Rev.
Debbie Cato
Luke
16:19-31
Fairfield
Community Church
September
25, 2022
Let us pray: Give us your Spirit of wisdom, O God, so that
we may hear your Word speaking through the Scriptures with ears that understand,
and hearts moved to love. Amen.
Pay
Attention
Rich man
Dives he lived so well.
Dip your
finger in the water, come, and cool my
Tongue,
‘cause I’m tormented in the flame.
And when
he died he went straight to hell.
Dip your
finger in the water, come, and cool my
Tongue,
‘cause I’m tormented in the flame.[1]
Today’s
parable is captured in this African American spiritual. Christian tradition sometimes called the rich
man Dives, a Latin adjective meaning rich.[2] The rich man lived so well, yet now he is the
one begging, looking up and wanting a handout, desperate for a drop of water to
ease his fiery torment. Hearing the
melody in our heads enhances the sense of divine retribution lavishly portrayed
in this parable.[3]
Rich man
Dives he lived so well.
Dip your
finger in the water, come, and cool my
Tongue,
‘cause I’m tormented in the flame.
And when
he died he went straight to hell.
Dip your
finger in the water, come, and cool my
Tongue,
‘cause I’m tormented in the flame.
The socioeconomic divisions between the two characters is obvious. Two men; one rich and one poor. The two do not interact. There is a clear division of status. There is a clear boundary between the two. We can all probably relate more to the rich man than the poor one. After all, who would want to be the hungry one lying in someone’s doorway? Most of us would not want to imagine such need and in truth, we cannot imagine being that desperate. So we choose the rich man’s perspective.[5]
Now there is nothing to lead us to believe that the rich man is disdainful or mean or hateful toward Lazarus. This is not an evil man. The rich man simply does not notice Lazarus. Lazarus is sitting at the rich man’s gate day after day. Every time the rich man leaves his home, he passes by Lazarus and yet the man does not even notice him. He’s oblivious to the need right in front of him. He’s oblivious of this poor man, sitting at his gate, day after day. Lazarus’s empty stomach and life are gnawing at him, and his gaze is set on the household of the rich man, where all he wants are leftovers – or even less, the crumbs. He gets nothing. The only ones who notice him are the dogs, who, in a grotesque show of how low a human life can go, lick the oozing wounds of the poor man.[6]
If you read the Spokane newspaper or listen to the local news at all, you are aware of the growing problem of homelessness in Spokane and you are aware of the issue of Camp Hope and the City’s efforts to close the camp and relocate all the people that have made Camp Hope their home. Few see the residents of Camp Hope as people – as beloved children of God. Rather they see them as a blight; a problem to get rid of; an eyesore to move some place out of sight. Some place where they can’t be seen. Some place where we don’t have to pay attention. Where like the rich man, we can drive past our city gates without catching a glimpse of the poor and unhoused. Those begging for help and not getting what they really need.
I was in our post office a couple of weeks ago and there was a teenager in there trying to get mail although he didn’t have the PO box key with him. Steve was on vacation and there was someone filling in for him. I heard her say to him, “You still can’t find your key?” He had come in before, wanting his mail, without a PO box key. This young man smelled worse than anyone I had smelled in a very long time. He clearly had not showered in a long time and it looked like he was wearing clothes that he had slept in and worn for a number of days. I immediately recognized that he was homeless and on his own. I wanted to see if I could help him, but he disappeared before I got my package and was able to talk with him.
We are not exempt from the poor because we are rural. The homeless are among us – they are just harder to see. Harder to notice. They are not sleeping on our streets, camping on the doors of our businesses, begging for help like you see in Spokane. I wonder where that young man sleeps at night. Where he finds food – if he finds food. He has made me think about those experiencing homelessness here in Fairfield – something I had not thought about because I don’t see them. I find myself praying for him and others I don’t know about. I can’t stop thinking about him and my regret of not talking with him before he disappeared.
