Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 30, 2007
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Psalm 91;1-6, 14-16
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31
Oh, no. Not again. Not another teaching from Jesus about money and riches. I am afraid it is so. But if you think Jesus is being tough on congregations, just imagine how tough it is for preachers like me to have to preach it. But preach it we must. Because poverty and wealth, and what makes for riches are major themes of Jesus’ ministry. And Jesus will always tell us what he thinks about them. We might ask why it is that Jesus keeps harping on this message as he does. Especially in the Gospel of Luke. But I think we know. By and large, Luke was preaching to a wealthy gentile community who needed to hear this message. Things haven’t changed very much in our world. Sure we have many more and varied degrees of wealth and shades of social class and status, but our human attitude toward money and possessions, poverty and riches has stayed very much the same. However, it is important to emphasize that Jesus is not concerned about how much or how little money we have; he is concerned about our attitude about our money and riches, and how our attitude influences the way we behave toward them.
Take the rich man and Lazarus in the story in our Gospel lesson today. They clearly belong to one of only two socio-economic classes which existed in biblical times. The rich man is rich and Lazarus is poor. The rich man has wealth and possessions, Lazarus has nothing and must beg for anything he can get. The rich man has his health and the well-being of his lavish life-style; Lazarus has open sores which threaten his health and the well being of anyone he approaches. Such extremes startle us; they even put us off and keep us from getting the point of this story. It is certainly true that such extremes exist; they existed then and they exist now. But we are more inclined to listen to Jesus when he makes his point in more subtle ways. Then, again. This story did not originate with Jesus. This is a story which was often told in religious cultures of the Mediterranean to make a point about God’s justice. The story was a cautionary tale about the reversal of fortune. At the end of the tale, we get a glimpse of how Jews understood the afterlife in Jesus’ day. It was a place of judgment; a place where the rich man suffers for his abuse and neglect of the poor and the poor man is restored to health and well-being by God’s favor.
So what is the lesson for us in this story? What can we learn which can help us understand our own attitude and behavior toward wealth and possessions, especially as they impact on the poor and upset the balance of justice in our world. I certainly do not need to highlight the attitudes and behaviors of the rich and privileged of our world, especially with regard to their impact on the poor and middle class. You can hear and read about the scandalous use and abuse of money in all areas of our social, political and economic life. And you can get first hand experience if you live in places where wealth and poverty live side by side—inside and outside gated communities, of course.
Over the course of my life, I have lived both inside and outside gated communities of wealth and privilege—relatively speaking. And I have a ton of stories I could tell you about my experiences in both places. But today, I have chosen two which I think make the point Jesus intends for us to hear from our Gospel account today. One story occurred in the high school where I taught English for 28 years. Most of our student body came from upper middle class families who were rapidly becoming what we call neuveau-rich. Now, I did not come from such a background, myself. I can’t say that my life growing up in an inner city blue collar neighborhood even came close to resembling Lazarus’ life, but neither did my life resemble the socio-economic class and privilege of most of the students I taught. Most of my teaching colleagues grew up in this same neighborhood and graduated from local schools and colleges. To my students and colleagues I was clearly and outsider. But this was not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, having come from outside this gate, I was able to use my new eyes and my very different background and life-experience to challenge entrenched attitudes and behaviors by students and teachers alike which reflected a privileged disregard of people who were different from themselves.
One of those challenges came one morning not too many years ago as I was taking attendance in my senior class home room. One of my male students was called to the office to meet with an army recruiter who would sign him on that day. I knew this recruiter would open up opportunities for this young man he never could have had in this community. You see, he was one of a handful of students in the entire school district who was visibly poor. As he left the room that morning, I heard one of our perky young cheerleaders say to her classmates, “Oh, God, he really stinks. Somebody should tell him to take a bath. And wash his hair…and his clothes, too while he’s at it.” Now, I am not able to tell you how I felt at that moment. I had everything I could do to wait another 90 long seconds until the bell rang to dismiss my students to their classrooms. As they left the room, I called the young woman to my desk. With all the grace and charity I could muster, I indicated that I had heard her remark. But instead of chiding her, I asked her if she had any idea the kind of home this young man might be living in, or the kind of life he might be living in it. She stared blankly at me. After a long pause, I asked her if it ever occurred to her that he might not have a place to bathe, perhaps he didn’t even have hot water, or any water at all to bathe in. “No,” she said, “I never thought about that.” “Well, I would like you to think about that,” I said.
The following morning, the young woman came to homeroom early, before any other students arrived. Much to my surprise, and much to her credit, she came to me with an apology. She thanked me for making her aware of the issues her classmate faced because of his poverty, issues she could not begin to relate to, but was trying to understand. Even more, she thanked me for challenging her attitude and behavior that morning. She told me she would try to be more considerate of poor people and try to remember that there were poor kids in our community and in our school.
