Investing in Their Future

Luke 16:19-31; Jeremiah 32:6-15

 

        Sometimes Jesus said the strangest things. In Luke 16:13, Jesus insisted, “You cannot serve God and wealth.” The implication is if you have money you must be evil. That is as ridiculous as suggesting if you are poor you are blessed. Well Jesus said that too but we know he was speaking allegorically. On hearing both statements the Pharisees reacted vigorously. They pointed out that without money the synagogue could not exist and what on earth would people would do without the church.

        Instead of arguing, Jesus told a story. Once upon a time there was a rich man who loved to eat. Morning, noon, and evening he could be found surrounded by friends consuming the finest wines and the richest foods. Just outside the dining room was a beggar named Lazarus. The presence of the beggar never seemed to bother the rich man. As it turns out the only thing the beggar and the rich man had in common was they died on the same day. Here is where the story gets weird. The rich man faced eternal torment while Lazarus rested in the arms of Abraham. The rich man called out, “Father Abraham, send Lazarus down here that he might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” Abraham refused.

The rich man tried again, “Send Lazarus to my house to warn my brothers not to live like me. Please Father Abraham, they would see the truth if they could hear it from someone who came back from the dead.” 

Abraham responded, “They have Moses and the prophets and they won’t listen to them. Why do you think they will listen to someone raised from the dead?” 

There are a number of rabbit holes we could take in looking at this text. The obvious is the turn or burn message. You have the wrong preacher to go down that road.

We could spend time looking at the Jewish understanding of afterlife as it evolved from a strict Deuteronomic Code to a curiosity based on Persian Folklore. But that sounds best suited for a Sunday School lesson. Besides, if I am going down a rabbit hole, I would rather travel with Jesus.

Jesus lived in two worlds. When preaching in the countryside Jesus was overwhelmed by request from the poor and the sick. Often poverty led to poor health. Certainly sickness leads to poverty. That is just as true today as it was 2,000 years ago. On the other hand Jesus got invited to eat out quite often. He would dine with folks who worked hard and their labors were rewarded. It was these folks who were privy to many of the stories Jesus told. Usually he was not as much concerned about wealth as he was about how one’s wealth was being used. After all Jesus did say, “To those to whom much has been given, much is expected.” So maybe this story is more about the line, “If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they wouldn’t even listen to someone resurrected from the dead.”

The Pharisees were experts on Moses and the prophets.  They knew the law they loved evolved from the exploits of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. They knew these prophets were visionaries. The prophets saw the conditions of today as a springboard for the possibilities of tomorrow.

A prime example would be the story of Jeremiah. If you have never read the book of Jeremiah don’t attempt it without alcohol. If Jeremiah hadn’t been a prophet he would have been a country music song writer. I think Jeremiah was probably the inspiration for the line, “Help me make it through the night.” Yet even Jeremiah could recognize the flicker of light that exposes itself just before the sunrise.

Jeremiah lived in horrific times. Jerusalem was being besieged by the armies of Babylon and he didn’t have to be a prophet to know things were going to end badly. Most folks were writing their last will and testament. Jeremiah decided to go into the real estate business. Let me put this into a perspective we can all understand. This would be like buying property in the Bahamas the day before Hurricane Dorian made landfall. What Jeremiah was about to buy would soon be worthless.  But Jeremiah did not live for the moment. This melancholy poet took the newly purchased bill of sell, placed it in an earthen pot, and planted it into the ground. He believed one day the Hebrew people would return to Jerusalem.  When they did, the land purchased would be the place a new beginning would begin.

This is a dominate message that resonated through the Old Testament and into the stories of Jesus. God wants us  to invest in the future of someone else. The Hebrews kept asking, “Am I my brother and sisters keeper?”  God’s answer was always, “Yes.” The Pharisees endlessly asked Jesus, “How do I become a good neighbor?” Jesus always responded, “By showing mercy.”

The sin of the rich man was not his wealth, it was his eyesight. Day after day Lazarus came to his house. Day after day Lazarus was unseen. Then one day God, who has a remarkable sense of irony, turned the tables on the rich man and he miraculously developed 20/20 vision.

Thanks to the generosity of this church Deb and I spent our last two weeks immersed in a journey which covered 2,000 years.  Part of our experience was exploring the most impressive cathedrals in the United Kingdom. I am not sure which was more inspiring, the end product or the stories of their construction.

Works of art like the cathedrals in Salisbury and Canterbury were not completed in a matter of years. In some cases the work took two or three generations. The men who began these projects knew their dream would never be completed in their lifetime. So they thought ahead. Massive trees were cut down to suspend the ceilings. Then seedlings were planted so the next generation could have an ample wood supply for the completion of the project.   The future was planned by those who would never see a finished product.  They invested in future of their grandchildren.

All of us have been blessed. Think of all the opportunities we have to invest in the future of our neighbors through simple acts of mercy. Many of you were teachers. Many of you worked in health care. You invested your talents on behalf of those around you. Today we continue to recognize the plight others and respond through our outreach ministries.  Next month all those programs will be on display during worship and we will have the chance to further support them with our hands and hearts.

But over the last few weeks we have witnessed a younger Lazarus standing outside our door. Children, articulate children, have spoken to Congress, to the United Nations, to us, about rising seas, melting glaciers, fossil fuels, and plastic waste that is killing our oceans. These young voices are asking us to invest in their future.

You see, if we look, if we listen, if we remember Jesus and the prophets, we might discover opportunities for transformation just outside our doorsteps.      Amen.

