Text:
Luke 16:19-31
A Sermon by Jack Cabaness
Nineteenth
Sunday after Pentecost
September
29, 2013
In the Gospels of Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, Jesus is quoted as saying that it’s easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the Kingdom
of God. Through the years that
saying has made many of Jesus’ followers squirm. Since at least the 15th century and possibly as
early as the 9th century, there was a popular story about the “Eye
of the Needle” gate in Jerusalem, which opened after the main gate had been
closed. A camel could only pass
through this smaller gate if it was stooped and had its baggage removed. There’s no evidence that such a gate
ever existed, but perhaps the story was invented because it sounds a lot less
daunting than trying to get a camel to pass through the eye of a sewing needle.
My
favorite take on the camel passing through the eye of the needle comes from a
National Lampoon cartoon from a few years ago. The cartoon was a spoof of an old
Medici rose window from the
cathedral in Florence. It depicts
a laughing camel leaping with ease through the eye of a needle. The caption beneath the cartoon reads,
“A recurring motif in works
commissioned by the wealthier patrons of Renaissance religious art.” The Latin inscription on the window itself reads, “Dives
vincet,” which is translated, “Wealth wins!”[i]
That
Latin word “Dives” is sometimes assumed to have been the Rich Man’s name, but
it wasn’t. It is simply a word
that means riches or wealth.
Nevertheless, through the years the fate of the Rich Man “Dives” has
captivated the imagination of Christian preachers.
The
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr. once offered his own spiritual diagnosis of
Dives at a gathering of Presbyterians in Montreat, North Carolina in August 1965. He began with an apology. He was supposed to have spoken the
night before, but he had been delayed because he was in Watts, Los Angeles,
meeting with government officials, trying to quell the riots there. In his speech, Dr. King challenged the
Presbyterians to take a clear, consistent stand against segregation. And then he turned to the issue of
poverty. He pointed the assembly
to the gospel text we just read this morning.
“There
is nothing in that parable,” King said, “that states that Dives went to hell
because he was rich. Jesus never
made a universal indictment against all wealth.” King named the story of the rich young ruler, but said that
in that story,when Jesus tells the man to go, sell all that he has,and give his
money to the poor, Jesus was “prescribing individual surgery, not setting forth
a universal diagnosis.”
King
returned to the Parable of Lazarus and Dives. King said, “Dives went to hell not because he was rich, but
because he passed by Lazarus every day and never really saw him. Dives went to hell because he allowed
Lazarus to become invisible, because he failed to use his wealth to bridge the
gulf that separated him from his brother Lazarus. In fact, he never realized that Lazarus was his brother.”
In
essence, King challenged the assembly to see the humanity in each other, even
if it seemed that they were viewing each other across a great chasm. There he was, an African-American
preacher, and a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, and there they were,a
gathering of nearly all white Presbyterians at Montreat.
King
went on to say, “I submit this is the challenge facing the church, to be as
concerned as our Christ about the least of these, our brothers and
sisters. And we must do it because
in the final analysis we are all to live together, rich and poor, lettered
and unlettered, tutored and
untutored. Somehow we are tied in
a single garmet of destiny,
caught in an inescapable
network of mutuality.”
King
concluded, “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to
be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to
be. This is the way God made the
world … we must all learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or we will
all perish as fools.”[ii]
If
Dr. King was right, and I believe that he was, today’s parable is about vision.
We have eyes to see, but do
we take the time to look and really notice the person in our line of sight?
Twenty-two-year-old
photographer Michael Pharaoh recently exhibited a series of photographs of the
homeless in Hollywood, California.
The photos were also shown in an online article for the Huffington Post.[iii] What struck me immediately about the
photographs were the subjects’ eyes.
In the comments one reader even criticized the photographer for “romanticizing
the homeless” in the way that he emphasized the eyes, as if the subjects were
models for glamour shots, but that was not my impression. I was immediately drawn in, and I
wanted to know each person’s story.
When
you encounter a homeless person in downtown Denver or even here in Westminster,
how often do you notice the eyes?
Do we take the time to make eye contact, or would we rather avoid eye
contact and maintain that chasm between us and them?
Years
ago I took a youth group from Kansas City to Chicago. We learned about homelessness in Chicago from a group called
the “Night Ministry.” We heard
about groups of homeless teenagers who would congregate at a Dunkin Donuts just
a few blocks from Wrigley Field.