What Jesus is trying to bring into focus is not that the man was rich. Money itself is never the issue. I think you have heard me say that before. Nothing in scripture says money is bad. Nothing in scripture says that having a lot of money is bad. Jesus never says that being rich is bad. It is always about what we do with what we have. It is about the heart.
In this parable, the issue is he does not pay attention to the need right in front of him. He does not even notice this poor man sitting at his gate every day, starving and sick, needing help. The issue is he does not lend a hand to Lazarus. He is so caught up in his own world of wealth and extravagance that he doesn’t bother to notice those around him. Those who don’t have all that he has. Those who need help. Those that he could easily help if he just paid attention to his surroundings; to what was happening right at his own gate. He had a chance everyday to do something to help. But he didn’t. Whether he really didn’t see him – which seems unrealistic. Whether he didn’t think it was his responsibility. Or whether he just didn’t care, we don’t know. It seems the reason doesn’t matter to Jesus; what matters is that he did nothing.
For the rich man, the ending is fatal. It’s too late. He failed to pay attention to the need right in front of him during his lifetime. A need he could have easily done something about. He had the means. He had the ability. He merely had to open his eyes, pay attention, look with compassion, and then act.
We forget that each person was once a sweet child like Mason or Wyatt that we love to dote on. Something traumatic happened in their life that caused them to take a dramatic turn and eventually end up on the streets in desperate straits. When you hear their stories, you can begin to understand why they have the issues they have. It makes you really thankful for your own life. These are the least of these. In Matthew 25, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’
Most of us are not wealthy. I’m certainly not. But we have far more than those we see or hear about that live on the streets; that are hidden in our own community. We have enough to spare. Jesus is asking us to pay attention.
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us he is Lazarus: He is that one lying at our door hungry and thirsty. He is imprisoned and cut off from “decent” society. He is the marginalized one that you can just as easily walk by. That is God’s Christ who stands at our wall, knocking. When we answer, we may not find someone who looks like us, but we may very well find someone who looks like our God, if we are paying attention.[7]
There’s an old story that
I want to share with you. You may
already know it. There was an old man
who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before
he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after
a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with
starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old
man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every
so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was
occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the
sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good
morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and
replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the
beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When
the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be
tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t
really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet
another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he
turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”
The needs in our world are
tremendous. It can feel overwhelming. None of us alone have the resources to meet
all the needs or even to meet all the needs of one person. That’s not what Jesus is asking of us. But he
is asking us to act. To reach out in
compassion. To pay attention to the
needs before us and do something. Let us
pray:
Compassionate God, The needs of this world are so great and we
are often overwhelmed. So we do nothing.
We expect social service agencies and the government to take care of the
homeless and those living in poverty when Jesus taught us that we are to care
for the least of these. Give us eyes to see the needs around us and a heart of
compassion to prayerfully do what we are able to do. In Jesus name, Amen.
[1] Feasting on the Word.
Year C, Volume 4. Proper 21. Luke 16:19-31. Homiletical Perspective. G. Penny Nixon. P. 117
[2] Feasting on the Word.
Year C, Volume 4. Proper 21. Luke 16:19-31. Exegetical Perspective.. Charles Cousar. P. 117
[3] Feasting on the
Word. Year C, Volume 4. Proper 21.
Luke 16:19-31. Homiletical
Perspective. G. Penny Nixon. P. 117.
[4] Feasting on the Word.
Year C, Volume 4. Proper 21. Luke 16:19-31. Homiletical Perspective. G. Penny Nixon. P. 117.
[5] Feasting on the Word.
Year C, Volume 4. Proper 21. Luke 16:19-31. Pastoral Perspective. Helen Montgomery
DeBevoise. . P.116 & 118,
[6] Feasting on the
Word. Year C, Volume 4. Proper 21.
Luke 16:19-31. Pastoral
Perspective. Helen Montgomery DeBevoise.
. P.118,
[7]
Feasting on the Word. Year C, Volume 4. Proper 21.
Luke 16:19-31. Pastoral
Perspective. Helen Montgomery DeBevoise.
. P.120.
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