Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Luke 16:19-31
Once upon a time there was a rich man who dressed in fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day. Though, to be fair, he wouldn’t have called himself rich. If you were to press him, yes, he would admit that he had done well for himself.
Were you to point out that he had just bought a house in the best neighborhood in town, he’d shrug and say, well, ‘every dog has his day.’ And as for fine linen, his shirt was actually a more wearable linen/cotton blend and while yes, it did cost $120, that was nothing considering how hard it is to find shirts that are made in factories that pay a fair wage.
As for sumptuous fare, yes, good food was one of his values. His friends joked with him about how much time he spent at the grocery store—or as he liked to call it—his neighborhood market—see that’s just the thing, food should be about local sourcing and genuine relationships, about knowing the farmer who raised the lamb you put on the brazier in your new outdoor kitchen. He’d be the first to admit that the flagstone fireplace was a bit over-the-top, but in more reflective moments, he’d tear up talking about how the whole idea was to just have a place the whole family could eat together. Outdoors.
The guy who worked at the farm that sourced the rich man’s food was named Lazarus. One day, while harvesting organic eggplant, Lazarus cut his hand on a thorn. He thought nothing of it and wrapped a bandana around his wrist to stop the bleeding. If he put his back into it, he’d still get 20 baskets that day. A whopping $30 for a 14 hours’ work. Missing time was missing money, so it was almost a month later before Lazarus stopped long enough to get it looked at by some nurses from Atlanta who set up a clinic in the field. The infection had spread up his arm. Gangrene, the doc said. Amputation, or death by sepsis.
But the rich man never saw this. Between him and the people who picked his food a great barrier had been fixed alongside the highway.
As it turns out, Lazarus also had a side job cutting grass for the rich man. At least he could still ride a mower. One day, as he was mowing on an incline, the riding mower tipped over on him. Lazarus cried out, “Help! Help! I’ve cut my foot, and I’m bleeding very badly.”
But the man who had done very well for himself could not hear Lazarus, because between the two of them there had been fixed some very thick windows—the double panes of ¼” glass were insulated with Argon gas to keep the noise at a level best described as contemplative, while the low-E coating on the outside protected the rich man’s furniture from UV damage and help keep his power bill low. Saving money, saving the environment, and saving his sanity—now that was honoring his intentions toward the “triple bottom line!”
At that moment Lazarus died, and by some unforeseen aneurysm, so did the rich man.
The man who had done very well for himself in life found that in death, he was not being treated the least bit kindly. While he wasn’t in a lake-of-fire-type-situation, he did find that he had an awful taste in his mouth—a bitter taste he couldn’t get rid of.
Just then he saw Father Abraham, and said,
“I thought it was supposed to be St. Peter waiting at the gate.”
“That’s over in heaven.” Abraham answered.
“This isn’t heaven? Then what is this place?
“Ehh…it’s kinda like the Jewish waiting room for the afterlife.”
“Yeah, but…I’m not Jewish.”
“A lot of people have a hard time with that part.”
“Hey, there’s that guy who used to cut my grass! What was his name? Oh yeah, Lazarus. Hey dude, what’s up? Hey, if you don’t mind…I mean, I know there’s like an ethnic dynamic here and all, but could you bring me some water—sparkling water if you got it. And I don’t mean to be picky, but Pellegrino, please, its smaller bubbles make for a much softer mouth feel.”
“He can’t hear you.”
“What do you mean, he can’t hear me?”
“You didn’t hear him in life, now he can’t hear you in death.”
“I heard him plenty! I liked his business on Facebook. Lazarus Lawn Care: You Raise ‘Em Up, We Cut ‘Em Down—so clever.”
“The chasm that separated you in life has been fixed in death. Only now you’re on opposite sides of the divide.”
“You mean like the digital divide?”
“Something like that.”
“O.k. I get it. I overstepped a bit with the Pellegrino thing. How ‘bout this for an afterlife tryout? Could you at least ask him in a super-nice way to run down to my old neighborhood and tell everybody to stop using leaf blowers—two cycle engines are terrible for the environment—not to mention the noise pollution.”
“The glass that kept the noise out in life has been fixed permanently. You called the shots in life, but in death, your voice will not be heard.”
“That’s not fair. How was I supposed to know that all that noise out there was being made by real people? How was I supposed to know that there was some life I was supposed to live beyond the one I curated?”
“Had you listened to the words of the prophets and the commands of Moses, you would have been kind to the stranger and the alien. But you payed extra to make sure you never felt like a stranger.”
“Words of Moses? What are you talking about, dude? Everybody knows the Old Testament is like… I dunno…all judgment and sacrifice. Nobody reads that stuff anymore! I was more of a Christ-follower type. Oh, that’s it! When in trouble, just ‘call on the name of Jesus!’ Jesus, help me! Jesus!”
“For a lot of people there will come a day when they cry out Lord Lord! but you had your chance at Jesus. You could have encountered Him in the face of the incarcerated, the poor, and the abused.”
“Yeah, but I never heard Jesus say anything about that.”
“You spent your days eating and drinking, downloading and uploading, —maximizing the yield of everything from your orgasms to your organic groceries–but never once did you hear the voices shouting in the streets for justice.”
“Voices shouting in the streets? What are you talking about, dude? I hashtagged #BlackLivesMatter on several occasions. I had two or three friends on Black Twitter.”
“Did you really care, or were you obsessed with appearing to?”
“But I do care. I can prove it to you. Look, just send somebody to go tell my friends at church. Tell them all that stuff you just said. They’ll believe if you send somebody back from the dead.”
“Take it from me, Son, the Word of One risen from the dead is the last thing church folks want to hear.”
Image Credit: The Danger of Wealth by James Janknegt