In the last few weeks, we’ve heard a lot of parables from Jesus.
And if there was any doubt that Jesus is concerned about how you use your material
resources:
Your money: the last few weeks should put that to rest.

Jesus has quite a lot to say about wealth, poverty, and how we who have:
Are to treat those without.

We heard last week about how the use of money is to build relationships:
That money is not just to be hoarded.

Well now we get this story that indicates (quite clearly) what kind of relationships money
should be used for:
Money should be used primarily to serve others as disciples of Jesus.

In today’s story:
Jesus tells a parable:
One that unlike last weeks:
Is much more of a ‘moral lesson.’

There was a rich man:
So rich that he was dressed in purple.
This little detail is meant to show that he is as rich as a king.
In Jesus’ time, purple was reserved for royalty because of the expensive and labor
intensive process of extracting the dye from a certain kind of shell.

So the point of this detail:
is that this man had more than he ever could have needed.

In contrast:
Lazarus, a severely poor man:
Obviously NOT dressed in purple:
But instead dressed in sores:
Waited outside the gate hoping for scraps from the rich man.

But rather than giving from his abundance:
Or even from his waste:
The rich man simply ignores Lazarus:
Seeing him as an inconvenience to step over:
Seeing Lazarus: not even as a human:
But as some kind of societal “sore” like the sores on his body.

Let me pause here and be clear that this is not the same Lazarus that was Jesus’ dear
friend.
This is not Lazarus who was raised from the dead:
Not the brother of Mary and Martha.
Even though the name “Lazarus” sounds unique to us:
It was a common name during Jesus’ time.

Anyway: Back to the story.
Both Lazarus and the rich man die.
Lazarus goes to heaven.

And the rich man is buried and goes to hades.

Now, here we have to remember that this is not:
As some have supposed:
Primarily a parable meant to show us what the afterlife is like.

This isn’t about “good people” going to heaven:
And “bad people” going to hell.

Recognize that we learn NOTHING about whether Lazarus is “deserving” or
“undeserving of heaven.
We know nothing about whether he made “bad decisions” or was just down on his luck.

Instead: this parable is about God’s preference for the poor.
We can tell this just by the mere fact that Lazarus is named:
And the rich man has no name.

But even then: It’s not clear that the rich man is “punished” so much as the separation
and torment are extensions of his own inward focus:
His selfish inward turning.
He’s not in hades because he’s rich.
He’s there because he only cared about himself.
And because Luke does not give him a name:
He is a sort of “unself.”

The point here seems to be that the money we have:
Especially our excess:
Is not only not to be hoarded:

But is also not to be wasted on selfish spending and excess, and luxury.

If we have more than we need:
We are called to aid those who do not have enough.
And it is likely that too much wealth has the potential to turn is into these sort of
nameless “unpeople” like the rich man.

In just a month:
We’ll be entering our annual stewardship campaign.
And as we begin to think about stewardship:
We must be very careful about not hoarding our wealth.

And we also must recognize that we live in the riches country in the history of humanity.
We must remember just how rich we all are compared to the rest of time and bistro.

Remember that John the Baptist tells people to give away your second cloak if you have
one:
Because having two cloaks was excessive!

So what can we do?
In addition to giving to the church as a reminder of our dependence on God:
We should specifically give to those who do not have enough.

This may be giving to relief groups or programs that help the poor.
But we should also be prepared to give directly.
Jesus says to give to all who ask of you:
Not “give if they seem deserving enough.”

We should be hyper vigilant:
About not turning “inward”
And using our resources only for ourselves.

We should consider praying before we spend money:
Especially on big purchases.
We should pray and ask whether this is something that we really need for our
flourishing.
We should be finding the places where we indulge more than necessary.
What extra streaming services, or eating out could we discontinue and instead give to
the poor.

All in all:
We need to remember that even this does not save us.
Instead: we give because we are followers of Jesus:
Not to gain a space in heaven:
But to do what Jesus wants of us.
We do it to be aligned through the power of the holy spirit.
We do it to ensure that we are not so closed in on ourselves:
But instead open ourselves and our resources to others.

It’s our job to see Christ in all of humanity:
In the poor:
The sick:
The Lazarus’ of our world.

And we do this: not to win reward in heaven:
But to remain truly human:

To remain selves.
To remain named.
(Unlike the unnamed rich man in today’s story.)

Remember at the resurrection:
Mary sees the risen lord:
And doesn’t know who he is:
UNTIL:
He speaks her name.

Let us give: out of what we have:
Out of our gracious abundance:
Not to save ourselves:
But to remain selves:
To continue to be humans:
Who bring glory to God.

