September 29,2013
“Only love will be big enough to hold all the pain of this world”
What do we come to church to hear? What did they want to hear from Jesus?
What type of sermon do we like the best…the one that makes us feel good or the one that disturbs us…
What words best stay with us and help to grow as we try to get through the week?
Or….
Maybe I am asking the wrong questions.
What does God want us to hear this week? What do we need to hear? The starting point for every prayer, every sermon must come from our relationship with our God and our neighbour in the here and now. This brings us to today.
On one hand we have Timothy’s reading that asks us to lead a good life, a faithful life , compassionate and gentle.
and on the other hand we have the Lazarus story ..the rich and the poor who stand in stark contrast to each other….
It would be all too easy to stick to Timothy’s reading and speak of the faithful life in gentle phrases that comfort us. But to be a follower of Jesus, we need to sit with the full message of the gospels…..which include those themes that disturb us into growth.
Every relationship brings those moments where we have to ask the hard questions…what could I have done better, given more, loved more selflessly. If we do not ask those questions the love will die….
As I sat trying to listen to what Jesus was saying, I knew there was another way to listen to it. It was not as simple as good news for the poor and bad news for the rich. Besides to focus on the rich seemed to exclude most of us as we are good souls trying to help others, and I did not want to be the poor one…..so I prayed some more.
Prayer comes from the heart, long after the study of scripture…..
So Jesus said why not look at it from the perspective of the rich man, the poor man, and then those 5 brothers left behind……see where that takes you…..
- Do not think about the parable, live and breathe the relationships.
- Do not limit yourself to one notion of RICH and one sense of BEING POOR….
- I call you to prayer to be stretched beyond what is safe and comfortable…
THE RICH MAN
I do not think this man was intentionally mean to Lazarus. He probably did not wake up each morning and deliberately try to hurt others. He reminds me of many who we refer to today as “entitled”. I deserve this way of life. I am somehow “owed” these comforts. I take care of me first.
Is his greatest weakness that he did not share his wealth? Or, perhaps that he chose not to SEE what was happening around him? Did he even know that Lazarus was outside his very home?
Before I go on, I want to add that this sermon and reading could be completely focused on the terrible FINANCIAL inequality between the rich and poor of our world community.
We need to address these issues, we need to confront the causes and propose solutions. While keeping this in mind, I want to bring other perspectives to RICH AND POOR…..to help touch our lives close to home.
This parable challenges us not simply to share wealth but to become attentive to the poor and suffering persons who are before us, who dwell at our doorstep or, more likely, in another part of town where we do not see them if we do not want to.
.”Rich” and “poor” are not left as vague generalities but are depicted as two men, one inside the gate of abundance and one outside. Their close proximity stresses the fact that Lazarus seems invisible to the rich man.
This text presents us with the great moral challenge of seeing, and then making visible, the invisible suffering of the world. Indeed, this may be one of our most important moral challenges today.
Let us pause and give face to the poor in our own lives.
- Your child ( old or young) that always needs a bit more time than his sibling
- The woman who needs a complement to boost her self esteem
- The person who needs you to listen to one more story when you do not have an extra moment to give
- The spouse who needs an extra word of understanding/reassurance at this point in your life together
- The teenager …well ,who is just being a teenager
- The member of your community who is transitioning and is finding change hard
- ALL OF US WHO ARE IN NEED AND CAN’T EVEN NAME IT
In our busy lives, how many times have we been the RICH PERSON who just did not see the face of one in need right before our very eyes?
When the rich man asks for a second chance, he is told it is too late. Not because God is vindictive, but more because the damage to the relationship has been done.
There is mention of the GREAT GULF OR CHASM that cannot be crossed over. It is TOO LATE.
WHERE ARE THE GULFS IN OUR LIVES? .THE POSSIBLY TOO LATE MOMENTS?
- As they are walking out the door slamming it shut behind them
- As they slip into never ending silence
- As they turn to a quick fix to swallow their problem
- As we bury ourselves under mounds of paralyzing guilt
…let us move from the RICH MAN FOR A MOMENT to the heart and being of LAZARUS…
- Step out of your head, do not think about Lazarus…
- be Lazarus…..FEEL HIS POVERTY,
- Can you even name your poverty?
- REMEMBER WHEN YOU CALLED OUT IN NEED during your life and it went unanswered.
- You became invisible to someone who should have been there for you
- Have you ever brought it to your prayer?
In reality, our life moves us from being the rich man some days to being the poor one on others. This is true in our families, our communities and in our world. Life can be like one giant TV, with one click of the remote we navigate to a new site or a new channel, avoiding the pain…remember we are ENTITLED to feel good.
So, too, we have become invisible .to each other on a larger scale as well. …
And as a church community .we need to take time to name the gulfs of our world…as we do each Sunday with our Minute for Mission
- the suffering of women and children in sweatshops, who are invisible behind the labels we buy;
- the suffering of animals in factory farms, who are invisible behind our fast food;
- the suffering of the suspect who is tortured behind locked doors to calm our cancerous fears?
- We live within political and economic systems that feed upon the sufferings of others, all the while keeping those sufferings invisible.
SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? WHAT ARE WE BEING CALLED TO IN TERMS OF QUALITY RELATIONSHIPS?
Johann Baptist Metz has called our attention to invisible suffering. For Metz, such attentiveness lies at the heart of Christian spirituality.
He invites us into “a God-mysticism/ a relationship with
- an increased readiness to perceive, a mysticism of open eyes that sees more and not less.
- It is a mysticism that especially makes visible all invisible and inconvenient suffering,
- and—convenient or not—pays attention to it and takes responsibility for it, for the sake of a God who is a friend to human beings.”2
The call of Christ is to refuse to live any longer AS THINGS ARE. DO SOMETHING ABOUT OUR RELATIONSHIPS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
“Only love will be big enough to hold all the pain of this world”
- .Love is any act where we turn to one another. Open our hearts. Reach out. Listen. Any time we choose to see the OTHER.
- We become more fully human through our REACHING OUT,, when we extend to another rather than withdraw into ourselves. Paulo Freire described love as “an act of courage, not of fear.”
- It’s often difficult to extend ourselves, to let down our guard, Yet,strangely, what we say is not that important. We have ended the silence that keeps us apart. “We think, we laugh, we cry, we tell stories of our day. We become visible to one another.
- When we see each other as equals, we stop misusing them. We are equal because we are human beings. Acknowledging you as my equal is a gesture of love.
The last portion of this parable turns us to the rich man trying to save his brothers from making the same mistakes.
The theological issue here is: what can motivate us to open our eyes…to be less entitled and more loving …to change how we act in some of our relationships ?
- We are left with a call to act based not on an absolute certainty, fancy words or whatever.
- All we have is the choice to live in relationship with a quality of
SEEING, LISTENING TO AND CHOOSING TO LOVE THE suffering face
before us.
Let me end with a quote from one of the life changing events in recent history.
“We didn’t save ourselves.
We tried to save each other.”
A survivor, World Trade Center
September 11,2001
Life is, indeed, too short to be selfish.