The Great Chasm

Scripture Lessons: 1st Timothy 6: 6-19 and Luke 16: 19-31, NT pages 79-80 Sermon Title: The Great Chasm Preached on September 25, 2016 I went into Walgreens Drug Store last Thursday morning. I was picking up some pictures they developed for me, and I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Walgreens on a Thursday morning but usually they’re a little short staffed so I was just standing there at the photo desk waiting for someone to help me with my pictures. I’m not always very assertive in these kinds of situations. I sort of freeze up afraid to ask for help, so I was just standing there looking around not wanting to trouble anybody, looking longingly at the pictures I was there to pick up with my name on them that I could see right there behind the desk and I wondered what would happen if I just went back behind the desk and grabbed them myself. That’s the direction I was moving in when a Walgreens employee walked up and she said, “Sir – are you authorized to go back there?” “Well, no, I guess I’m not,” I said, wondering what kind of authorization one would need to reach behind a desk to grab an envelope of pictures, but instead of challenging protocell I asked her if she would just reach back there behind the desk to grab my pictures. “They’re right on top of the stack,” I told her. “Sir, I’m not authorized to do that either,” she responded, which helped me to realize how many lines there are in this world, lines that maybe we need not be so afraid to cross. In our parable from the Gospel of Luke there is a gate. And at this gate lay a poor man named Lazarus. There was a rich man who lived inside the gate and while this rich man was dressed in purple and fine linen, Lazarus was covered with sores. The rich man feasted sumptuously every day, and Lazarus longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table. When the rich man died he was buried and had a proper funeral, but when Lazarus died no one was there but the angels of heaven. Now isn’t it amazing how different life can be depending on what side of the gate you live on? Purple and linen or sores that the dogs lick. Sumptuous feasting or hunger. Proper burial in the majestic cemetery or a hole in the potter’s field. And to open the gate? Well, am I authorized to do that? Rather than just opening the gate to meet our neighbor too often some of us wonder: can I just go from one side of this line to the other? Can I really just drive to the other side of the tracks? Can the guest at the ball just walk behind the bar, no longer a guest but a servant? Should a rich man open the gate to let in the man who sleeps outside? I believe that this is one of the most interesting challenges that we humans face, not because it takes some feet of physical strength to cross the gate, but because the pictures are right there behind the photo booth and I just stand there as though there were something more required than to walk around the desk to pick them up. I was just standing there, too afraid or something to cross the line and walk around the desk to grab my pictures at the Walgreen’s Drug Store on James Campbell Blvd. and while I was waiting for someone authorized to get those pictures from behind the desk for me I noticed all the stuff for sale right around where I was standing. I’m confident that part of the reason there wasn’t anyone back there at the photo desk was so that I’d have a little more time to look around and pick out some stuff that I don’t need, and that’s exactly what I did. Right next to the photo desk at the Walgreens on James Campbell is a display case full of clear Pepsi. That’s right. Clear Pepsi. And when the Walgreens employee who was authorized to take my photographs out of the plastic crate behind the desk finally showed up I held up that bottle of Clear Pepsi, and I said, “Can you believe this – Clear Pepsi,” but she wasn’t as impressed as I was, and I thought to myself, “Well just because you’re authorized to take photographs out from behind the desk doesn’t mean you have to act like you’re better than everybody.” But even though she wasn’t as impressed as I was, I went ahead and explained to her how great it was to have Clear Pepsi for sale, and did she remember the first time Clear Pepsi came out? “It was back when we were kids”, I said, but it turned out that she wasn’t even born when I was just a kid, and it hurts when you realize that about somebody, but that didn’t slow me down too much because I wanted to tell her about how my best friend Matt Buchanan and I were so amazed the first time we saw Clear Pepsi that Matt dropped a 2 Liter of it in the middle of the aisle at the Ingles Grocery Store and it exploded everywhere. That’s probably why I was so excited about the Clear Pepsi. It reminded me of my old friend Matt who, until last week, I hadn’t talked to since his wedding. Isn’t it amazing how long you can go without talking to people who you care about? And the miracle is that sometimes the gap made by so many years of not talking can be bridged all at once with nothing more than a phone call. When Matt Buchanan called me last week it was as though we picked right back up where we left off – dropping that bottle of Clear Pepsi in the middle of the aisle at Ingles. But of course, I have to be thankful to Matt, for it was he who called me. I’ve thought of calling Matt a million times and didn’t – probably because of the fear that the gap couldn’t be bridged. I did his wedding, but have never called to wish him a Happy Anniversary and that starts to cause a gap. He’s had birthday parties, but I didn’t make it down for any of them and that makes the gap grow. There have been pregnancies and babies, and when I see pictures of those babies on Facebook I can’t believe how much I’ve missed out on. Each year that goes by, it’s like the gap grows and the chances of bridging that gap grow less and less likely in my mind – which makes sense for me because I’m too often the kind of person who sees lines too well and pays too much respect to division – I just stand there looking longingly at my developed pictures, waiting for someone who is authorized to bridge the gap between me and them but Matt is the kind of person who just picks up the phone and in doing so he bridged that gap in an instant. Part of the point that Jesus so brilliantly illustrated in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus