BIBLE
READINGS: 1 Timothy 6:6-19 Luke 16:19-31
SERMON
What
do you think heaven is?
A
man told this story of his experience just before his father died. The man and
his sister were taking care of their father who was in the last stages of
cancer, the man staying with their bed-ridden father during the day and his
sister staying with their father through the night.
It
had been a hard day. The man and his father had not always gotten along well,
and on this particular day his father was especially
irritable and giving him a hard time. The man was impatient, waiting for his
sister to come for the night shift. He had his coat and shoes on so he could
leave as quickly as possible when she arrived. But he heard his father call to
him from the other room. He went in, and his father asked, “What do you think
happens to us after this life?”
A
big question. A serious question. The man didn’t have many words, but he
thought he could show his father his answer. He got into the bed and lay down
beside his father. He asked him, “Dad, do you love me?”
“You
know I love you,” his father said.
The
man touched his own chest and then touched his father’s, right above his heart.
The man asked, “How much of our ability to love do you think we use during our
lives? Ten percent?”
“Fifteen,”
said his father.
“Okay,”
said the man. “In heaven,” he said, touching his own chest and then his father’s,
“100 percent.”
The
next day the man got a call from his sister, telling him his father had died,
quite peacefully. But before he died, he made a gesture she didn’t understand.
Just before he died, he looked at her, and he touched his chest – his heart –
and then reached up and touched hers.
In
heaven, 100 percent: true connectedness, true love, right relationship, no
chasms between us.
We
were made for relationship. We were made to be in right relationship with God
and one another, 100 percent. But we don’t live that way. We always have a
relationship with something else, something that takes up part of that heart space so we don’t use all 100 percent for loving God and
loving our neighbor. Sometimes that something is money or seeking our own comfort
over the needs of others.
In
our reading today from 1 Timothy, Paul exhorts the faithful not to get too
close to the uncertainty of riches, but instead draw close to “God who richly
provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” If you live in right
relationship with God, it will show in this way, says Paul: doing good, being
rich in good works, being generous and ready to share. And living this way will
allow us to “take hold of the life that really is life.” Not the appearance of
life – what this world trumpets as the good life – material comforts – but the
life that really is life, the abundance that comes from living heart to heart,
100 percent now.
The
story Jesus tells in the gospel could be an elaboration on this reading. It is
easy to talk about righteousness in general, as a concept, in the abstract. It
is quite another matter to deal with it in the particular.
“Poverty”
doesn’t lie outside the rich man’s gate; a poor, starving human being does. He
is covered with sores, willing to eat scraps; a man, with a name: Lazarus.
The
rich man, although his sumptuous lifestyle would have him deny it, has a need
too. The rich man needs to serve Lazarus as a brother. Together they could help
each other experience “the life that really is life.” But during this life, the
rich man does not notice Lazarus, much less care for him. It’s as if Lazarus
doesn’t exist for him. A great chasm separates the two men, a chasm of the rich
man’s making.
The
scene shifts to heaven. All is reversed. Lazarus is content. The rich man is in
torment. The rich man longs for even a drop of water to cool the tongue that
had tasted so many pleasing foods during his life.
And
yet, the rich man still does not care about Lazarus. In his torment, he wants
to use Lazarus as a servant. “Send him to put a drop of water to cool my
tongue,” he asks.
“No,”
says Abraham. The chasm between you that you dug during your life has become
impassable. The gulf by which you were comforted in life has become
un-crossable.
The
truth of this parable is that the rich man needs Lazarus as much as Lazarus
needs the rich man. The independence that riches seem to bring is only an
illusion. The rich man thinks he can afford not to see Lazarus lying outside
his gate. The rich man lives under the illusion that we are islands, contrary
to John Donne’s wisdom, entire of ourselves. We are separated by gulfs, and we
can only build so many bridges. The rich man lives with the illusion that we
are intrinsically separate beings, our own possessions, and that to be
responsible only for ourselves is enough.
Like
Cain in Genesis, the rich man shrugs, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” assuming it
is a rhetorical question, not dreaming that the answer may be “yes.” Yes, you
are responsible, and your choices – to see, to notice, to serve, to love, or
not – matter.
Perhaps
for the rich man the gulf between himself and the beggar with his sores brings
him a sense of safety. Perhaps he feels there is little he can do, little
difference he can make. Perhaps he sees the gulf as a necessary evil. Perhaps
the rich man is afraid of really being seen – of being revealed as inept or
powerless or empty despite his material success.
Jesus’
parable points to something better for us, something better and more real – the
reality that we were created not to be alone, but to be loved; not to be users
of one another, but to be partners in the world. We were created not to dig
chasms and let gulfs separate us, but to build bridges.
Who
are we in this parable? We are not Lazarus, although we may be longing for
something. We are not the rich man, although we may have more than we need of
material possessions. We are the five brothers, the brothers and sisters of the
rich man, still living, whom the rich man wishes to warn, to save from the
torment of being on one side of a chasm; the torment of being separated from
God; the torment of being able to envision only using people, not loving them,
and ignoring the poor, not serving them. We are the five brothers, in danger of
waiting for some spectacular sign from God before we will take the message
seriously.
No,
says Abraham, you have all the sign you need.
And
we do. We have the Word, we have the prophets, we even have a man risen from
the dead.
All
of us have someone sitting by our gates – someone who gives us the opportunity
to fulfill the promises of our baptismal covenant, promises to seek and serve
Christ in all people, to respect the dignity of every person. We have a choice:
to build bridges or dig chasms. And we can choose to use 100 percent of our
capacity to love now and not wait for heaven.
Acknowledgement:
Rev. Dr. Amy Richter