There is Always Something Left

Luke 14:7-11

 

        PK’s are never impressed with Church dinners. If you haven’t guessed PK’s are “preacher’s kids”. There are three basic rules associated with being a PK. These rules were passed down from my beloved father and I faithfully passed them down to my children.

        Rule #1 - PK’s will be at church whenever the doors open.

        Rule #2 – A PK is allowed only two responses, “Yes ma’am or No ma’am.”

        Rule #3, and this is the most important rule of all. Never, under any circumstances, go anyplace but the back of the line at a church dinner.

        Once, after missing out on deviled eggs three church dinners in a row, I asked my father why I always had to go to the back of the line. He frowned and said, “Luke 14:11.”

        I knew better than to ask my father what Jesus had said in the 14^th chapter of Luke. He already had me memorizing the names of the books of the Bible and I didn’t want to learn how to spell them. So I looked it up. “All who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

        I knew the meaning of the word humble. When you are PK that is one of the first word you are taught. It lesson comes immediately after uttering  the phrase, “I want.” But I had never heard the word exalted. I was only six and I don’t remember my Second Grade Primer exclaiming, “See Dick run. See Jane be exalted.” To avoid a confrontation I went back to the Book of Luke and read the whole story. 

Jesus and his disciples were invited to a wedding. They evidently arrived early and the place was half full. The disciples picked out what appeared to be the choice seats and sat down. Jesus quickly corrected them. “You might be taking a seat that has been designated for the parents of the bride or groom. Think how embarrassing it would be to be asked to move. Sit in the back. When the host comes and sees us, he can ask us to move forward. Be humble and people will invite you to move forward.”

My initially thought was no one has ever come to the back of the line and offered me a deviled egg. I realized the sayings of Jesus were too complex for my limited in-sights.

Even today, the idea of the first shall be last and the last first seems a bit farfetched. The New York Yankees have won 27 World Championships.  They didn’t accomplish that by being humble. In contrast the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals have not won in 50 years. Isn’t that a long time to wait to be moved up to a better seat? What is Jesus trying to tell us?

In 1949 Howard Thurman wrote Jesus and the Disinherited. It begins, The significance of the religion of Jesus to people who stand with their backs against the wall has always seemed to me to be crucial. Why is it then that Christianity seems impotent to radically deal with injustice?

Thurman offers three truths that haunt the disenfranchised and one solution. The first is fear. Thurman calls it the persistent hound of hell. People in general have their cavalcade of fears. Those at the back of line daily live with fears we never consider. Some folks, just down the road from us, live from one pay check to pay check. That is frightening.  Some folks, just down the road from us, have to decide on spending their pay check on food or medicine. That is frightening. Some folks, just down the road from us, are frightened when they see blinking police lights in their rear view mirror.  That is their reality, not ours.

The second is deception. Thruman claims this is the oldest of all techniques by which the weak protect themselves from the strong. It is a technique used by the Psalmist. The king has done something outrageous. The people are outraged and turn to the poet. If the poet stirs up the people, soldiers will descend on the weak. So the poet prays to God. The Psalm describes the outrage but the words are addressed to a heavenly source. The king can only bow his head. Violence is avoided, but the conditions remain. The strategy is tragic but the weak survive.

The third is hate. Hatred cannot be defined, only described. Some of you remember Pearl Harbor. All of us remember 9/11. As a nation we wanted revenge. We act righteously and in some cases unrighteously. In 1941 Japanese-Americans were interned in prison camps in Arkansas.  In 2001, anyone from the Middle East was eyed suspiciously as an enemy. Even today too often a person is condemned because of the color of their skin. Occasionally preachers like myself will offer sanctimonious words from the pulpit, but those words are forgotten by both the spokesman and the audience before lunch. Hate is so easily justified by righteous indignation because the pronoun in our hateful speech is always “They”.

Jesus was born an outsider. The color of his skin was brown. The Jewish people were dominated by Rome and Rome was to be feared. The Jews used polite deceptions to try to overcome the dominance of this Empire. The Governor of Rome hated his position and he hated the people under his thumb. Jesus was no exception.

Jesus could have grabbed a sword and started a revolt. Some expected it. He could have retreated into the desert and started a prayer group. Many would have eagerly followed. Instead Jesus told stories. Amazingly, so many of those stories revolved around a simple theme. Every person is essentially another person’s neighbor. Jesus said loving that neighbor began by breaking down every barriers. Think of all the stories. The obvious is the Good Samaritan. But it didn’t end there. He told stories about broken relationships, stories about lost sheep, stories about widows, and stories about lepers. No one hung out with the sick, the blind, the gentiles, the Pharisees, the good, the bad the ugly like Jesus.  He sat with friends and enemies, truth tellers and manipulators, rich and poor, good and evil. It didn’t matter. You invite Jesus to lunch, he would show up. He would do anything but go to the head of the table. And why was that? Jesus knew there was always someone there who had been labeled as unworthy, so Jesus offered up his seat to them.

Jesus entered a world which lived by two basic truths. The first was, “An eye for an eye.” The second was similar. “Vengeance is mine.” Jesus rejected both. He claimed the Spirit of God had fallen upon him to preach good news to the poor, the sick, the lame, the broken, the forgotten, and the disinherited.” His motto was, “God loves you, God forgives you, and so do I.” Imagine what the world would be like if fear, deception, and hate could be nullified by love. Maybe the world Jesus longs to see begins when folks like us are willing to head for the back of the line.

To God Be the Glory.   Amen.