The teens in our own youth group were encouraged to walk into business
establishments and ask permission to use the restroom just to see what kind of
reception they would get, and then try to imagine what it would be like if that
were the only way you could find access to a bathroom.
In
the debriefing that followed, the youth in our group asked honest, probing
questions about whether it was ever appropriate to give money. The advice that followed was whether
you choose to give money or not, look the person asking you in the eye, and say,
“yes” or “no.” Do not ignore. Do not pretend that the homeless person
asking you for money does not exist.
We
sometimes have homeless guests at our Third Thursday Community Dinners,
and I believe that we are
friendly and welcoming. But being
friendly and welcoming might not be enough to bridge the chasm. If we fall into the trap of relishing
the role of being a provider to someone else in need, we are not doing enough
to bridge the chasm. We risk
thinking that the other person is in debt to us, and we render ourselves
incapable of receiving the gifts that they have to offer us. But if we acknowledge each other’s
neediness, then we are able to receive the gifts that others are willing to
share and the chasm begins to close.
We
have eyes to see, but do we take the time to notice the person in our line of
sight? We also have ears to hear.
In
the parable the Rich Man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn the Rich Man’s
five brothers before it is too late.
But Abraham says, “No. They
have Moses and the Prophets. Let
them listen to them.” The
reference to Moses and the Prophets is a reference to Scripture. Moses refers to the five books of
Moses, the Torah: Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
The Prophets refers to the prophetic books, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah,
and Amos.
It’s
possible that the Rich Man believed that he had listened to Moses and the
Prophets. After all, there are
verses in Deuteronomy that state that blessings result from obeying God and
curses result from disobeying God.
Most of the original hearers of Jesus’ parable would have assumed that
the Rich Man was blessed because of his faithfulness, and Lazarus was cursed
because of his disobedience.[iv]
But
the command to listen to Moses and the Prophets means listening to the entirety
of Moses and the Prophets. For
example, in Deuteronomy 15, there is this admonition:
"You
shall open wide your hand to your brothers and sisters, to the needy and
to the poor..." (Deut. 15:
7-11)
And
from the Prophet Isaiah there is this:
"What
does true fasting mean?" Is
it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked,
to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (Isaiah
58:6a, 7)
We
have ears to hear, but are we listening?
Genesis
15 makes mention of a servant of Abraham named Eliezer. Some rabbinic legends feature Eliezer
walking around the earth in disguise, reporting back to Abraham about how his
children are doing with the Torah’s prescriptions for taking care of the
widows, the orphans, and the poor.
Translate the Hebrew name Eliezer into Greek, and you end up with the
name Lazarus.
At
our monthly Community Dinners, each person walking through the door is given a
nametag. Look closely. One of these days one of those nametags
might say
“Eliezer” or “Lazarus.”
I’d
like to conclude with a prayer written by the late Ernest Campbell, who was a
Presbyterian pastor.
Let us pray.
We
pray today for those among us, and in the world around us, who are burdened not
by too little but by too much:
those
who have so much power that they have grown indifferent to the rights and claims
of others, and are fast becoming what they do not wish to be;
those
who have so much health that they cannot understand the sick or reckon adequately
with their own mortality;
those
who have so much wealth that they prize possessions more than people, and worry
into the night about losing what they have;
those
who have so much leisure that they move like driftwood on the surface of existence,
lacking any cause larger than themselves.
O
Thou who art able to save us from abundance or poverty, meet the strong in
their strength. Posses them in the
fullness of their powers, that what they have and what they are may be
conscripted for Thy service, wherein is peace.[v]
All
glory and praise be to our God.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Jack Cabaness, Pastor
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Westminster, Colorado
[i] From a sermon by Bob Dunham, preached at the
University Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, September 30,
2007.
[ii] From a sermon preached by Chris Tuttle on the Day 1
Network on September 29, 2013.
Chris Tuttle’s father found the August 1965 King speech in archives at
the Montreat Conference Center.
[iii] “Seven Gripping Photos of Homeless Los Angelenos Will
Change the Way You Look at a Stranger” in Huffpost Arts & Culture, www.HuffingtonPost.com,
September 23, 2013.
[iv] See especially Deuteronomy 28. See also an excellent sermon by
Lutheran pastor and preaching professor Barbara Lundblad, “Closing the Chasm,”
preached on the Day 1 Network, June 20, 2010.
