The final words of the gospel lesson for today are a bit frightening, Jesus tells a parable about Lazarus and a rich man. The rich man gets a pretty hard time in modern discussions for being rich but his real problem is that he hasn't gotten the message that he is called to be faithful to God. He spends his whole life seemingly unaware of even his closest and most troubled neighbors. He walks by poor starving, dying Lazarus everyday without offering any help or, maybe even worse, without even a kind word, without ever acknowledging that he and Lazarus are made in the image of the same God, that they are both beloved children of God.
Well the as the story goes, because of this, he ended up in Hades. He ends up tormented in flames while Lazarus who suffered at his gate is received by Abraham into a pleasant and rewarding afterlife. Once it is clear to him that he can never be freed from this fate the rich man, maybe for the first time ever, thinks of someone other than himself. He thinks of his brothers. He asks for someone to warn them to be faithful.
The answer he gets is troubling: even if one were to return from the dead the brothers would not believe or change their ways. How terrifying. First of all I get the sense that we are the brothers in this story and we have had someone return from the dead, have we changed our ways? do we believe now? Are we safe from Hades?
I think that in the response to this question there is some good news and some bads news and then maybe even some very good news.
The good news is that for the most part, as individuals we respond to God's love, as a congregation we respond to God's love, as a church we respond to God's love and we earnestly try to help those in need, the hungry, the homeless and the spiritually poor.
The bad news is that what we do is limited by our fears and our prejudices and our greed and it falls short, it is impossible for us to fix all of the problems of the world. And this is frustrating and hurts.
I want to tell you a little bit about what I did yesterday because I think it relates to this good news/bad news discussion. Yesterday I attended the Hudson-Mohawk conference assembly.
Part of the business before the assembly was to pass various budgets. And there was some great news, this conference does some great ministry and has some very capable partners in ministry. There seems to be a special emphasis, just like the bible calls for in taking care of those in need and in nurturing young people in the word of God.
Some other good news is that the conference is dedicated to helping fund these ministries and has some funds set aside to help. It is great to see us, the church able to give to programs that we know work and to people that we know God loves.
The groups that are active in this area doing great things in the name of God keep growing too. The special stipulation on the bequests is that they be used for developing ministries, like seed money. They can also be used to expand and diversify work. For example a shelter down in Rensselear that helps women and children to move into safer, more permanent housing but now that they have helped so many of them move into their own hosing and start getting on their feet it is clear that they need a new branch, they need someone who can work with these mothers as they continue to reintegrate into society, someone who can be a career counselor and help locate child care options.
This is a great program and would have been a great place to send the $5000 that they asked for.
There are also several campus ministry programs, they nurture young people as they move away from home, as they plan for their futures and even as they consider roles as leaders in the church. These would be great places to send the several thousand dollars that they requested.
Ah but here we start to get at the bad news side of the coin.
The fund had 16000 in requests from about ten ministries. The fund has just under 7000 to give away this year, sure there is other money in the conference budget but it was needed elsewhere. Some great ministries will get some help from the churches in the Hudson Mohawk conference. No ministry will get as much as they asked for. They will have to turn their backs on some people, they will have a hard time loving each of their neighbors as they are commanded. Just as we as a conference do.
The good news here is that we have heard the gospel and we have been responding in loving and amazing ways. We have cared for the children of God in some wonderful and effective ways.
The bad news is neither the assurance of the gifts of salvation nor any kind of warning seem to have made us able to solve all of the local problems with hunger, disease, violence and poverty much less those farther afield. As hard as we work it seems like there is always more to fix. there are always more people to feed. We always have other responsibilities that keep us from fully committing ourselves and our resources.
This is what makes the words of the parable so worrisome. How much faithfulness is enough? How many Lazaruses do we walk by each day?
The rich man begged for someone to warn his brothers to respond to God's love in the ways he never did, with awe and reverence and generosity. And he heard Abraham say that nothing, not even someone raised from the dead to warn them could save the brothers.
But remember I said that the good news and bad news were followed by some very good news. So here you are.
We are loved and redeemed even though we fall short. This is very good news. Martin Luther called us simultaneously saints and sinners. This means that we are at once and always part of this the world, stuck here in the brokenness of humanity while at the same time sparkling clean, loved redeemed and forgiven children of God. This relates to the work that we do for our brothers and sisters in the world. We believe that we are drawn to care for all of creation as a response to Christ's love and our state of forgiveness but we know that we are beloved and redeemed children of God
So we know that even in the very midst of sin, of brokenness we are not the ones who have the last word.
We work to get the world a little bit closer to the vision of the kingdom of God. We are called to do all we can but our work has nothing to do with whether or not we receive salvation. Abraham was right the brothers on earth couldn't earn their own salvation but the story leaves out the ending. The one who did come back from the grave. The Triumphant resurrection of our Lord.
The one who was raised from the dead for us came to lead us and guide us and to do the work that we could never do. Certainly he was raised to do so much more than just give us a warning.
The really good news is that the one who returned from the grave for us was not Lazarus, he was not simply a messenger. The one who returned from the grave for us came back to offer us the promise of salvation. To strengthen us to do new work in the kingdom while assuring us that we are never alone or abandoned by our God.
We should work for all of the people of God we should support those wonderful ministries that the conference lifts up. We should faithfully feed, clothe and pray for all of the children of God. We should certainly love one another here within these walls and we should find ways to create peace in the world.
And as we do so, knowing that we live in the kingdom of god and we look forward to the kingdom to come, let us never ever forget that the one who returned from the grave for us came back to assure us that as saints and even as sinners we are loved and forgiven, made clean through the sacraments and welcomed to the fold of Jesus. This is good news.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment