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SERMONS

The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost
September 30, 2001

By John Sewell

With an economy of words, Luke sketches the picture. The rich man is usually called Dives, which is Latin for, wealthy. He was so rich that he wore purple, a dye so expensive that only the Emperor had an entire garment colored with of it. He also wore linen from Egypt which was so fine that it was worn by those who did nothing much all day. At every meal the table groaned with expensive and rare foods.

Out by the gate, which was an elaborate ornamental affair, having as much to do with status as security, was a man named Lazarus. Lazarus, whose name means, "he who the Lord helps" was poor and covered with running sores. Lazarus hungered for the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. [It was the custom at lavish parties to use bread as napkins. The edible napkins were then thrown to the dogs as an act of extravagance. They did it because they could.] Lazarus would have loved to eat those mangled pieces of bread but he didn't get any. The dogs, the only creature with compassion, however, took pity on him and licked his sores.

There is no evidence that the rich man was mean to Lazarus. Apparently he didn't think about him one way or another. Both men died and were buried. The rich man went to Hades [the place of the dead], while Lazarus went to Paradise. Apparently these "places" are in sight of each other. In Paradise Abraham presides at a feast where Lazarus is the guest of honor. The rich man sees the festivities from his place of torment in Hades. He speaks to Abraham, "Father Abraham send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am in anguish." Notice that even in Hades the rich man is still trying to order people around.

Father Abraham tells him that there is a great gulf fixed between Paradise and Hades and no one can cross. "Wait," said the rich man, "Send Lazarus to warn my five brothers."

Abraham: "They have Moses and the Prophets."

Rich man: "No, if someone comes to them from the dead they will listen."

Abraham: "If they don't listen to Moses and the Prophets they will not be convinced if one comes to them from the dead.

What does this mean? Are rich people going to hit hell wide open because they are rich? Are the poor going to the best table at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb because they are poor? I don't think so, although I must admit that in the great big scheme of things we fall in the rich category. So I do not want to think that. Paul seems to be speaking to that issue when he writes to Timothy, "As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life."

What did the rich man lack and all too often we as well?

1. Consciousness: We are stuck on ourselves and unaware of what goes on around us. We look fine to us = we are asleep/unconscious. The truth is that all people are more alike than they are different, but we spend a lot of time, energy, and advertising money convincing ourselves otherwise.

2. Imagination: A man is in the waiting room while his wife is in labor. He is sweating and pacing the floor. Finally a nurse comes out and says, "You have a beautiful baby girl." He said, "I'm really glad that it is a girl so that she'll never have to go through what I've just gone through." We lack imagination. We find it difficult to put ourselves in the place of others.

3. Gratitude: Lewis Hyde in his book, Gift, writes, "People live differently who treat a portion of their wealth as a gift." If what we have is a gift when we recognize that it is not ours. Hyde goes on to say that, "gift establishes relationships while property establishes boundaries."

4. Sense of Spiritual Reality: The world tends to believe that the rich are rich because God likes them better than others. However the Gospel tells us that earthly success does not equal salvation. The life and teaching of Jesus proclaims that the Kingdom of God is not about success as the world calculates such things. In this hour of fear and dread it is especially true that we need to trust that God knows us better than we know ourselves and wishes the best for us.

In light of the last few weeks I felt drawn back to Robert Farrar Capon and his book The Parables of Grace. He sums up the issue so well I want to quote him. "…if the world could have been saved by successful living, it would have been tidied up long ago. Certainly, the successful livers of this world have always been ready enough to stuff life's losers into the garbage can of history. Their program for turning earth back into Eden have consistently been to shun the sick, to lock the poor in ghettos, to disenfranchise those whose skin was the wrong color, and to exterminate those whose religion was inconvenient. … But for all of that Eden has never returned. The world's woes are beyond repair by the world's successes: there are just too many failures, and they come to thick and fast for any program, however energetic or well-funded. Dives, for all his purple, fine linen and faring sumptuously, dies not one whit less dead than Lazarus. And before he dies, his wealth no more guarantees him health or happiness than it does exemption from death. Therefore when the Gospel is proclaimed, it stays light-years away from reliance on success or on any other exercise of right-handed power. Instead, it relies resolutely on left-handed power - on the power that, in mystery, works through failure, loss, and death. And so while our history is indeed saved, its salvation is not made manifest in our history in any obvious, right-handed way. In God's time - in that kairos, that due season, that high time in which the Incarnate Word brings in the kingdom in a mystery - all our times are indeed reconciled and restored now."

This is hard for us to hear. We are weaned on the notion that WE are in charge of our destiny. Jesus has come to break the good news to us that this is not so. All that is required is that we trust Him and not our success. Capon continues, "Jesus did not come to reward the rewardable, improve the improvable, or correct the correctable; he came simply to be the resurrection and the life of those who will take their stand on a death he can use instead of on a life he cannot."

Dives thought that if one came from the dead that people would believe. The Gospel tells us that one did come from the dead: Jesus the Christ. Abraham was right. Belief in the resurrection is not a matter of being convinced, but rather a matter of trust. The question today is, will we continue to rely on our success or will we trust in the words of Jesus, who said, "I will never leave you or forsake you."

John Sewell
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi