16th Sunday after Pentecost Sermon
Yesterday I made a run to the Post Office to mail a package and picked up a couple sheets of stamps. They had one for the new James Webb Space Telescope. I’m a big astronomy fan, so that’s a no brainer and you’ve likely seen some of the stunning photos it’s been sending back since its launch last Christmas Day. In the recent news are photographs of Neptune’s rings and clear views of ½ of its 14 moons.
Then I did what many of us do, I followed a rabbit hole down the internet and looked up Voyager 1 to see what it was up to. There were two Voyager spacecrafts launched in 1977 to explore the giant planets as far out as Neptune. Some of us remember that in 1977. Some of us weren’t born yet and Voyager has been flying away from us for your whole lives. The launches went swimmingly and the nuclear batteries are STILL running. Voyager 1 is now more than 14 billion miles away, about four times beyond Pluto. It takes 21 hours for radio signals to get back to us, traveling at the speed of light. Voyager 1 is now beyond the influence of the sun and is in interstellar space – a place where literally nothing, not even Captain Kirk, has gone before. In about 40,000 years Voyager 1 will drift within 9 trillion miles of a star which just might have the conditions to support some kind of life.
When it gets there, intelligent life might intercept little Voyager 1 and find the Golden Record inside; a gold-plated copper disk. I probably knew something about that 45 years ago but I had forgotten its contents. On it are diagrams of DNA, the photo of a nursing mother, an island in the South Pacific, and a 1970’s house in California. There are earth-sounds like crashing waves and wind and trees and cars. And music from around the world. There are greetings in 55 languages to whomever happens to be listening. I really didn’t remember that part and it is surprisingly moving. You can listen to them all online.
Carl Sagan, the astronomer from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was scrambling to find all the language speakers in town. As it turned out, it was a child’s voice which said in English, “Hello from children of planet Earth.” Each different language speaker chose what they wanted to say to the cosmos. There is “How are you?” in Korean. And “We greet you, great ones. We wish you longevity,” in Zulu. The most impressive thing to me as I listened, was a very common thread of greeting, welcome, wishes for peace and health and well-being and happiness. As a human species, we recognize goodness and generosity and light and desire that for everyone. That was a striking commonality. We heard it expounded in the letter to Timothy: Pursue godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness, be rich in good work and ready to share. We would like visitors from another star system to know those things about us.
On the flip side of that, which we hear in both Jeremiah and Luke, are representations which were likely not included on Voyager’s Golden Record: Jerusalem being besieged and laid waste, Lazarus’ wounds being licked by dogs or the agony of flames in Hades for the “rich” man. And if we think that’s too metaphoric, we could include our own pictures of someone at the top of the exit ramp off Highway 16 sitting under a tarp in the rain with a cardboard sign asking drivers for money. Or mothers in Somalia wailing for their starving children. We might not want to claim that part of the story to the listeners from beyond who were greeted in Mandarin: “Hope everyone’s well. We are thinking about you all. Please come here to visit when you have time.”
The Hebrews in Jeremiah’s time weren’t in any worse shape than the world today is; think of the horrors in Gaza and war crimes unfolding in Ukraine. Jerusalem was under siege by the armies of Babylon and Jeremiah was in prison. The field he was to purchase was already in enemy hands, so it was functionally worthless. Jeremiah’s dire prophecies that we’ve been hearing the past several weeks are on the verge of being fulfilled by the final siege and total destruction of Jerusalem. Soldiers plundered national treasures and everything of any value, sacred and secular. Dead bodies littered the streets; children were begging for bread. The skilled workers and artisans had been deported to Babylon leaving the poor to fend for themselves amidst violence, disease and famine. [Dan Clendenin] Violence is increasing in our country and around the world, protests turn deadly in Iran, Hurricane Fiona has devastated Puerto Rico again and the Colorado River, which provides water for 40 million people and 5 million acres of farmland,is drying up. We might also ask, “Is there any word from the Lord?”
Amid all the details Jeremiah gives us to assure that we know that this land sale is a legitimate legal transaction, put in an earthenware jar for long-term safekeeping, we get a puzzling proclamation of good news and hope… Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.
We may wonder where the hope is in Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus (NOT the brother of Martha and Mary from John’s gospel). It’s a scary story; not one for bedtime recitation and it’s not found on the Golden Record. It’s terrifying and is a well-traveled story, existing in several cultures and many versions. Fred Craddock says at least seven versions of it appear in rabbinical sources and many scholars trace it back to Egypt, where stories of the dead abounded.
Those who would interpret these verses literally from Luke to strike fear in the hearts of nonbelievers so that altar call numbers will increase need to remember: it’s a parable, not a CNN eyewitness account. It is a story of how God works. Arland Hultgren places it in his chapter called “Parables of Exemplary Behavior” along with the Good Samaritan. This parable speaks of the dangers deriving from the love of wealth.
The rich man isn’t portrayed as being particularly wicked, but inattentive, blind to the needs of others. And money isn’t portrayed as being evil; in fact, we know it can be used to great good. It could have healed and saved Lazarus. What we have is a story of the great chasm between the have’s and the have not’s and the spiritual peril we are in when we keep our distance from another in need. Martin Luther King spoke about this parable in a speech in 1965. He reminds us that Dives, a Latin name for the rich man, “didn’t go to hell because he was rich. Jesus never made a universal indictment against all wealth. Dives went to hell…because he passed by Lazarus every day and never really saw him. Dives went to hell because he allowed Lazarus to become invisible…because he failed to use his wealth to bridge the gulf that separated him from his brother Lazarus. In fact, he didn’t even realize that Lazarus was his brother.”
This week Pastor Steve Gernaas-Holmes had this to say in his blog: “Images of heaven and hell are about the moral universe, not the physical one. But for you literalists, listen up: Jesus mentions only twice what you think of as hell, an afterlife of punishment for bad behavior: therich man and Lazarus and the Great Judgment in Matthew 25 (vv 35-46). Both times, notice how you end up in hell: by ignoring the poor. It’s not your beliefs, or your sex life, or anything else; it’s how you treat the poor… Because God is in everyone; when you distance yourself from the unsavory you are far from God. Heaven is where everybody [can be]. Hell is where only some people are. You choose.”
If we look past those whose needs make us uncomfortable or guilty, we might see ourselves as the rich man, caring more for ourselves than another. Or some see themselves as Lazarus, wanting to be seen, acknowledged, assisted, but pretty much doomed to a life of scraps, sores and isolation. Both these views are grim and without hope; we’re doomed either way. But there is another group in this parable and perhaps we can see ourselves in them – the brothers. Therein lies the hope. We DO have Moses and the prophets, including Jeremiah and Jesus. We can listen to them. We have not been left to ourselves; we don’t have to make it on our own.
Buy up that plot of land in this place of desolation, Jeremiah, even when the enemy is at the door. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land. It was the Promised Land in Israel; the greatest hope. Just when it appears that there is no hope for tomorrow, Jeremiah makes a hope-filled, trust-filled statement about God’s intentions for Israel and its story, which will, against all appearances, go on. There will be homecoming and joy once again. Take hold of the life that really is life through praying, working and giving for the establishment of God’s kingdom through being rich in good works, generous and ready to share.
That is the humanity that is portrayed on the Golden Record; we remember that the completeness of our own lives and the condition of our souls depends on the health and wellbeing of the entire flock. We are incomplete without each other. The greetings on Voyager and the pictures and diagrams and sounds portray a world that recognizes that our humanity and salvation is caught up in each other and that is something to celebrate.
Peggy Farmer wrote in Exploratory Surgery of the Soul that if we are to usher in a new era, [one that we would like interstellar visitors to see], the foundation of that era needs to be the unity, oneness and deep desire for the collective well-being of our entire planet. We cannot operate in isolation without meeting the needs of Dives and must come together as one family with a divine intent to end the suffering of so many and collectively heal our beloved planet. She cautions that we can only do this when we set aside our judgments, separations, threats, fears, hatred and “what’s in it for me” mentality. That’s the message from Moses and the prophets. Lazarus is our brother and sister. And we DO have ears to hear.
The 55 languages on the Golden Record are words not of separation, but of global community. Across all languages, traditions, faiths and cultures, there is a desire for peace, for living in unity with one another and assuring that needs are met for all through generosity, compassion, and eyes to really see the other, being rich toward God and our neighbors at the gate. It begins here (head) and here (heart) and here (hands). Buy the plot of land, trusting in the promise and hope of the incredible and unstoppable love of God. In Bengali: “Hello. Let there be peace everywhere.”