is that the gate can be opened – the line can be crossed – and we should never mistake a gap that can be bridged for a chasm that cannot because if you wait too long to pick up the phone the gap that could have been bridged will turn into a Chasm that is fixed. The parable begins with a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen – and Lazarus, skin covered in sores. The rich man feasted sumptuously every day – and Lazarus longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table. The rich man died and was buried – and Lazarus died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham, and in the afterlife with the rich man in Hades where he was being tormented he looked up and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus by his side and he called out: “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” But Abraham said, “Between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from here to us.” This is a parable that is certainly about a rich man and a poor man and all that divided them on earth. One was dressed in purple, the other dressed in sores. One feasted sumptuously, the other longed for crumbs that fell from the table. One died and there was a proper funeral, and when the other died there was no one there but the Angels of Heaven and with this contrast between the reality of the rich and the reality of the poor we are pushed to consider that while there may be between one and the other a gap or a fence or a wall, you must not pay any credence to these divisions that can be crossed or “the great chasm” will be fixed and we may find ourselves on the wrong side. On one side of town is a bank, and on the other is a place where you can get your check cashed. On one side of town is a grocery store, and on the other is a convenience mart. On one side of town one kind of people live and on the other side of town is where the other kind of people live and today Jesus is calling on all of us to do everything we can to walk over to the other side while we have the chance for no authorization is required. Here we are at First Presbyterian Church and there’s even one kind of people on one side of the parking lot and another on the other side – and every day we are given the chance to bridge the gap and so many people do. Many of you know who Melvin Taylor is. Our church secretary Renea Foster certainly does, and because he’s a man without a home and without a people to care for him, she brings him ibuprofen for his arthritis and a little pink pill for his heart ever morning. She washes his clothes and she helps him with his groceries and last Tuesday as Renea was waking up after dental surgery, the anesthesia just starting to wear off, the nurse went to her and asked her if her husband was out in the lobby waiting and Renea said, “Yes and his name is Melvin Taylor.” Now maybe that’s bridging this divide a little too much, but I believe we all need to put some thought into this parable, for in the life to come Renea will be sitting right over there with Melvin, so far they have come to build an unlikely friendship that is like a bridge over so many divisions. And Jesus, especially in the Gospel of Luke is big on bridging this divide between rich and poor. There’s no denying it. It is in chapter 18 that he says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” and we need to sit down and think about these words and just what it is about wealth that Jesus thinks is so bad, and probably the best explanation is that of New Testament Scholar Dr. Charles Cousar who said that wealth causes blindness. So it’s not just asking the question of the rich man, “How many chances did you have to help out poor Lazarus? How many nights did you go to sleep with a stomach ache while he went to bed empty? How much money did you spend while he didn’t have two pennies to rub together” for the much greater question is, “Did you even see him out there sleeping by your gate?” or had wealth and privilege so clouded your vision that you couldn’t see that he had hands like your hands, skin like your skin, hopes like your hopes, and a heart like your heart? You see, this isn’t some kind of socialist, bleeding heart liberal parable here that Jesus is offering us today – this is a simple parable about speaking to the people who are around you so that you’ll realize that the lines which divide us are lines that we allow to divide us. This is a parable about bridging gaps – and these are not the kinds of gaps that we need any authorization to bridge – and these aren’t the kind of gaps that we need some big speech about – we don’t need a monologue about politicians reaching across the aisle – this is a parable about Jesus telling you to walk across the street. These are the kinds of gaps that the preacher who did your premarital counseling was talking about when she told you to never go to sleep while in a fight, because the fight creates a gap and the longer you go without bridging that gap the bigger the gap will grow until you’re on one side and she’s on the other and Abraham is saying “a great chasm has been fixed” and now there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s what the rich man had to face. He let the gap grow for too long and it turned into a chasm, so in desperation he calls out, “Then, father, I beg you to send [Lazarus] to my father’s house – for I have four brothers – that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.” But Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them,” and so should you – so should I – because the longer we go letting our social fabric tear by not getting to know the people who live right next door to us, the longer we go trembling in fear of racial difference that we re-segregate ourselves all over again, the longer we stay right in our tax brackets without making friends who make more money or less money than we do – the more divided will be our city, our nation, and our world – and do you want to know why our society is so divided now? Because we let it be. So just go behind the desk and get your pictures – you need no authorization. Just pick up the phone – your old friend wants to hear from you as much as you want to hear from him. Just open your mouth and say hello – for the longer you wait to speak the harder it is going to be. Just love your neighbor as you love yourself today – for the chasm is not yet fixed. Amen.