Pentecost 19C – September 29, 2013
(Or St. Michael and All Angels, below)

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15-As the Babylonians are about to break through the walls in 588 B.C. Zedekiah asks Jeremiah why he’s be prophesying the exile. Jeremiah responds by saying he’s so certain that God will restore the fortunes of Zion that he’s even bought a plot of land. Jeremiah the speculator.

OR

Amos 6:1a, 4-7 – Amos warns those who lie on ivory beds, lounge on couches, who sing idle songs, anoint themselves with the finest oils and drink plenty of wine (the rich), that they will be the first to be carried into exile.

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16-This is the “Eagle’s Wings” psalm: You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord and abide in the presence of the Almighty, he will deliver you from the hand of the fowler, under his wings you will find refuge. You will not fear the terror of the night or the arrow that flies by day, though thousands fall around you…

OR

Psalm 146- Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish. 5Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God who … executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry… lifts up those who are bowed down… who watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow…

1 Timothy 6:6-19 – We brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it (Fits with the rich man and Lazarus). The love of money is the root of all evil. Be rich in good works, generosity and sharing.

Luke 16:19-31- Parable of the Rich man and poor Lazarus

OR

St. Michael and All Angels – September 29

Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3-Michael, one of the chief princes, helps Daniel. Michael arises and many who sleep in the dust of the earth awake.

Psalm 103:1-5, 20-22-Bless the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding.

Revelation 12:7-12-Michael and his angels fight against the dragon as war breaks out in heaven.

Luke 10:17-20-The seventy return. Jesus says, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”

The Rich Man and Lazarus

The parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus has been questioned as a parable. Even Ambrose recognizes it is a narrative. It is not introduced as a parable or a simile, “The kingdom of God is like…” Jeffrey (“Luke”) points out, if it is a parable, it is the only parable in which a character is named. This story is unique to Luke’s gospel.

We cannot consider this parable without considering what comes before it. In Chapter 15, the Pharisees and teachers of the law criticize Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners. He responds with the story of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son(s). God cares about the lost. The Pharisees are like the resentful elder brother. Then in chapter 16, last week we had the Unrighteous Steward/Shrewd Manager, in which the owner (God?) rewards the unrighteous for using the owner’s dirty money for good. Next comes the Lazarus story, but not without an interlude:

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God. ‘The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped. ‘Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. (Luke 16:14-18)

This is important information. Jeffrey says, “There is little in Jesus teaching anywhere to warrant the self-affirming culture of the prosperity gospel.” Like the preachers of prosperity doctrine today, the Pharisees saw their wealth as a clear sign of God’s blessing. They saw others’ poverty as a sign of God’s judgment. Jesus’ sayings about wealth and poverty are not designed to push white guilt buttons. Instead, they fly in the face of those who would see wealth as some confirmation of superiority. God loves the poor. Don’t assume being wealthy or being a child of Abraham gets you anything. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” (Luke 3:8) “Blessed are the poor.”

We must hear this next story in light of what Jesus says here. The Pharisees are about money according to Luke’s Jesus. And although the Pharisees claim to be about keeping the law, they have missed the point: loving God and neighbor. Caring for the poor. Even the comment about divorce is about poverty, since they believed a man could put a woman away by simply writing a certificate of divorce, leaving the woman in a tough financial spot.

Enter the rich man. With purple garb and linen paraments, he lives much like the wealthy condemned in Amos. Meanwhile Lazarus is poor, starving to death and diseased. He is dressed in sores, which the dogs lick. Nice. Jesus has a gift for vivid imagery. (If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out…) Lazarus longs to eat the rich man’s scraps. I’m mindful here of all the food we scrape into the garbage in American society.

They both die. Lazarus is carried into Abraham’s bosom. The unnamed rich person goes to Hades. (No Purgatory just yet in Christian theology.) This must weigh heavily on the ears of Jesus’ wealthy religious listeners. Poor Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham. The wealthy are not. Why? We soon find out.

As Lazarus longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table, now the rich man longs to suck a drop of water from Lazarus’ finger. Abraham responds. Jesus puts these words in the mouth of father Abraham himself: “Remember, nameless rich dude, you got the good stuff in your lifetime and Lazarus got a raw deal, so now it’s flip-flopped,” or words to that effect.

The great flip-flop. Richard Krabill calls it “The Upside-down Kingdom.” Those who are rich in this life are poor in the next. Those who are poor in this life are rich in the next. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. It’s the same message as the Magnificat. “The rich he has sent empty away…” And the Beatitudes.

