16th Sunday after Pentecost Sermon

Compared to almost everyone in the world, I have always been rich. Oh, not the purple linen of our gospel reading kind of rich, but rich beyond what most people in the world could imagine. I have always had a place to live. I have always had shoes. I have always had food. I have always had access to clean water. I have always been able to see a doctor when I needed one. All that said, there was a time in my life when I couldn’t afford dental work and so my only choice was to have my sore and sick tooth pulled out. There were times when I reviewed my budget spreadsheet every day to make sure I could pay our bills and that there would be food on the table through the end of the month. And there were many months when feeding my small son healthy food meant that I ate 19 cents a box macaroni and cheese for dinner – and yes, he wanted the blue box mac and cheese too!

And there was that most heartbreaking time when my little boy, a child who came into this world happy, wanting what he had rather than wanting what he didn’t, really, really wanted something. It was a motorcycle tricycle – something he called a mokie-cyckie – and he wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything. Or at least that’s what it seemed like to me. I imagine his wanting was magnified in my mind because that mokie-cyckie was something I simply could not afford.

And because he rarely asked for anything, not being able to run out and buy him that one thing he wanted, well, it just about broke my heart. But you know, when I explained to him that I was not going to be able to buy the much wanted mokie-cyckie, he said to me… “It’s ok mama. We are not rich of money but we are rich of love.”

Whether it be love or money, I have always been rich.

When we hear a story like the story of Lazarus and the purple linen wearing rich man, I think we are tempted to see it as a story of judgment. A story of what will happen to the self-absorbed rich people who don’t pay attention to the poor people in this life, and as a result, are condemned to burn in hell for all eternity. We’re tempted to see it as a story of good and bad, right and wrong, heaven and hell. So while it is certainly true that ignoring the suffering in the world is a terrible, terrible thing, I think there is so much more than judgment for us in this story.

Is there anyone in this story you can identify with? It’s difficult, isn’t it? While we all have surely known suffering, I cannot imagine that any of us have experienced the kind of life poor Lazarus had. And while there is great wealth among us, I haven’t encountered anyone in this community who is so blatantly unconcerned with the suffering in the world that they would simply disregard someone at their doorstep. The choices in the story are extreme, so it’s hard to find our place in it. Hard, that is, until we remember that the rich man wanted Lazarus to go to his five brothers and warn them to change their ways, lest they come to the same tortuous end he had come to. I

think that’s the place we can enter into the story. I think we are akin to the brothers, the ones who are still alive and well, still enjoying our wonderfully blessed lives, and still able to use what we have to make a difference in the world.

You see, back in Jesus’ day, people believed that the amount of money and the number of material things they had, reflected God’s favor and blessing. If you had a lot, it was because God had blessed you a lot. If you had little it was because God didn’t bless you so much. The “prosperity gospel” of our current age is nothing new. It has always been a convenient way to think when the suffering in the world is something we don’t want to look at, don’t want to engage, or simply can’t bear to take in. When we imagine that it’s God’s will that some are rich and some are poor, or it’s God’s will that some have enough food and some do not, or it’s God’s will that some can get the care they need and some cannot, we no longer have any responsibility for the ones who are suffering.

Or maybe we don’t blame it on God’s will, maybe we blame the people who are suffering because they dropped out of school or got addicted to drugs or got pregnant before they were married. While it isn’t likely that sort of thinking pervades this particular community, virtually any community, any of us can be tempted to look for a reason to distinguish someone in dire circumstances from ourselves. Having a reason to point to that is outside the circumstances of our own lives – they didn’t work or study hard enough, they had a bad accident, they came from a broken family, they grew up poor – having a reason, whether or not that reason is legitimate, means we aren’t the same as they are, so we don’t need to worry about those dire circumstances becoming our own.

It’s understandable, really. But it isn’t helpful. Because as it turns out, the idea that terrible things happen for a reason or because it is God’s will, is a very bad idea. I do not believe for a moment that everything happens for a reason. What reason could there be for babies starving or children being abused? What reason could there be for children in a classroom or people at a Bible Study, or a family having dinner at McDonald’s being gunned down? There is no God-given reason for so very many things, things that CERTAINLY are not God’s will. God’s will is love, and anything that is not of love is not of God. Period.

It was easy for the rich man not to love or even care about Lazarus. He simply chose not to see him. He didn’t have to actively hate Lazarus in order for Lazarus not to mar his sumptuous world, he only had to turn away. Because in refusing to see Lazarus, he dehumanized and disappeared him. In refusing to see Lazarus, he didn’t have to worry about the responsibility that comes when compassion stirs in us, and we find that we need to actually do something to change unjust circumstances – much like what you’re doing through your Safe Parking initiative. The problem for the rich man wasn’t his money. The problem is the blindness the money allowed him. He used his money to put up a wall between Lazarus and himself, so he didn’t have to see the injustice at his doorstep. But money can be used to make injustice visible rather than invisible, and when it is used that way, it becomes a tool for God’s good work in the world.

It’s convenient, isn’t it, that this story comes to us just as we begin the Annual Campaign to fund the mission and ministry of St John’s in 2026. “Don’t make money an idol!” “Use your money to further the kingdom of heaven.” “Take care of the people less fortunate than you by giving your money to the church.” Yes, my dears, we can make scripture say pretty much anything we want it to say, but none of those things are the point of this story – neither is how much money you give the point of your annual campaign. Like all parables, this story gives us glimpses into the Kingdom of God, into heaven on earth, into the eternal life that is now. It isn’t helpful to hear this story as a description of what will happen to us in the afterlife if we don’t properly behave in the here and now. Not because it doesn’t matter how we behave here and now, but precisely because it does. This isn’t a story about the afterlife, it’s a story about the here and now life.

Your life, my life, our life together in God’s unspeakably beautiful and broken world.

So you see, this isn’t a so much a story of how you use your money, as it is a story about relationships. It does have important things to say about the way we deal with our money, but the more important teaching is about the way we deal with each other. If this story makes us uncomfortable, that’s good. We don’t often hear stories that are as vivid and convicting as this one is, but Luke shows us time and again that Jesus cared deeply for the poor and that we are to do the same. This is a story we need to hear, not because we need to be reminded of what terrible sinners we are, but because it shows what happens when we take our beautiful and precious lives, or anyone else’s beautiful and precious life, for granted.

This story allows us to see how impoverished we rich people can become when we stop looking, when we don’t see God’s goodness and grace and love all around us. Money doesn’t make us bad people, but it certainly makes it easy for us to put a lot of distance between ourselves and the “other.” And when we allow too much distance between ourselves and the “other,” we lose sight of each other, and I think we lose sight of God’s love for all people, especially the ones who are hardest to look at.

I believe with all my heart that we live in a state of forgiveness and that no matter what we do, we cannot make God love us, nor can we make God not love us. Love is who God is. Love is what God does. But God’s forgiveness doesn’t take away our responsibility to see one another and to care for one another and to love one another. I actually believe that the only genuine response to God’s boundless love for us, is for us to love right back, and in ever widening, radical and authentic ways. What might that mean for you?

My dears, the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Eternal life is now. And we come most alive when we take our place in God’s great story and participate in God’s good work in the world. God can work to overcome injustice and hatred and fear mongering and poverty, through each and every one of us. The whole wide world is just waiting for you to find your place in it, and oh what a joy that will be!  Not just for you, but for the God who loves you and wants abundantly more for you than you could ever ask or imagine. Amen.