+When I was about 8 years old, I developed my own theory of what Hell was like. My grandmother sat somewhat dumbfounded when I told her that Hell—Hades--was seeing everything happening in the world, just like the people in heaven did, but being unable to do anything about it.
Kind of like the rich man in this morning's Gospel.
The past few Sundays we've heard Luke talk a lot about wealth.
A couple of weeks ago it was the Rich fool and his barns, then the shepherd who leaves 99 assets behind to seek out one wandering sheep and the woman who, upon losing one of ten coins, throws a party spending the other nine when the lost one is found.
And then last week, the parable of the shrewd manager who cuts the debts of debtors so they will end up being indebted to him.
This issue of wealth must mean a whole lot to Jesus (or at least Luke), to have so many parables devoted to it.
Now it’s easy to say that Jesus doesn’t care much for the wealthy, preferring instead to spend his time with the poor and destitute---But these are parables and if there's one thing we know about parables it’s that there’s always more to them than meets the eye...
Today we have The Rich Man being tormented in Hades while Lazarus lounges in heaven's embrace. The Rich Man’s torment? Neither Lazarus nor his brothers can hear him as he shouts his pleas and warnings.
The Rich Man has no voice.
Is there anything worse than not being heard?
Of having something to say, and to have no one---no one-- hear you?
No one to listen, no one to consider your view?
The other day a woman called the church office, requesting food from the food pantry. After I told her that her zip code didn’t fall within our catchment area, the defeat in her voice was palpable. She had received our number from a friend and didn't know what else to do, where else to turn. I took a few minutes, looked at the Food Bank website and gave her the numbers for the pantries in her zip code. She was very grateful and said something striking:
“thanks for taking my call. “ “Thanks for listening.”
Think about it---I wasn't
able to give her food from our pantry, I didn't even ensure that she got food. I simply took 3
minutes out of my day to give her some other numbers to call. But she was grateful that I took her call, that I listened to what she had to say. When you’re in a position of needing to access food pantries, you’re rarely heard.
Poor people, to a good portion of our world, simply don't matter.
And that’s the lesson I glean from our stories about wealth this past month. The poor, the needy, the lonely, the lost, the elderly, the injured....they aren't heard, they aren't noticed, they don't matter....unless someone with more
standing, someone with more wealth, someone with MORE reaches out to them, searches for them, listens to them and makes sure they are reached, touched, found and heard.
And this reaching, this listening, this noticing? It's up to US. Not congress, not the upper class, not the famous and filthy rich. Nope. US.
We have a choice: we can be the hoarding farmer longing to build more barns or we can be the searcher of the lost coin. We can be the rich man paying no heed to Lazarus or we can be the shepherd seeking the one out of 99.
We can open our eyes, our ears and our hearts or we can close ourselves off, build a wall and stay firmly on the side of the haves while the Lazaruses of the world stand on the have not side.
Our challenge, our call isn’t to beat ourselves up for having stuff, it’s to bridge the gap between those who have and those who don’t. It’s our Christian duty, it’s the cry of Christ to make sure we hear the cries of those without voice.
As I consider Jesus’ messages to us these past few weeks one thing seems crystal clear:
Money is not a bad thing. Letting money blind us to the needs of others is.
Money isn’t a bad thing, holding onto it for dear life is.
Money isn’t a bad thing. Spending it frivolously while our neighbors go hungry is.
Money isn’t a bad thing, but hoarding it while school children freeze at the bus stop because they don’t have hats, gloves and coats is.
Money isn’t a bad thing. Letting money create a chasm between us and our neighbor, is.
Perhaps you remember this news story of two weeks ago when Good Samaritans helped rescue a man after a fire broke out in a NYC apartment building.
I think we all saw the footage of neighbors
frantically working together to save the life of the unidentified man. The problem was that they were in one building and he was in another. They were separated by a chasm of some 10 feet. With flames shooting out around them the quick-thinking men used a ladder to reach the victim, turning it sideways and creating a makeshift platform between the fire escape and the burning apartment.
I have no idea what the financial situation is of any of these men. They may be rich, they may be poor. I have no idea if theyre honest workers or scheming scoundrels. What I do know is that in that moment nothing—NOTHING—mattered to them except reaching the man in the burning building.
This modern day story helps to make Luke’s point: whatever we trust more than God separates us from God and from love. It creates a chasm as wide as that between the Rich Man and Lazarus. A gap seemingly too wide to ever bridge. But trusting in God and loving of neighbor? When we do that, we close that gap as efficiently and profoundly as the ladder used by two neighbors to save, to love another.
Money isn’t bad, money isn’t good. Money just is. But love of God and love of neighbor? That’s everything. +
No comments:
Post a Comment