“Oh, and by the way,” Abraham continues, “the chasm (χάσμα is a hapax legomenon, one of 686 words that appear only once in the New Testament) fixed between you two makes it impossible.” While one cannot derive an infallible metaphysical map of the afterlife from this story of Jesus, one can say it is hard to arrive at a theology of universal salvation in Luke’s gospel. There are, in this story at least, two eternal destinations. Between them is an uncrossable chasm. If, however you want to use this to form an popular American revivalist theology, brace yourself. What gets you to Abraham’s bosom? We’re never told that Lazarus was a saint. Or had faith. He’s just poor. The assumption seems to be there is a flip flop in the eschaton that has nothing to do with faith or works, just wealth. It just is. Be careful not to read Paul into Luke. Paul isn’t Luke, and Luke is not Paul.

The fact that this story is so edgy leads me to believe it is less layered and edited than other things. It has not been harmonized by time and church politics. This story is peculiar to Luke. The other three canonical gospel writers didn’t know it, or chose not to include it for whatever reason. When I read stories like this, I get a chill up my spine. I think we’re hearing the unedited voice of the Galilean healer. His voice echoes down through time. “Love your enemy.””It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” This is most certainly the un-cut Jesus. The no-spin zone.

So where’s the good news? Well, this is good news… if you’re poor. And that’s what Jesus was called to preach, according to Luke (4:18). “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…” Turns out that its bad news for the rich. If this theology bothers you, welcome to the club. Take it up with Jesus. Don’t shoot the messenger. And preachers: Don’t soften the blow. Jesus was the masterful communicator. The edginess makes it memorable. Makes it stick. We’ll be lucky if they’re quoting our sermons two days from now, let alone two millennia. Let it sting. It’s supposed to sting. If you explain it away you rob it of its power.

But hear it in the context of Luke’s overarching message. It’s clear why Jesus is telling this story. Only five verses prior to this parable we’re told the Pharisees were lovers of money, and they ridiculed him. (Luke 16:14) And why would they ridicule him? Well, he’s already made the point over and over again that their dogged adherence to the law doesn’t guarantee them a place in heaven.

And therein lies the good news. Jesus’ critique of the Pharisaic movement is that successful lawkeeping fills you with self-righteousness, which is the true enemy. Humility is what is called for when one hangs around with the Alpha and the Omega (as we’ll be reminded in Luke 18:9-14). Jesus, and later Paul, make this clear by raising the ante. The law is not as easy to keep as one might think. You have heard it said, “Do not commit adultery,” but I say to you: If you even look at a woman lustfully, you’ve already committed adultery in your heart.

Paul does much the same, and thus many take him to be a prude. In fact, his point, made over and over again, is that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. His long list is designed to build humility, not walls. The bar is way too high. The only way to be saved by the law is to keep the whole law. And since that’s impossible (if anyone could have been saved by the law, it would have been me, says Paul), we’re all sinners, and therefore on the same playing field. There is no hope if not for grace. It’s fourth down and 10 million yards to go. Romans 1 is scathing, but it is followed by Romans 2 (which all too often gets skipped): “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” (Romans 2:1)

As Robert Farrar Capon says, “If the world could have been saved by successful living, it would have been tidied up long ago.” The Back-to-Eden Program is bankrupt. Religion in the cloak of Morality has too often demonized the kind, the disenfranchised, those whose skin or gender was wrong, and exterminated those whose religion was inconvenient. The religious impulse means well in trying to recreate paradise, but it always ends in disaster.

In the end the rich man asks Abraham to send someone to warn his sons about this great flip flop. Again Abraham says no. They have the Law and the Prophets. Another dig. Even if someone were to come back from the dead, they are simply too bone-headed to get it.

Here Luke tips his hand. God is not about bookkeeping. God is about raising the dead. No amount of do-gooding will get us where we need to be. There is no indication that the rich man would escape Hades if he had fed the poor man and tended to his sores.

So, a better question (than who is going to hell) might be, “What do we do with our wealth, since Jesus is risen?” Some have suggested God loves the poor more than the rich. Of course God loves everyone, but perhaps there is a kernel of truth to God’s preferential option for the poor. Luke certainly seems to dwell heavily on God’s concern for the least, the last and the lost.

Once at a staff meeting, Kerry Nelson (now pastor at Faith in Bellaire, Texas) recalled an interview on the Tonight Show with the mother of the year. Johnny Carson set her up with a trick question: “As a mother with 12 children, do you have any favorites? Do you love some more than others?””Of course I do,” she said, surprising everyone in the audience.
· I love the one who is sick, until she is better.
· I love the one who is far away, until he comes home.
· I love the one who is hurting, until she has healed.

God is like a loving mother, who always love the one who is lost, hurting, sick, hungry.