Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 21C, September 25, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of peace, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Welcome to this grand sanctuary – this haven of beauty. Welcome to this magnificent community whose primary mission includes welcoming you, no matter how long you’ve been here, and wherever you are on your spiritual journey, even and especially if you are not in such a good place on your spiritual journey! Welcome to a gathering of people that will love you just the way you are and will love you too much to let you stay that way! Welcome to church in the Back Bay, which often turns out to be very hard to get to because of road rallies, fundraisers, and movie makers! Welcome to a worship service in which the readings are usually challenging and sometimes confounding, the prayers of the people are often disturbing, and the music is reliably sublime! Welcome to a church long on questions and short on answers, and yet, a church where one beggar can always show another beggar where to get some bread.

And speaking of beggars, there are some Gospel lessons that seem to preach themselves. I hear them and wonder what there is to add. The story of the rich man and Lazarus strikes me as one of those stories. It’s pretty preachy. Now I’m going to assume that the majority of people in this room are not extremely wealthy people. I believe that it’s also true that most of us are not so poor that we have literally begged for table scraps at the gate (although I know some have been in that desperate situation). My hunch is that we are what former Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls the “anxious class” – the ones in the middle between the overclass and the underclass. So what might this story be preaching to us?

Jesus was not preaching to the overclass – not to Herod and the other really rich guys. According to Luke, Jesus was telling a story to the religious leaders of the anxious class, warning that it’s apathy and neglect that widen the chasm between rich and poor. Although it’s a story about a rich person who gets it wrong, Jesus is preaching to the religious leaders of the anxious class, warning people to listen to Moses and the prophets who gave many instructions for decent treatment of those who are poor and vulnerable. These religious leaders know the teachings. I know them. If you’ve heard me teach, I hope you know them:

• Do not mistreat aliens, widows, or orphans (Exod 22:21-22; 23:9; Lev 19:33; Deut 24:17-18).
• Leave gleanings to those who are poor (Lev 19:9-10; 23:22).
• Bring tithes to support priests, aliens, those who are fatherless and widowed (Deut 14:28-29; 26:12-15).
• Cancel all debts every seventh year and be openhanded to those who are needy (Deut 15:1-11).
• Include aliens, those who are fatherless and widowed in celebrations (Deut 16:9-15).
• Do justice (Isa 5:7-10; Mic 3:1-3).
• Do not exploit workers (Isa 58:3).
• Plead the case of those who are fatherless and defend the rights of those who are poor (Jer 5:25-29).
• Do not use dishonest scales (Hos 12:7-9) or take advantage of those who are vulnerable (Amos 2:6-8; Mal 3:5). [1]

The list goes on and on. If I asked you what instructions come to mind when you think of the Bible, that you try to live by, I bet most of you would first name what we call Jesus’ great commandment: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself (he was quoting the Torah of course). I don’t know what you’d think of next – maybe one of the Ten Commandments, maybe something else. The one that I think of next comes from the Gospel of Luke (and the Gospel of Matthew). It’s Jesus’ instruction to: “Give to everyone who begs from you.”

Before I moved to Cambridge, I had a pretty easy time following this commandment, giving to everyone who begged from me. I didn’t encounter people begging very often and I could often find creative ways to respond to their requests – usually with food rather than money, sometimes in exchange for work, sometimes not. Furthermore, I rarely encountered the same person twice. But then I quit my job and moved to Harvard Square to go to seminary at the Episcopal Divinity School. My daughters were 8 and 10 and had lived their lives in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. They didn’t have much city experience.

One evening in late September we were walking through Harvard Square after dark and all of the sudden I realized that Sarah, the 10-year-old, wasn’t next to us. I stopped and turned around and she was halfway down the block behind us. There was a man sitting in a dark recessed doorway, about as down and out as he could be, saying without much energy, “Spare a quarter? Spare a quarter?” We had walked by and I hadn’t seen or heard him. I think after only a few short weeks in Harvard Square I was already suffering numbness — compassion fatigue.

I hadn’t even noticed the guy – but Sarah had. She had stopped and was digging in her jeans. As I walked up to where she was standing I heard her say, “I don’t think I have a quarter, but I have two dimes and a nickel, would that be okay?” I think the man was as surprised as I was. He said, “sure!” She kept digging and produced the two dimes and the nickel and put them in his hand. He said, “God bless you sweetheart,” and she said, “God bless you too.” I won’t ever forget that moment.

I’ve heard my wiser colleagues advise me that giving money to people on the street does not empower them, it only enables them. I have heard that the majority of people who are begging aren’t really homeless. And I don’t want to be irresponsible. I certainly don’t like being scammed. But it seems to me that these arguments attach strings to our giving – you know, we only want to give it if we know what it’s going for – and that it will be used in a way that we will approve of. It’s a way of giving without letting go that hardens the arteries and stiffens our necks.

I wonder if we’re really afraid of running out of whatever we have – either money or food or whatever. I wonder if we’re afraid that the chasm between them and us will suddenly disappear and we’ll become beggars too. And to be sure, scripture advises that tithing (or giving 10% of our income) is the minimum and 30% is the maximum amount to give away so that one doesn’t become indigent. But the truth is that I’ve never come anywhere close to 30%. And I think that here is where Jesus seems to be trying to teach me something new – and maybe some of the rest of you too.

What I’m aware of is that I don’t like coming up against my own limitations – whether they’re limitations of money or compassion. And I’m particularly good at developing rationales that will keep me from experiencing the limits of my money or my compassion. Jesus seems to be teaching us, at least in the Gospel of Luke, that following him means letting go of what possesses us – whether it’s our money or our things or our fear. Following him means taking it to the limit by being so generous and ready to share that, as first Timothy says, we may take hold of the life that really is life — life that is free from fear, life that is free from possession, and life that is full of thanksgiving, open minded, open hearted, open handed.

Following Jesus means believing that in God’s eyes, wisdom is folly and foolishness turns into wisdom. Following Jesus means making the huge leap of faith to believe that what God is really about is unimaginable abundance, contrary to what the world teaches about scarcity. We don’t need to be anxious about our limits. God knows we have them. When we reach our limits all we need to do is turn toward God who has no limits. “Lazarus,” as it turns out, means “God helps.”

You know, once upon a time, people used to think that God rewarded people for being good with health and wealth – with lots of money, good things and a long life. And people used to think that God either did not reward bad behavior – or even worse, that God punished bad behavior with poverty and illness and even death. Imagine! People thought that being right was a sign of God’s favor and being poor was a sign of God’s curse. How long ago do you think that was? (As long ago as this morning!)

Jesus was telling people this story and reminding them of what Moses and the prophets taught about compassion because in some ways, people in Jesus’ time weren’t all that different from people in our time. Now Probably all of us do listen to what Moses and the prophets taught about compassion. As groups of people go, we are a very compassionate bunch – although I think we have to constantly resist the temptation of self-congratulation.

But there’s still something uncomfortable about this parable – to me anyway. I wish that there were more details about the characters. I mean, was Lazarus lazy? Was he mentally ill? Was he an addict? Was he a jerk? Was he a victim of his own bad choices or bad luck or mistreatment of others? Was the rich man a nice guy who was just oblivious? Was he principled and prayerful or mean-spirited and tight-fisted? And what about Abraham? He was a very wealthy man who certainly didn’t always make the best decisions.

The story doesn’t give us any of those details – and it might be because those details aren’t the point. Maybe the point is that Biblically speaking, the opposite of poor is not rich. The opposite of poverty is peace. And the opposite of wealth is also peace, as it turns out. Peace is the opposite of both wealth and poverty. Peace – shalom – is well-being. I think Jesus knew that – and was telling this story to get people like us to listen and to reach out – reach across the separations – again and again, over and over – to make community and to care for one another – to make shalom.

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