+From Wednesday’s Buffalo News: A lawyer who admitted Tuesday to stealing 2.7 million dollars from his clients in a complicated web of schemes, pleaded guilty to 33 felony counts as he admitted to fleecing 23 clients and loan agencies.
The reason? To finance an opulent mansion he was building in Orchard Park.
What would cause someone to commit such fraud? Well, perhaps DA Frank Sedita summed it up best when he said the lawyer’s motive was, “good old fashioned greed.”
Greed: an excessive desire for more.
This man’s greed caused him to a) break the law; b) take advantage of clients who, according to court records, “struggled financially as they waited for verdicts or settlements in their cases.”
Even though already wealthy, this man’s excessive desire for more caused him to lose sight of right and wrong, to disrespect his clients and to violate the trust they placed in him.
His being wealthy wasn’t what caused his problems, it was his crazy desire for more which became the problem. Because, that desire, when left unchecked, can become an obsession and obsessions distract and derail us. The distraction away from the good is what tripped him up.
And it’s this—this distraction away from the good-- which really gets Jesus’ blood boiling.
Jesus doesn’t care if we’re rich or poor, God isn’t interested in our debt to income ratio. God wants us—Jesus tells us---to take care of one another—to respect one another.
The Rich man, as we heard in Luke this morning didn’t do this. He didn’t treat Lazarus with love. He didn’t treat Lazarus with respect. I’m not even sure, in life, if the rich man ever even noticed Lazarus.
But after death? Well then the rich man noticed Lazarus—noticed him in paradise while the rich man? The rich man sat in exile, in torment, far from paradise.
Seems pretty cut and dry doesn’t it…..suffer in this life , get rewarded in the afterlife. Be rewarded in this life, suffer in the afterlife.
Seems like the rich are doomed and the poor will be exalted. But to think that is to only consider this story at face value, to assume that the primary issue is wealth, that somehow God doesn’t want us to be wealthy.
But wealth isn’t what this parable is about. This parable is about worth and how, when we find worth in things and in stuff, in power and prestige instead of finding worth and dignity in all whom we encounter-we lose our way.
The lawyer I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon appears to have lost his way. So did the rich man.
You see, somehow, when we get distracted by money, we get lost, and before we know it, we’ve cut ourselves off from God, stuck on the wrong side of the chasm, the wrong side of the divide.
How do we get so lost? Most of us here today don’t have to worry about being distracted by riches, but we have plenty of things to distract us---wanting what we want and wanting it now. Worrying about what we don’t have. We get lost when those things—the worries and the wants-- take priority in our lives.
So I don’t think this Gospel is about wealth at all. I think it’s about being aware. About seeing what’s going on around us and responding to it. When Jesus is railing against wealth he isn’t saying, being rich is bad. He’s saying, being blind to need is bad. Being deaf to need is bad.
Being unaware is what’s bad.
The Rich Man didn’t notice Lazarus until he needed something. Lazarus wasn’t another human being to the Rich Man, he was a means to an end. He was a servant. He was a slave. The Rich Man, if he ever looked at Lazarus at all, certainly didn’t see Christ in him. The Rich Man respected a lot of things—money, power and prestige but he forgot to respect the one thing we are commanded to respect: each other.
The Rich Man couldn’t , for all his riches, see what was right under his nose.
And there’s the problem.
If we don’t see what’s around us, then how will we ever find our way to God? If we’re so caught up in worries about money—---too much, not enough, whatever--if we let our concern about money or power or prestige take our focus away from seeking God in all we do, then we’re on the Rich Man side of the chasm, aren’t we? If we stay focused on the stuff of this world then we remain on the other side of the great divide, far apart, making it seem as if God is unreachable.
But God is never unreachable. God doesn’t hide from us, we hide from God. When we fail to see Christ in those around us, when we fail to offer assistance, regardless of how meager it may seem to us, we hide from God.
Now, this may not sound like a stewardship sermon, but it is. Because when we really notice one another, when we see Christ in all whom we encounter, when we, out of the love we garner from this community become strong enough to respect the dignity of every human being, no matter how challenging that may seem, we’ve hit the jackpot. Then we’re rich. And our job, once we receive such riches, is to give back.
Not because we have to, but because we want to.
So, listen carefully to our stewardship speakers, reflect on what this place has meant to you and then help us to continue this work, help us to be who you want us to be. Offer as much of yourself as you can. For in giving---of time, talent and treasure-- we bridge the gap between us and God. We bridge all divides.
In giving we arrive in the land God promised, a land flowing with hope and promise, a land where love of God and love of neighbor are embraced and lived. +
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