SunSep262010
LUKE 16:19-31
And then Jesus said, “Why don’t you go poke your left eye out.” Well, not really. But I confess that’s the way I feel when I hear the parable we’ve just heard, the story of the rich man and Lazarus. I think it makes me more uncomfortable than anything else Jesus ever said. Its message is painfully drastic.
And it’s so clear that I’m indicted in this simple moral tale. I’d rather think that the rich man in the story is Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, and that I’m a mere peon in the world’s workings. And to some extent that’s true. “The rich are different from you and me,” said F. Scott Fitzgerald. The difference between the incredibly rich and the rest of us is mind boggling. There’s no getting around that.
At the same time, though, when you think about all the people that inhabit the earth, you and I are way high on the income ladder. Many of us at Federated are certainly in the top 10% of income earners in the United States. And the United States is an extraordinarily wealthy nation. So where does that put us in the overall scheme of things? Only if we allow ourselves the grossest self-deception can we claim that the rich man in the parable is someone other than us.
Which is why it’s so distasteful to read this story. Because a poor Lazarus somewhere has died in poverty, we rich ones are apparently held responsible for that death. A Pakistani flood victim, a migrant Sudanese family starving to death, a poor and totally ignored child in Cleveland—when they die, the parable seems to say, it is, at least to some extent, our fault. That’s the apparent burden of this story. And it’s what makes some of us, when we really pause to hear it, nauseated with a gnawing shame and guilt.
So, with that appealing introduction, and if, in a kind of defensive denial, we haven’t all drifted off to shopping lists and lunch menus by now, let’s take a closer look at this story and see what kind of holy word it might have for us this morning.
What is it, exactly, that the rich man does wrong in this story? He’s certainly not deliberately cruel or hurtful toward Lazarus. He’s not mean to the man who lies at his door, not abusive in any obvious way. Two things, though, mark his failure. One is that he’s a glutton. He “feast[s] sumptuously every day” (16:19) says the story. Gluttony, of course, is one of the seven deadly sins. There’s no moderation in this rich man. He eats and drinks voraciously. He’s greedy beyond belief, utterly self-absorbed.
So gluttony is one of his faults. His other fault, very much related to his gluttony, is that he never really sees Lazarus lying there at his gate. He goes in and out of his house and pays no attention to Lazarus. He is totally oblivious to the suffering of his fellow creature. This, I think, is really the heart of the parable. What Jesus is pointing out here is our common tendency to glide right on past people who are suffering and not to see them at all. We talked some about this last Sunday, and the theme clearly comes around again. We have eyes for our golf game, but not for the beggar on the street. We have passion for our collection of fine china but not for the person with no health insurance. We have fascination for our next family vacation, but not for the ragged family pushing a shopping cart with all their belongings in it. We don’t see. And that’s a sin.
It’s that sin, in fact, for those of us who take the proddings of Jesus seriously, that nauseates us when we hear this story. We know of so many people starving and we feel so inadequate to meet the need that a kind of paralysis sets in. First TV and radio, and then the Internet, have connected us to the rest of the world with such an immediacy that we see Lazaruses everywhere. We are inundated with Lazaruses who need our help.
Here’s the rub, though—and it’s what makes biblical interpretation so difficult. Jesus knew no TV or Internet. There weren’t daily pictures flung in his face of agony from around the world. What Jesus and his listeners knew was a small world, a world of family and friends, and of neighbors, and of townspeople from several miles around. That was it. Jesus and his friends knew nothing of Salvadorans with cleft palates or Russian children languishing in sterile orphanages or legless Vietnamese amputees wrecked by hidden landmines. Readers and hearers in Jesus’ time knew the people in the next block, and within a few miles’ radius, and perhaps in the next town. That was it.
The parable Jesus tells doesn’t say, “The rich man was condemned because he didn’t help thousands.” It says instead that his condemnation resulted from ignoring the person right there in his neighborhood who could have used his help. That’s it. One person: Lazarus, who was essentially his homeless neighbor. We point this out, not so we can be totally let off the hook, but to give some perspective to what might otherwise overwhelm us. The parable certainly lays a burden on our hearts. But the burden isn’t that we need to save the whole world. The burden is rather that we’re called to make a difference somewhere, and perhaps several somewheres.
So what can we take away from this? Several things. One is—with respect to the rich man’s gluttony—that there is such a thing as “enough.” John C. Bogle, the former head of Vanguard, the financial investment firm, “tells how [the novelist] Joseph Heller responded when someone pointed out that his billionaire party host made more money in a single day of hedge fund trading than Heller had ever earned from his book Catch-22. Heller replied, ‘Yes, but I have something that he will never have: enough’” (Christian Century, Sept. 21, 2010, p. 20).
Gluttony is no answer. The question is: how much is enough for us? This is an internal, spiritual issue. If we are never content with what we have, then we’re a broken people. Learning to be content with whatever we have is a central task of Christian faith. And we can be content because we have been given everything we need. Our true happiness results not from the perfect putter or the sleek sports car. It comes from our trust in and reliance upon the God who sustains us when everything else may be falling apart. There is such a thing as enough. Part of our job is to find it. And the likely answer is that we have it now. We have enough to be utterly fulfilled.