About 2 months into the school year, this young woman took charge of our Thanksgiving food drive, and through her efforts our homeroom won a pizza party for bringing in the most food. We never had that pizza party, however. This young woman and I decided we would take the prize money offered by the student council and donate it along with our food to the local food pantry. I wasn’t surprised when many of the students in my homeroom complained about that.
I believe my story makes the point Jesus makes in our gospel story today. And the point is this: Jesus is not opposed to the wealth and privilege of the rich man. He is opposed to his attitude and his behavior toward the poor man Lazarus. Much like the young woman in my story, the rich man was oblivious to poverty, even to the poor who came so close to him outside his gate. Like the rich men of his day, he was able to live in a gated community which protected him and his wealth and kept people like Lazarus outside the gate, and at a distance from him. Jesus’ story brings more than judgment to the rich man, it brings shame. He tells us that even the dogs took pity on Lazarus. Lazarus, whose name when translated means, “God will help.”
So I want to know, how is it that wealthy people like the rich man in Jesus’ story, or people of relative wealth who populate our stories can be so neglectful of the poor and insensitive to those in need? Could it be all the gates we live behind that protect us from the real need and poverty which exist so close to us? I believe for those of us who are not poor or even marginally poor, there is a privileged rich man and an aware young woman who resides in each of us. The rich man in us would have us remain isolated in our gated little world of wealth and privilege, apathetic and unmoved by the plight of people who are not like us, especially the poor; the young woman in us, however, would have us take notice of the people who live outside of our gates of privilege and protection. She would have us empathize with people who suffer from injustice brought on by the power and privilege of wealth. She would have us feel what it is like to suffer sickness and disease without health care benefits. She would have us know the pain of children who go to bed every night and go to school every day hungry, in our own country. She would have us suffer the consequences of not having water to bathe in or even a roof over our head to protect us from the elements. And having made us aware, she would prompt us come out of our gated communities to meet the needs of the poor, and even befriend them. She would have us open the gates of our attitudes and behaviors; the gates of our ignorance and greed; she would have us open the gates of our wallets and purses and the gates of rules and laws which protect and enhance privilege; she would have us open many other gates we might name which keep us from meeting the needs of those who do not share in our prosperity. Ironically, the young woman in my story would have us minister not only to the poor and needy, but to the rich and needy, as well. She would have us always remember, and continually remind others of the ways our wealth and privilege are meant to serve God’s purposes for this world.
My second story serves as an example for how easy it is to become like the rich man in Jesus’ story and the young student in my story. It is an indictment of myself. I am ashamed to admit that just recently I found myself walking in the privileged shoes of my young student and, like her, I became shocked into an awareness of that privilege in the midst of poverty. Last weekend I went to see my spiritual director in Manhattan. I generally meet with her monthly, but it had been more than three months since I had seen her. I took the train into Manhattan where I typically walk many blocks to her office; afterwards, I took a subway uptown to the convent where I would be staying overnight. I am ashamed to tell you what my visceral response was to the many poor and indigent people I encountered on the streets and in subways. In just three months I had forgotten what it looks like and feels like to be poor and in need. I had forgotten how easily I responded to their needs and engaged with them the many times I worked in the soup kitchen at the Church of the Holy Apostles when I was a seminarian. Just three months living in the relatively gated beauty and privilege and protection of the Berkshires made me forget. Like the student in my story, I was shocked into recognizing my relative wealth and privilege and how I had become so removed from the harsh reality of poverty and need. Until I walked the streets of Manhattan. Until I encountered poor people and sick people close up. Until they broke through the gates of my heart and my mind to challenge my attitudes and behavior toward the wealth and privilege I enjoy in this beautiful place where I now live.
Typical of God, who often needs to use a battering ram to open my heart and mind to what he is trying to say to me, I read these words as I prepared for my sermon this week. Episcopal priest Susanna Metz wrote, “[Christians] feed the hungry not because we think it’s the right thing to do, but because we see their hunger, we see it as if we were hungry.” Then I read these words by a blogger named Dylan: “[Christians] do not give our resources to encourage the development of particular programs or to support what we agree with.” “We share what [isn’t] our own to begin with because we want to know Christ’s compassion…we do it because of who we are in Christ.”
Jesus would approve of such attitudes and the behaviors which result from them. There is a reason why Jesus feels the need to keep reminding us of the poverty which lies outside the many gates of our wealth and privilege. It is too easy to forget. Jesus knows that the wealthy and privileged will only change their attitude and behavior toward the poor when they are willing to encounter the poverty which languishes outside their gates.