We have everything we need

The Rev. Alissa Newton

The 19th Sunday after Pentecost

text: Luke 16:19-31

Listen to this sermon here.

Who or what do you listen to? I don’t mean whose voice do you hear the most, or what sounds or images press themselves into your consciousness the most often. What I am asking about is, who or what do you listen to in a way that changes you? It is one thing to be quiet while someone else talks. But it is entirely different to listen to someone speak with an openness to being changed by what you hear – to let what they say change your opinion, or your ideas, or your behavior. It is one thing to scroll past image after image on social media depicting the news of our day – refugees swimming for shore after a boat is capsized, protests turned to looting, people shot at the mall – it is one thing to scroll past these images and stories every day and shake our heads. It is another thing to stop and listen to them. Every once and a while a person or an image will demand our attention – the shell shocked little boy in Aleppo, for example, whose blood stained face and blank eyes actually changed people. His photo did something that hundreds of photos of adults fleeing that crisis didn’t – it made us listen. Who, or what, do you listen to?

In our gospel this morning Jesus gives us a parable that is, ultimately, about listening in this way to the world around us and to our faith tradition, listening with an openness toward being changed by what we see, or hear. Or, perhaps more accurately, Jesus gives us a parable about what it looks like not to listen in this way.

The scene opens with descriptions – a rich man and a beggar. These two men are stark opposites from each other. The rich man eats sumptuously and wears purple, a color associated with kings. The beggar has nothing to eat, and he wears skin covered in sores, licked by dogs. Lazarus, this beggar, can only dream of the scraps that might fall from his rich neighbor’s table. Both of these men die – and they are as different in their deaths as they were in their lives. But, the tables are turned. Lazarus is whisked away to heaven by angels. The rich man is buried, his burial in the ground symbolic of his afterlife, where he is tortured in Hades. And then, as if eternal fire isn’t enough of a damnation, the rich man looks up and can see Lazarus standing with Abraham, enjoying his company. And this is where, to me, the story gets really interesting. The rich man doesn’t talk to Lazarus, and he doesn’t try to go join him. Instead he asks for Lazarus to serve him in Hades, to bring him some water. And he asks Abraham to make the beggar do it. When that doesn’t work – because there is a giant uncrossable chasm between the two men – still the rich man does not talk to Lazarus or seem to acknowledge him in any way. Still he addresses Abraham, asking him again to send Lazarus on an errand that benefits the rich man, to save his family from a similar fate. Are you as struck by this as I am? In this parable the rich man obviously has all the same information that you and I do about Lazarus – where he sits, the sores on his skin, the fact that he does not have food or shelter. The rich man knows his name, even. And still – still! – he does not see Lazarus as anything but a tool to help the rich man's interests. Even now, the rich man cannot listen to the story of Lazarus' life. Lazarus is never a human being, to this man. And so the rich man stays where he is, on the other side of an uncrossable chasm from the human being who spent a lifetime at the rich man's gate.

There is one thing I want to make clear about the parable of Lazarus and the rich man: it isn't about heaven and hell. This is not a story meant to scare us straight so we end up in the good place. This is a parable about life now – who we are able to see, and what we listen to and allow to change and shape us in our lives now. The rich man did not listen to Moses and the prophets, and he did not listen to the life of the beggar at his door. And notice that while Lazarus has company on his side of the chasm, the rich man is all alone in torment down below. The parable shows us in the "afterlife" a reality that already existed before – hell in this scenario is choosing isolation from others, choosing to ignore others' suffering so that we can have whatever it is we have that helps us feel good, and safe, and comfortable.

Our world is full of deeply unpleasant realities. If you are like me, there are times when it feels just, futile, to attempt to engage any of them in a real and meaningful way. But here is the thing – choosing to ignore the human suffering on our doorsteps, choosing to live our lives as if people aren't hungry, as if some lives don't matter, as if all children are safe from bombs – choosing to ignore these things is not the Christian way. It puts a chasm between us and others, between us and people whose lives should be witnessed and listened to, by us. Also – choosing to ignore our own suffering, pretending that we are fine when we hurt and bleed, or choosing to ignore or dismiss the suffering of the ones we love: family, friends, neighbors, each other – this is also not the Christian way. This also puts a chasm between us and people who need to be seen and listened to, by us.

Our gospel today underlines this point at the end of the story. When the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his family, Abraham tells him that they already have everything they need, to know what to do. They already have Moses, and the prophets, and the law. If that doesn't work, if this long faith tradition they are supposed to be a part of doesn't move them to see their fellow human beings suffering and be changed by it, then a man coming back from the dead will not do the trick.

It is kind of an inside joke, do you see? Because, of course, the man telling this parable does come back from the dead. Jesus Christ, God come so close to us that God became one of us, Jesus did not walk among us in purple robes eating sumptuous meals in the houses of the righteous. Jesus ate with the sinner and tax collectors. Jesus touched the suffering of the human beings around him, and so strongly identified with them that he became their suffering, died alongside criminals, and then rose above that chasm of separation to be with us again.

So you see, church, we have everything we need. We have the law and the prophets, and we have God in human flesh, come back from the dead to love us. Our world tells us to look away from other people when what they have to say makes us uncomfortable, or when the lives they are forced to lead make us afraid. But we are loved by a God who made suffering sacred. We are loved by a God who went all the way to death and back to touch us in our pain. We are loved by a God who throughout history has listened to the cries of those who suffer and responded by coming close to them, by touching them, by becoming one of them – one of us.

So, church, we can afford to come close to the people whose suffering frightens and disturbs us. We can afford to listen to the fear and pain in our world and to let what we hear move us toward hope, and love, and justice. I don't know who you need to listen to this week. I don't know who is at your gate, covered with sores. It could be people already engaged in loud protest – maybe you do not agree with their methods but can you listen to their suffering? It could be people at our borders – can you listen to their suffering? It might be people who rally behind a political candidate you despise – can you listen to their suffering? Or, it might be something closer to home for you – a spouse whose voice you've stopped respecting, a child whose behavior is driving you up the wall, a neighbor or co-worker who you can't relate to. Can you let their suffering change your heart?

So today as we feast at this sumptuous table, and enjoy the shelter and love of this dear community of faith, I hope we can take seriously the invitation of our gospel to leave here with open eyes, ears, and hearts. We have everything we need to listen to our world. We have everything we need to love our world. We are invited to face suffering – in here and out there – and to trust that if we come close to our world's pain, we will be transformed, we will be together, and God will meet us there.