Second, there is an obligation that comes with being a follower of Jesus, a duty, if you will, as we said a moment ago, to really see people who struggle, and to respond to their need. It would be fatuous for us to come away from this story by concluding that, “Well, there’s so much suffering in the world that I can’t even make a tiny dent in it. So I’m just going to do whatever I can to make myself as happy as I can, damn the rest.” It’s obvious as we hear it that that’s the way of ruin, that it’s so far from what Jesus is about that we’d be fools to claim that.
In Jesus’ eyes, there’s a deep and abiding moral duty in life, a duty to reach out to others, to see them and to respond to them. This is why we had our Mission Fair last Sunday, and why Federated will continue to provide as many opportunities as we possibly can for people to help other people, both here in Northeast Ohio and beyond. There are neighbors for whom we can make the difference, and it’s incumbent on us to offer our hearts and our hands and our wallets.
So what are some actual steps we can take to heed this call of Jesus? If our first responsibility is to see those who suffer, maybe we’re beckoned first to actually look into the eyes of a person begging on the street. You know as well as I how readily we turn away when we sense someone wanting something from us. How many times have I stared intently at the sidewalk in front of me, or turned to talk to my companion, making sure not to make eye contact with the person begging. What would it be like if I actually looked into his or her eyes? There’s a step we can take.
Another step we can take is to contribute some of our resources to agencies that provide relief and hope and justice in the world. A substantial gift to next Sunday’s Neighbors in Need offering can do just that. If you gave last year, how much did you give? Would you consider doubling that this year, so that a neighboring Lazarus will be fed and clothed?
Still another step we can take is to care for the earth we all inhabit. Cleveland’s sustainability conference of this past week highlights steps that businesses and individuals can take to care better for our planet. An executive from Sherwin-Williams told the group that the paint manufacturer had cut its “electrical consumption by 1.2 kilowatt-hours per year by installing new high-efficiency lighting fixtures, and [that they had] increased recycling from 35 tons per year to 161 tons” (The Plain Dealer, Sept. 23, 2010, p. C4). The effects of environmental degradation often fall disproportionately upon those who are poor. Taking steps like these can make a real difference. And what’s fascinating and wonderful is that steps like these can even be profitable. At Sherwin-Williams, the changes they made saved $90,000 a year, which, as their executive noted, serves the triple bottom line: people, planet, profits. Not every change we make pays that kind of dividends. But what’s not to like when they do? We can show that we “see” the harmful effects we’re having on the planet and help the reverse the catastrophic direction in which we seem headed.
Another kind of “seeing” we can engage in is to support the efforts of our government to respond to grotesque pain around the world. Because you and I alone can only do so much, the U.S. government in many ways takes it upon itself to do what none of us can do by ourselves. David Beckman, head of the exceptional relief agency Bread for the World, points out that 94% of the aid that is given to people in need by Americans is given through the government, not through private charities. This is true both locally and internationally. Six percent comes from churches and charities. “Yes,” he says, “we should support international charities. They work directly with poor communities and help them in ways that official programs cannot. But the U.S. government can do some things that charities cannot do. It can help governments in developing countries do a better job of providing public services like schools and rural roads. Its decisions and international leadership on trade policies and questions of war and peace have a big impact on poor people around the world” (The Christian Century, Sept. 21, 2010, p. 13). So giving through the church and other charities makes a big difference. But it’s also tremendously important that the U.S. expand its aid to others through government agencies. It’s part of how we “see” those who are poor and respond to them.
As we noted last week, the Bible’s message about our money and our things is a complex and difficult one. There is no one consistent message. What we dare never forget, though, as we deal with these thorny moral issues, is that Jesus didn’t renounce everything and lead a Spartan, joyless life. One of the things we see again and again in the various stories about Jesus is his love for life. He went to weddings. He ate and drank with his neighbors. He was no ascetic, but rather a man who was fully engaged in his life. He knew that this magnificent life was something to be enjoyed. And he appeared to revel in it.
So the last quality vital to us is that we appreciate that the world is something in which we’re to delight. John Schneider, who teaches at Calvin College in Michigan, reminds us that a full life is one that loves this earthly home we’ve been given. The earth is full of the grace and wonder of God. And a grateful and responsive life will delight in it all.
Yes, this is a hard parable to hear. What a contrast to the parable of the prodigal son just a few verses before it! It’s hard to believe that the same person spoke and believed them both. But it’s in the interplay between those two great stories—the interplay between gift and responsibility—that we glean something of the richness of the life we’ve been given to lead. God has blessed us with the incredible privilege of walking this earth for a few short years. It’s a “valley of earthly delights,” a treasure in which to revel. AND it’s a wonder whose blessings are to be shared. The humorist E. B. White once said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” That’s it in a nutshell. Our call is both to enjoy the world and to improve it. Our job is both to enjoy the magic of the world and to share it with our companions on the way. It’s a task. And it’s a privilege. Let’s be on our way.