the place of torment, the rich man is slow to get the picture. He regards Lazarus as his servant. He pleads with Father Abraham to "send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue:" But there is an encouraging note. He is worried about his five brothers who are in danger of sharing his own fate. The rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers, but Abraham is unmoved. It’s probably too late. Abraham answers, " If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead."

The irony is, of course, that by the time Luke wrote his gospel someone had risen from the dead. Yet there were people around who were none the wiser. It seems Jesus was right. If people don’t respond to the truths of the Scriptures, then someone coming back from the dead won’t move them either. It is a stern warning, and we must remember that we are part of this story, too. In a way we are the rich man’s siblings, still on this side of the great divide, with Bible in hand and with needy neighbors all around us.

Make no mistake about it. There will come a time when we will have to account to God for how we have lived our lives - for the things we have done and for the things we failed to do. The way to life is to keep God’s commandments the way Jesus tells us to in this parable of compassion. Jesus is not separated from his message, and failure to heed his word has the same consequences today as the consequences experienced by the rich man. Jesus’ message is not about earning a reward, but about engaging in an ongoing relationship which has compassion as its agenda. The presence of the poor and needy is an invitation to intimacy with God.

Yes, our lives have been altered by the events of September 11th. The parable of Lazarus and the rich man reminds us that, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, the way we live our lives fashions our eternal destiny. Human will tends to be self-indulgent, self-satisfied, and self-absorbed, oblivious to the truths of Holy Scripture. But Jesus’ compassion abides, and we believe it will not be in vain. To live without compassion is to dig a deep chasm between ourselves and God, between ourselves and our fellow human beings. What we need is a vision, for our vision of the future almost always becomes our agenda for the present.

We have that vision in the person of Jesus Christ , who is our promise that God will enter in and liberate us to our fullest humanity if we will just cooperate. Jesus warns, but does not threaten, of a time of judgment. More importantly, Jesus promises and offers us the incredible and unstoppable love of God that can leap over the biggest ditch we dig for ourselves. Those who follow Jesus are expected to be faithful before God in all aspects of life. Our motivation for such fidelity is not fear of punishment, but love of God and love of others with whom we have meaningful relationships.

Generosity of spirit on a grand scale such as the outpouring of prayers, money, and physical labor on behalf of the victims of the terrorist attack is impressive. But what is more difficult is to offer a compassionate response to others in the ordinary events of our daily lives. I think Jesus would say that to "close the chasm" we are to be gentle with our children when they make mistakes. We are to be kind to our spouses when they disappoint us. We are to be forgiving of our friends and co-workers when they let us down or seemingly betray us. We are to be conciliatory toward fellow church members when they disagree with us about the vision our church and how that vision is to be carried out.

Today is a special day in the life of this faith community. We rejoice to welcome the five persons who have just been initiated into the body of Christ through baptism. Baptism is a communal rather than a private event; we all participated in this sacrament by the renewal of our own baptismal covenant, a covenant that reminds us not only of what we profess to believe, but also of what we promise in terms of living out our lives in correspondence with our belief. We renewed these promises together because salvation is not a solitary process.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not there yet. I look and I see a dark hole - I would rather think of it as a ravine, not a chasm! I suspect we all have a ways to go. While this sermon is about over, the story is not. Like the siblings of the rich man, we are left to write the script for our own destiny. We have God’s word coming from Moses and the prophets. We have the word of God’s own Son, the word of Him who did come back from the dead, the word that comes to us through his body, the church. We have all that. And we have Lazarus in all his manifestations. Whether the outcome is tragic or happy depends on us - you and me. How much will we allow ourselves to see? How much will we permit ourselves to care? Will we open the gate and walk through it to Lazarus’ side, or will we pretend he’s not there?