18th Sunday After Pentecost Proper 21

September 26, 2010

the Rev. Ken Kroohs

(Amos 6:1a & 4-7; Ps. 146; I Timothy 6: 6-19; Luke 16:19-31)

THE CHASM -DOING WHAT OTHERS CONSIDER EXCESSIVE

St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, High Point, NC

MAY THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH ... AND THE MEDITATIONS OF ALL OUR HEARTS ... BE ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU --- OUR STRENGTH AND OUR REDEEMER AMEN

Throughout this section of Luke’s gospel Jesus speaks about our intentions ... what is in our hearts. Most often He uses our material possessions, money, as the example although Jesus is not limiting the discussion. Rather, Jesus knows us well enough to use what matters most to us ... what we can identify with the easiest.

Of course what Jesus is talking about is the very first commandment ... you shall have no other God before me .. Before Yahweh .... Or to paraphrase ... you shall not place anything in a higher priority than relationship with God. Nothing comes before God ... or so the theory goes.

Let’s examine the Gospel in some detail. This is the only such teaching of Jesus which names a person. Lazarus. You may have heard the rich man was named Dives but that is a mis-translation of the phrase “rich man”

The man lived in a gated community to protect himself from such as Lazarus. He wore purple a sign of great wealth and/or royal connections.

Lazarus was at the gate where the rich man should have seen him. But that does not matter. Notice Abraham does not specifically say: “You received good things and ignored this beggar.” So the linkage, although important, is not the point. If the rich man had thrown Lazarus a bone or two that would not seem to have changed the essence of the teaching.

The symbolism gets even more interesting. The chasm between Lazarus and the rich man .... is the intention to parallel the chasm that existed in the mortal life? The chasm between the rich and the poor?

I once had someone insist to me there were no homeless people in High Point. They insisted that the few who did drift through were at Open Door and Salvation Army. I made two suggestions. We could either pick any place on the railroad and walk from there for a couple miles counting the camps. Or we could approach any police officer and ask them if there are any homeless. The person never took me up on either option. This is a good person but there is a huge chasm between them and the poor. Between their image of the world and the real world.

Most of us can intellectually accept the existence of poor and hungry people, even in High Point, but have never interacted or experienced it enough to fully cross the chasm. The idea that worldwide one person dies every three seconds from very preventable causes such as starvation .... we cannot get our heads around that. The fact that teachers in High Point, NC elementary schools say students come back to school on Monday so hungry they cannot focus ... we cannot emotionally accept.

There is a chasm between us and them .... and Jesus tells us to cross it.

There is a chasm between them and us. A chasm of knowledge, but, let’s be honest, at least to a degree a chasm of indifference, laziness, apathy, and selfishness. Those create a very deep chasm.

Moving on, this story was written at a very interesting time in the development of thought about heaven and hell. Notice I am not suggesting Jesus didn’t know but rather He phrased the story in such a way that the heaven and hell debate did not affect the teaching.

Many Jews believed that if there is an afterlife there is one place, Hades, where everyone goes until the end of time. Not necessarily a place of punishment or reward. The word we translate “torment’ - perfectly good translation from the Greek, originally described testing a coin to see if it was real. Later it became to describe torture used to learn the truth. So we are not necessarily being told about punishment exclusively but learning the painful truth.

That’s important. Back up a bit and notice the rich man called Abraham “father” thereby proclaiming that he, the rich man, was one of the chosen people. And Abraham acknowledged that relationship by calling him “son”. BUT, it doesn’t matter. The painful truth is that such a superficial relationship is not what counts. What counts is the deep connection between us and God that leads us to act as God would have us act. The rich man could have fed Lazarus from the scraps but that still would not have been a minister in the sense of being in relationship with God.

The key to all this comes from First Timothy: There is great gain in godliness ... being in relationship with God .... doing as God would like us to do .... There is a great gain in godliness combined with contentment.

This is not contentment in the sense of laziness. A person can claim they are content by which they mean they are too lazy to do any better!

There is a man who goes to the same gym I go to and we seem to be there often at the same time. He is a nice guy, chats with everyone, will help someone – especially women – learn how to use the machines. Just a nice guy. And someday I expect to see him exercise. It took me a while to realize I could do an hour long weight program, moving from station to station, and never see him actually do anything! He is content with going to the gym. Scripture is not speaking about that kind of contentment.

First Timothy tells us to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. I am not sure how you measure those as you would measure money but that’s the calling. To strive for greater “wealth” in that sense and to be content in those riches.

And the author continues that being wealthy is not a sin. Rather we should not be haughty, we should do good, be rich in good works, generous, ready to share. We are not to set our hopes, as the rich man did, on our material wealth because that can, and will disappear.

The only reason God would look at our check books is to see how we spent our money, not whether the world would consider us wealthy.

So how do we pull all this together? We have the concepts of the 1^st commandment to put God before everything, being in relationship with God, the chasm between us and the world of the poor God sees. What does it mean to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness?

The answer for everyone is different. I have begun to believe the common element is that being in relationship with God, pursuing relationship requires us to do more ... more than the easy things. More than throwing a few scraps to Lazarus. Jesus used the word “chasm” for a reason. Crossing a chasm takes effort.

I have begun to believe that the old saying we should do or give until it hurts is NOT about punishment but about feeling something. If we do not feel what we are doing then that cannot change us, and that is our goal. To be changed. To be better.

Are you changing? Are you content in the way Timothy means? Content in the direction of your life? To be content in that manner requires going the extra mile. Crossing the chasm to serve God by doing until we honest feel it.

So the question becomes, what are we doing or willing to do that is beyond? Do we care enough about what God cares about to go the extra mile?

What do we care enough about to do what others might consider excessive?

We have previous sermons on our website. To read an earlier recent sermon just enter: www.st-christopher.org/sermon.html.

CLICK HERE TO RESPOND: I would enjoy reading your comments about this sermon. Please feel free to discuss content or presentation. (If you wish to use another email system send your comments to: ken@st-christopher.com)