Transcript
Good morning. I would like to start by expressing my gratitude for your hospitality during my visit this morning. I have had a lovely time. There have been many delightful surprises, to which you all have risen to the occasion, which is the sign of a vital and healthy church. I do give thanks for the witness that you are here in the city of Hampton, for the faithful witness that you have been and the work that you have done. I am grateful to the leadership of your rector, Lisa, who is very involved and engaged with me at the diocesan level.
And I am I am thankful for her leadership among you. And I also give, a word of gratitude for the faithful way that you have paid your diocesan pledge, which enables my ministry to other churches in the diocese. So thank you. Thank you for that. This is not a church that keeps me awake at night. And I’m also grateful, grateful for that.
Before I go to preaching, I want to bring a word of greeting from my husband, father Tom Haynes. My husband is the rector of Christ the King Episcopal Church in Tabb, Virginia. And this is why he does not travel with me, which is a good thing. Because he’s with his parish. On Sunday mornings. And his parish has a special ministry of praying for wherever it is the bishop is visiting. I think they think he might need that, although I don’t. I don’t really understand that, but. But at any rate, they will be asking him at each service. This morning where the bishop is so that they can pray for you, and they ask only in return that you pray for them. Christ the King in Tab, Virginia.
And now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be an acceptable offering in your sight. Oh Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.
Recently, a religious leader told the story of a young woman who found life depressing and boring. She went to a therapist, but after several sessions with him, felt that the effort was futile. Then one day she came into the office, her face radiant with excitement.
I have just had the most wonderful day, she exclaimed. This morning I could not get my car started. So I called my minister and asked him if he could drive me to my appointment with you. He said he would, but on the way he had to stop by the hospital and make a call. I went with him and while I was in the hospital, I visited some elderly people in one of the wards. By the time the morning was over, I was higher than a kite. I haven’t felt this good in years.
The therapist quickly responded, well, now we know how to make you happy. Our problem is solved. Now we know the solution to your boredom and depression. Much to his surprise, the woman answered, you don’t expect me to do this sort of thing every week, do you? She just didn’t get it, did she? She just didn’t say that if she would consistently reach beyond herself and engage with others in need, that she might acquire a tool to help her with her mental health. She didn’t understand that kindness toward others could help with separation from joy and tranquility.
The plight of the rich man in today’s gospel is that he doesn’t understand either. He never sees the disparity between himself and Lazarus. Himself, dressed in purple and fine linen, eating well while Lazarus languishes at the gate, starving and an ill health. In fact, we are never told that the rich man ever sees Lazarus until after all fortunes are reversed and he sees Lazarus secure and comforted in the bosom of Abraham, while he himself is in agony and torment in the fires of Hades. And even then he doesn’t see Lazarus for who he really is, a treasured child of Abraham, but still sees him as a lower class citizen or a slave that can be ordered to fetch refreshment for him and dispatch communication to his brothers.
Neither does the rich man seem to be aware of the unbridgeable gulf and chasm that separates him from Lazarus. Abraham is pointed out to him and explained that it is so wide and so deep that no human effort can ever create a way across. And why doesn’t the rich man see these things? What prevents him from seeing Lazarus and his need? From seeing the chasm that separates him from a life that really is a life? What prevents the rich man from seeing that he is concerned only with himself, and that his excessive, self-focused blinds him to the plight of others?
Let’s go back to the first part of this parable, the part where we find Lazarus at the rich man’s gate. He is hungry and covered with sores that ooze, and dogs that come to lick. He is hoping that he might be able to graze on food that drops from the table where the rich man feast, not too far from the gate. Well, you know, the gate is in itself perhaps problematic. Gates are put up to keep things in and keep things out. Gates are put up to satisfy our need for social boundary.
Robert Frost, in his poem Mending Wall, wrestles with the irony of neighbors who longed to have clear boundaries on their neighborliness. He says, on a day we meet to walk the line and set the wall between us once again. Why do we need such boundaries? Perhaps it is because having gates and walls present prevents us from seeing those who are different from us, and maybe not so fortunate as we are from seeing those who might benefit from our kindness and abundance.
In today’s gospel, perhaps the gate served to prevent the rich man from seeing Lazarus and from taking any action that might relieve Lazarus’s suffering, and so blinded to the suffering Lazarus, inwardly focused on his own finery and sumptuous feasting. The rich man fails to open the gate and act. And in death that gate becomes a chasm that cannot be crossed, even if human will and desires it to be that way.
