“Take Hold of Life”
1 Timothy 6:17-19
Luke 16:19-31
At the outset, let me say this:
First, this is not a stewardship sermon. And second, this is neither a parable or a sermon about the afterlife—although I will note that none of us seems to have been raptured last week. Make of that what you will.
Instead, what we have from the Gospel of Luke is a dramatic morality tale about the importance of seeing—truly seeing—the suffering of others and how easy it is to become self-absorbed, uncaring, and even boorish when we don’t make a conscious effort to stay connected to both the sacredness and the suffering of our neighbors.
It is a morality tale about the kinds of people we can become and the kind of societies we create when we allow great chasms to exist between us and other beloved children of God, between us and creation, between us and people who, in various ways, are different from us.
Jesus’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus—the only person in a parable to be named—is both warning and invitation: A warning about the type of people we become and the kind of world we create when we close our hearts or just don’t make the effort to connect. And an invitation to cultivate the kind of inner, spiritual life that takes us beyond the demands of our own lives and social circles and keeps our hearts soft and open to the realities of other people’s lives.
And, as with most parables or fables, this parable can operate on several levels. It is not only about connection, compassion, and generosity; it also raises questions about how we think about God and what kind of God we have.
Whereas some would have us believe there is a great chasm between humanity and the Holy, our faith tells us that, in Christ, God chose to cross that chasm, to more fully connect with us, to become one of us. And if that’s who we believe God is, and how God loves, this parable—and the entire life and ministry of Jesus—calls us to be intentional about crossing the divides that separate us from others.
It is one thing to be aware of the ever-growing gap between rich and poor in our country and the ever-deepening divide between left and right, white folks and people of color, Christian nationalists and other Christians, and any number of usses and thems. It is another thing to decry those gaps and to mourn all the things that people across the chasm from us do wrong, how horribly they treat people on our side, and thoroughly cruelty has infected not only our politics but our worldview.
From the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, we might even imagine the rich man’s dinner guests walking around Lazarus to avoid the smell of a poor man who hadn’t bathed in days and then sitting around the dinner table and, over wine and dessert, denouncing the harsh and inhumane policies of the occupying Roman empire.
Or . . . we might consider the fact that while we sit here thinking and praying about our spiritual connections and moral obligations to all people and all creation, there are poor, unhoused individuals sleeping in the hallway downstairs while waiting to get lunch at Not Bread Alone. We might consider how we feel and what we do when we’ve been attending an evening meeting or event at the church and, as we’re leaving, we find a young woman who has made her bed for the night right outside our back door.
I say this not to make us feel guilty but, I hope, to help us understand how easy it is for us to become like the rich man in Jesus’s parable—closed off from those who suffer, uncaring, and—perhaps most damning of all—so disconnected from the lives of others that he has no respect for them. Even in death, the rich man sees Lazarus, who he never helped, Lazarus, whose name he knows, as someone who can help him. He wants Lazarus to bring him some water; he wants Lazarus to warn his brothers of what might happen to them if they don’t change their self-absorbed, uncaring ways.
We have good intentions. We are good, caring people. And so it is only natural when we hear parables like this, when we hear sermons like this, to focus on what more we could and should be doing. And there will, of course, always be more.
And the spiritual life is not only—and not primarily—about doing. The spiritual life is not only or primarily an outer journey of right action. The spiritual life—which is to say, life with God—is also an inner journey. And it is that inner journey—time in prayer, reflection, study, meditation, and worship—that we stay connected to what is real and important and we are drawn beyond the many real demands of our own lives and into the suffering of others. It is in that inner journey, the work of staying grounded in Spirit, that our eyes and our hearts are opened to see the Holy in our neighbors. It is through that inner work that we begin to change, and then the outward work of compassion, justice, relationship-building, and peace flows naturally.
The spiritual life is not about the afterlife, but about life in the here and now. The spiritual life is not about putting our hopes in the uncertainty of economic security, but about putting our hopes in the certainty of God’s extravagant and unfailing love. The spiritual life—life so grounded in Love that we are healed and blessed and become blessings for others—is the life that really is life.
So let us live with hope. Let us live with intention. Let us live with our eyes and our hearts open so that we and all who suffer might be healed, so that we and all who suffer might take hold of the life that really is life.
