STRENGTHEN THE BRIDGES

 Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock

[Amos 6:1a, 4-7; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31]

One of the most challenging and painfully difficult things I do as a priest is to deal with folks who come to me, asking for money.  For the most part, my basic orientation stems from compassion, as I recall those times when I needed help – not financial help so much as a humane reminder that a helpful hand-up can make a great deal of difference.  In this capacity, I think of seeing those huge football players on the ground and their teammates extending their hand to help them get up.

So, relying on your support of the “Rector’s Discretionary Fund” (something that is funded each month on the fourth Sunday of the month from the loose plate collection– today is a fourth Sunday, in fact!) – thanks to your support, I am put in a position to help those in need. I listen to their situation; and (given the limitations of what I have to offer) I often write a check.

In most cases, the contribution provides only a toehold because there is never enough to meet the needs and (more to the point) most of the needs transcend money.  Those are the ones that break my heart.  Yet, my own heart is not pure enough to follow to the letter Jesus’ direction about treating the poor.  He says, “Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”[1]

My cynicism begins to erupt, when it is obvious that the petitioner is gaming the system.  In such cases, discerning how to follow Jesus’ directive to be “wise as a serpent but innocent as a dove”[2] often leaves me in confused limbo.  Nonetheless, what always lingers in these hard encounters is to what extent will I -- can I -- recognize the humanity of the “poor one” in front of me?  This is always the pinch.

And so, in today’s gospel lesson we have one such encounter – the one between the wealthy man and the pitiful “poor one”, Lazarus.  Once more, we confront one of Jesus’ parables, and the challenging (and even frustrating) fact that this form of Jesus’ teaching refuses to be turned into a bumper sticker or an embroidered statement on a ballcap’s crown.  In this vein, today’s parable of “the rich man and Lazarus” can tempt us to make a black and white statement either about wealth and the God-life or going to heaven or hell as the reward or punishment for the way we live our lives.  In either case this is not what Jesus is teaching; nor is it what you and I need to glean from this story.  So, in order to come to know Jesus’ teaching in this parable, let me first but briefly address the misleading but all-too-common temptation to cast this parable into the simplistic “moral-of-the-story” mode.

Since the medieval times the tradition has been to give both characters names.  On the one hand, there is the down-and-out figure of Lazarus – not to be confused with the Lazarus who was the brother of Martha and Mary and the caring friend of Jesus.  To provide a less abstract and more human focus to the story and its meaning, the medieval tradition gave the rich man the name of “Dives,” a Latin word for “rich” or “wealthy”.  The consequence of which caused the parable’s title to be the “Parable of Dives and Lazarus”.  But to the more significant purpose of this parable, the narrative cannot and must not be reduced to a bad Sunday School illustration of “good people” and “bad people” and what happens to them in Gods eyes when they die.

Specifically, it is very easy – and convenient – to treat the parable as a fairy-tale that depicts the inhospitable underworld literally beneath us, and the lovely heavenly realms above, separated by the patently clear boundary lines between these two “eternal” existential outcomes.

My point is that this parable should not be viewed as a simple moral tale about riches and poverty – although this element should not be ignored.  Yet, if that is all we give to Jesus’ teaching in this gospel’s instance, then the case can be made (and historically has been made) that it would better to let the poor stay poor, since they will have a good time in the future life.[3]  In our own time, this a functioning argument that the “gated rich” use to keep outdo sight the poor and needy.  Clearly, as I say, there is more to this story than this convenient and self-serving reading provides.

What is part and parcel of Jesus’ life and proclamation is that the God-life changes all other forms and notions of life; and that such change can be most startling, if one has not been paying attention – paying attention to God’s vindication at Easter: namely, in Christ’s cross God’s love and life are stronger than death, and this truth is the new reality of all life’s measurement and meaning.  I will return to this central point shortly, but there is a second scene in this parable that is the point of my sermon.

The scene is the one that depicts Dives in fiery agony in Hades, the place of the abandoned dead.  In such torment, he begs Father Abraham for relief, asking that Abraham send Lazarus to bring him (Dives) some cool and refreshing water.  Even in the state of deadly separation, “Dives” continues to regard Lazarus not as a human being, much less as a child of God, but only as a means to serve the needs of his privileged lifestyle.

Father Abraham’s response to Dives can be (and sadly often is) erroneously viewed in terms of God tallying-up the wrongs and the rights of our lives and rendering a consequential judgment about our eternities.  This may be good IRS accounting, but contrary to this cartooning of the Christian faith (a caricature many among us, nonetheless, hold to), it is not how life with God works.  Here is how God works!

The death and resurrection of Jesus is the prism through which the parable (and all life) must be seen.  That gospel lens reveals that humanity does not earn its needed redemption and deliverance; nor (most astonishing of all) does God accept our rejection of the God-life.  Our redemption, our liberation from opposing God’s will -- that redemption is a gift; and the “Good News” of Christ is that, as with any true gift, we are to receive and take it into our hearts and minds and souls, allowing it to transform us to become what we see in Jesus.  Any experience of punishment on either side of the grave is a matter of our obstinance, our unwillingness and our inability – to receive what we need and cannot provide for ourselves.  This is where the “hell” of our lives resides.  We punish ourselves by voiding or ignoring what God abundantly provides.  This is also the issue where the redeeming new life emerges.  In either case, receiving or rejecting, one does not necessarily wait for death to experience the joy or the agony.

Truth to tell, receiving is not as easy as it seems.  Yes, we can come to the altar rail, extend our hands to hold the Body and Blood of Christ; but truly receiving such a gift requires something more than outward gestures.  Mere mortals like us need to practice taking God’s gift to heart, to take God’s Christ into our very depths, “by faith, with thanksgiving”.[4]

In Christ, we have already been given the gift, but the gift’s full consequence has yet to be fully “consumed” by us in our hearts and minds and bodies.  And the actual hell of our lives rests in our inability and in our unwillingness to receive the transforming, liberating gift of life on God’s terms.  In other words, it ain’t always easy and it certainly is not convenient to be grateful for Easter’s message and reality, but we are asked to keep working on dealing with the gift and living from thanksgiving as opposed to fear.  Practice. Practice. Practice.

Of all of “Dive’s” problems at his death and tormented burial, the issue of there being a “chasm” between him and Lazarus speaks to what I hold as the parable’s central meaning. As Father Abraham so clearly states, there is a “fixed chasm” that separates him and Lazarus.  The “Good News” in Christ is that God has astoundingly built a bridge over the chasm to us.  It is the cross.  And a true sign as to whether we have received the bridge and are moving over it to be in Communion with the Maker of heaven and earth – the outward sign of such transformation is the extent to which we offer bridges to others in Jesus’ Name.

As anyone knows, bridges are not constructed in a day.  So, we work each day to build bridges for those in need – the very bridge we ourselves are in the process of crossing.  That’s how the God-life works.  Sharing the life we have received—either the life from God or the life we make for ourselves.  Amen.

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[1] Luke 6:30/ Matthew 5:42.

[2] Matthew 10:16.

[3] N.T. Wright. Luke for Everyone, p. 200.

[4] The Book of Comon Prayer. the words of “Invitation” from the Eucharistic rite, 365.