+How do you like that Gospel—-Heaven, Hell, awesome comfort, eternal torment. Real uplifting. When I heard this gospel 50 years ago—when I was 8—-it figged me. The God I had learned about in Sunday did not banish us to hellfire and damnation. I knew that.. so conjured my own view of Hell. My grandmother was dumbfounded when I told her that Hell—Hades--was seeing everything happening in the world—-like the people in heaven did—-but being unable to do anything about it.
Just like the rich man in this morning's Gospel.
All the rich man wanted to do was warn his brothers not to place material wealth and status above God and love of neighbor. He wanted them to listen, to hear, to open their ears, their eyes and their hearts to love. Abraham reminds the Rich Man—-they have to learn this themselves. We all have to learn this lesson ourselves and then, as we learn it here on earth, we must live it in all we do so that we can spread it.This is the key of establishing God’s kingdom here on earth—by spreading love —for until all feel the love, none of us will feel it.
Abraham is telling the Rich Man this.But, even while in the torment of knowing the errors of his ways, he still cannot hear what it’s being said.
Can we? Will we?
Luke talks a lot about wealth. Not because Luke thought wealth was bad, but because Luke thought hoarded wealth was bad.
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 tenth 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.
Now it’s easy to say that the Jesus portrayed in Luke’s Gospel doesn’t care much for the wealthy, preferring instead to spend his time with the poor and destitute—but what we’ve read these past weeks are parables and there’s always more to a parable than meets the eye…
At first glance in today’s gospel we have The Rich Man—-an uber consumer and hoarder of wealth—- hindered by his lack of awareness while on earth, and now, in eternal life, tormented that his brothers cannot hear his shouts of warning from the grave.
The Rich Man has no voice.
He is not heard.
Is there anything worse than not being heard?
Of having something to say, and to have no one--- hear you?
No one to listen, no one to consider your point of view?
Several years ago I received a phone call from a woman requesting food from the Good Shepherd food pantry. Because the Food Bank has very clear rules for food distribution (to make sure all geographic regions of WNY have equal access to food) I told her that her zip code didn’t fall within our catchment area. The defeat in her voice was palpable. She didn't know what else to do, where else to turn. I assured her there was a solution and took a few minutes to match her zip code with a food pantry. She was very grateful and said something striking...so striking it has stayed with me these years.
“thanks for taking my call, pastor.” “Thanks for listening.”
Think about it---I wasn’t able to give her food from the pantry, I didn't even guarantee that she would get food. I simply took 3 minutes out of my day to point her in the right direction. Yet she was so grateful. Grateful that I took her call, that I listened to her, because 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 wealthy, 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 remain the have nots, the heard nots, the matter nots.
Our challenge 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 longing of Christ that 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. Letting money separate us from our neighbor and our God, is.
My friends, whatever we trust more than God separates us from God.
It creates a chasm as wide as that between the Rich Man and Lazarus.
A gap seemingly too wide to ever bridge.
But when we lead with God, when we trust in God and when we love our neighbor by seeing her, hearing her and respecting her, that gap will be closed, that chasm will be bridged and the love of God, spread.
And that, my friends, is the whole point.
Amen.
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