Sermon - Elliott May - September 25th, 2022

Friends, sometimes reading the gospels can do surprising things to you. It can move you in surprising ways, it can form surprising connections in your heart. And sometimes, these ancient stories don’t lead straight to spiritual illumination, but instead to something unexpected, which is what happened to me this week. Because the thing that sprung to my mind first when reading this passage was the decor in my high school’s weight room, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yeah, really. 

Here’s why: around the year 2003 or so, some of the football coaches, in an effort to inspire the high school kids lifting weights in that space, had stenciled a bunch of inspirational quotes on the walls around the room, above the exercise equipment. And, since it was the year 2003,  one of the quotes painted on the wall was from the movie Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe. 

Anybody remember that movie? In the opening scene, Russell Crowe’s character is rallying his troops before a big battle is about to begin, and at the end of his big speech, he declares, “what we do in life echoes in eternity.”

 Now, if you were a high school athlete looking for a dramatic senior yearbook quote in the early 2000s, this was a great one. Maybe Russell Crowe knew at the time that he had landed on something memorable with that speech, but I can’t say whether or not he had been studying our gospel passage for today. But the fact of the matter is that this passage we have set before us today does offer a similar sentiment- Jesus says, in essence, that what we do in life echoes in eternity. 

But if that was all this parable had to say to us, we could wrap it up right here- what you do matters, never forget that, amen, have a great week. But that’s not all it says, is it? 

This passage has a lot more to say to us today- and it’s not all easy. In fact, for a first sermon in a new parish, this is not what I would choose- ideally, you want something warm and fuzzy, something easy to tie up neatly in a bow. Sadly for me, this does not fit the bill. Because here today we have a confusing parable with some potentially uncomfortable implications. In fact, I suspect that no matter who you are, however you approach this passage, you’ll feel some sort of tension with this parable, because it raises some difficult images and questions. There are natural questions, too: how literally is this meant to be taken? Is this parable representative of what eternity is really like? And maybe most importantly: where is God in this story?  Because at first glance, it’s hard to tell. 

In one sense, this parable is a scary one- because I certainly have been the rich man in this story, walking by those in need while preoccupied with my own cares and concerns. And it can feel too like there is a lack of mercy here too, a very distinct sense of ‘you had your chance,’ for the rich man. 

So I confess that for me, on first read, this passage doesn’t feel like the good news of the gospel. I mean, it’s nice to think that everything sort of shakes out in the end, that the poor will be comforted, and that what you do in life does matter in the final analysis. But this story also begins and ends with suffering, and it gives the distinct impression that “it’s all up to us.” That doesn’t sound like the Gospel to me. 

However, when we dig deeper, it’s clear that there are layers here, that there is more to the story. This parable resists easy answers and straightforward readings. The context matters, here- this parable is not presented as the definitive guide to getting to heaven, nor does it occur in a vacuum. We only read this one section today, but in the section of Luke that leads up to this parable, we see that a group of scribes and Pharisees have approached Jesus and are once again grumbling about the people that Jesus chooses to hang out with. “this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them,” they complain. And so in response, from Jesus we get a series of stories and parables that run a range of tones and emotions, leading up to this one. We could spend a great deal of time discussing what connects each of the parables and stories that are strung together, but lucky for us, Jesus does some of that work on our behalf. He explicitly criticizes his listeners for their hardness of heart, and tells them, “you are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts.” 

This is the thread that runs through these sequential parables, including the one we have today- Jesus is telling a series of stories which have different settings, but all demonstrate this theme of calling distracted or hard-hearted people back to right priorities, back to the true way of life- wouldn’t you leave your 99 sheep to search for the lost one, asks Jesus. If your prodigal son was lost but then found, wouldn’t you rejoice? And as we read today, if you saw someone suffering and in need, sitting outside your home day after day, wouldn’t you help?

This is crucial to understanding our gospel passage for today. Jesus is aiming this parable at those who he identifies as exhibiting hardness of heart and upside priorities. More specifically in this instance, Jesus is critiquing callous indifference to the plight of others, to those who have resources but who neglect those who do not. The parable is meant to shock the listener, because Jesus is trying to shift the perspective about what’s going on here and what the rich man’s obligation is to his suffering neighbor, because alleviating the suffering of our neighbors is a clear calling for those who wish to follow Jesus. In the Christian life, there is no sitting on the sidelines. Our responsibilities to one another in this life are real. 

And so here Jesus offers this jarring parable to shake his listeners out of their hard-heartedness, to demonstrate that what we do with what we have, no matter our vocation or situation, is central to the life of faith. Jesus says here that virtue, or righteousness, to use the Biblical term, is not determined by wealth, status, job title, achievement, gender, race, or any other marker of identity. Righteousness is borne out in deeds, in the tangible, visceral love of neighbor. It reminds me of that Dostoyevsky quote, from Brothers Karamazov- the more I love humanity in general, the less I love people in particular. This is exactly the type of thinking which Jesus is calling his listeners to resist- it is not enough to love the idea of equality, or economic justice, or whatever you want to call it- we are called to love people in their particularity. 

One other thing is worth saying here today, I think. Some readers may be especially troubled by the fact that the rich man is described as being ‘in torment.’ This word for torment occurs only one other time in the New Testament, and in that other instance, it’s used to refer to the suffering that people are experiencing as they are being brought to Jesus for healing. In that passage, it has a connotation of illness or disease, and it disappears once these tormented people find healing in Jesus. The passage ends not with pain, but with restoration. 

What are we to make of this? It’s difficult to say for sure. Is Luke suggesting that self-centeredness is its own type of affliction? That it blinds you to those around you? Maybe. We can’t say for sure, though it certainly could be read that way. What we do know is that helping the poor is not merely a question of what you ought to do, and if you don’t, that you’ve broken a rule and have to pay the cosmic price. Jesus is showing here that the rich man and Lazarus are profoundly connected, even through the eventual inversion of their relationship. The rich man has an obligation to his neighbor Lazarus, one that he forgets or neglects as he pursues his own comfort and status. This is profound spiritual blindness, which is further demonstrated by the end of the parable- when the rich man asks for messengers to be sent to his brothers, that they might be convinced to live differently. The response that the rich man receives from Abraham in the story is that nothing, not Scripture, not spiritual teachers, not even angels and apparitions, could convince them. I think in a way that this is the thematic center of the parable, though it comes at the very end. It is Jesus’s way of saying that one cannot be persuaded to live virtuously out of a sense of fear or calculation of risks, because true righteousness cannot be coerced; it requires internal spiritual transformation.

Friends, there is hope here, but there is also a warning, and a call to action, and even a sense of mystery. This passage is a reminder of our deep obligation to one another, yes, but also that producing good deeds is not the only or ultimate goal of our faith- transformation into the likeness of Christ is. Even our good deeds are done only out of gratitude and response to the work that God has already accomplished in Jesus. Jesus invites us into this work, not because God needs our help, but because in serving our neighbor, we are transformed and taken outside of ourselves. The call itself is not just a task to be accomplished- it is a gift, an invitation. 

So: 

There IS gravity to our decisions that we experience in our souls, which manifests in the posture we present to others, and which others experience in unmet needs. But ultimately, when we approach Scripture, we should resist the temptation to accept easy binaries: who is in and who is out, who is right and who is wrong, who wins and who loses. We should instead recall the words of today’s epistle, ‘take hold of the life that is true life.’  Amen.