As we have looked at the Gospel of Luke during this season of Ordinary Time this past summer, we have frequently encountered the subject of money and the theme of wealth. The theology in the time of Jesus understood prosperity to be a sign of righteousness and God’s favor and blessing, and understood poverty to be an absence of that favor and blessing. But Jesus consistently turns that theology on its head, emphasizing that wealth in itself is not evil or good, but that it is to be shared, and that the kingdom belongs to the poor. Now, even amid all these noteworthy texts that we looked at this summer, Luke’s dealing with the problem of wealth is most directly and clearly treated in this powerful story today of the rich man and Lazarus. In its context, Jesus is trying to point out to the scribes and Pharisees that those who are outside the boundaries and gates which they have erected, those who are outside bearing the burdens of the laws, bearing the burdens of poverty created by the religious leaders themselves. But alas, the Pharisees did not see, and sometimes neither do we. Or even if we do see, we fail to act to relieve the suffering.
And why is this today? In our culture of instant global communication, we are presented with a great moral challenge. We are presented with the challenge of seeing and then making visible the invisible suffering of the world. But seeing is not enough. We are also challenged to act. And often we fail to act. One wonders today if in the world of internet drama, we are simply invited to feel sorrow, but not to act on that sorrow.
This parable challenges us simply, not simply to share wealth, but to become attentive to the poor and suffering people who are before us, who dwell at our doorstep, or maybe even across town where we cannot see them. They are the suffering women and children in sweatshops who are invisible behind the labels we buy and where. Or the suffering of animals in factory farms who are invisible behind our fast food, or the suffering of workers not paid a fair wage or a fair price for their product, invisible behind our need for convenience. If we are so focused on ourselves and this need for convenience, we will be blind to the suffering of others, even in our churches. If we are so focused on our internal needs and structures, we will not see the one who sits on our doorstep begging acceptance and love.
The call of Christ is to come from behind our blindness and to see, really see, the Lazarus at our gate and act. Theologian John Donohue points out that one of the greatest dangers of wealth is that it causes blindness. In modern times, Lazarus corresponds to the person who begs, but we do not look into his or her eyes lest they make a claim upon our compassion. And who does make a claim on our compassion? Who is at our gate? Who is it that we see just outside the comfortable boundaries that we have erected in order to isolate us from their suffering? To whom does God call us to be attentive? Are we willing to act? Can we move from behind our need for convenience, into lives that are led simply and humbly, for the sake of others.
Many of you are familiar with the work of the great doctor Albert Schweitzer. You might not know that he was also a concert organist and theologian in the beginning of his career, and he gave all of that up to study medicine. And then he gave up a lucrative career in France to take his healing arts to West Africa, where he started a jungle hospital for people who had no medical care. Essentially, the Lazarus at Europe’s doorstep.
Did you know what inspired Schweitzer to leave it all behind and go? He did so upon hearing a sermon on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. This parable was the spark that touched off the revolution in his life. If he had stayed in France, he would have enjoyed a comfortable life. He would have made life a little nicer for people who were already living nice lives. But because of this parable, Schweitzer became a towering inspiration to many of us who have not even met him. Because of this parable, Schweitzer’s name is etched forever among the great heroes and servants of this world because he decided to see. And then he decided to act.
In 1950, Schweitzer paid a visit to America. In Chicago, a group of prominent citizens lined up at the railroad station to greet him. When Schweitzer stepped off the train, they surrounded him with a gushing welcome, and he responded warmly. But then something in the distance caught Schweitzer’s eye, and he excused himself and dashed across the platform. Diving into the crowd, he stopped beside an elderly woman who was staggering under the load of heavy suitcases. With a strong hand, he grabbed the suitcases and beckoned her to follow him. He threaded his way through the crowd and led the woman to her coach. He lifted her suitcases into the overhead rack and wished her a good journey. Then he rushed back to the people who had come to greet him and apologized for keeping them waiting. Somewhat sheepishly, he said, I guess I was just having my daily fun.
Schweitzer found both fun and his greatness in stooping to help other people wherever he found them, wherever their need. That’s what this parable calls us to do. It calls us to strip the scales from our eyes so that we might see, to strip, strip the skins from our hearts so that we might care, and to strip the weights from our feet so that we might go and act. In doing so, we become, at least in part, Jesus for others. And Jesus, of course, is the one who breaches the unbridgeable gap between us and that life. That really is a life.
I’ve said these words to you in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.