Amen.

​In a hierarchical society like our own:
And like the one that Jesus lived in:
We are constantly bombarded with being told in one way or another,
to know our place.

Know your place.
Don’t go beyond it.
Stay where you’re supposed to stay.
Be in your own place, and not in someone else’s.

And as usual:
Jesus disrupts this standard.
To those with status and authority who crave more:
He stresses humility.

And for those at the bottom of society’s ladder,
He offers a glimmer of promise saying,
“Come up here!”

All of this, under the invitation and hospitality of a great and loving God who does
not live in the same hierarchical society that we live in.

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Sure:
We’ve heard these stories before.
We understand them.
We know that we should live with humility:
And that we should invite others in.

But if we’re really honest with ourselves:
We know that it’s easier said than done:
That we still:
Far too often:
Follow society’s rules for knowing our place.

Too often, we slip into the places that society makes for us.
Rather than the places that God made for us:
And endlessly offers to us.

This Sunday also comes around at the beginning of the academic year.
In lunch rooms and dorms,
Athletic fields, and activity fairs,
Young people are scouting out a new place for themselves.

For many students:
Efforts to obtain the best seat in the house will leave them exhausted:
And even discouraged.
Because of society’s urging to know our place and stay in it.

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And so our readings today remind us of how true of a reality this is.
That we scramble for the best seat:
And it rarely ends well.

Our lesion from Proverbs today gets right to the point.
We don’t usually get a reading that is just two verses long!
But maybe that’s the point:
To make it super clear.
Proverbs says “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the
place of the great; for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower
in the presence of a noble. “

The race for the best place doesn’t actually make us feel good.
But being INVITED to the top does.

So rather than racing to the top:
We should remember that there is a place:
That God inhabits:
A place that God invites us to:
Where real security, and real joy reign supreme.
And we can’t get there by pushing others out of the way.

While we are scrambling to the top:
God is hunkered down in the depths:

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Sitting at the end of the lunch table with all those kids we don’t think about sitting
with.
God is calling us from the depths,
And inviting us to join.

As Jesus enters the house of the Pharisee:
He stands back and notices how the guests choose the places of honor.
Jesus observes that the guests choose to race to the top.
So he casts an alternative vision:
A picture of a feast inhabited by those at the bottom.

Disrupting the nature of our human systems of security:
Whereby you are only as secure as the chair you have chosen.

And in the letter to the Hebrews we are warned not to:
“Neglect to show hospitality to strangers.”
The author points us to a reality where an encounter with the stranger might yield
an encounter with angels.

The writer is recalling the story of Abraham and Sarah:
Who met and welcomed three strangers:
Feeding them under the shade of a tree.
And it turned out that they were messengers:
Angels:
Bringing the good news that even in their old age Sarah would bear a child.

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Jesus tells us to invite not our friends:
But the poor, crippled, lame and blind to our dinner tables.

The letter to the Hebrews urges us to invite the stranger,
And to remember the prisoners as if we ourselves were prisoners:
To not worry about our own place:
But to stand in someone else’s.

Why?
Because deep in the heart of our encounter with the lowly:
We meet God.
Just like Sarah and Abraham.
This is precisely where we will find the secure place that we were seeking all
along.

And we can look ahead:
Knowing that by the end of Luke’s gospel:
Jesus isn’t going to anybody’s fancy dinner parties:
Talking to people about where they should sit.

Instead, he becomes the lowly stranger:
Bearing the scars of the one that the author of Hebrews encourages us to eat
with.

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And even later:
After the Resurrection:
On the road to Emmaus:
Jesus mirrors that story of Abraham and Sarah:
When he is invited in to break bread:
And his hosts suddenly discover that they are entertaining even more than an
angel:
They are hosting the Son of the Living God.

At the heart of their encounter with this stranger:
They encounter the life of the living God!

As we search for a secure place:
Jesus calls to us from the underside.
He calls to us from the end of the lunch table:
From the lowest rung of the economic ladder:
And from beneath the surface of the waters of baptism.

Jesus is hidden:
Hunkered down in the depths.

God is there:
At the bottom of the pool:
With a voice bubbling up from below:
Calling our names.

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It’s not what we had expected:
It’s not what society says our place should be:
But lodged there with God in the depths of that water is our only secure place.

In the depths of that water is the promise of a community that will not leave us:
And a table where the food will not run out.

In that fountain all our insecurities are hollowed out as our lives are stitched to
the lowest of the low:
The crucified one:
And together:
With him:
We are called up: “Come up here”
And we share in the feast of life.
And when we share in that feast:
It doesn’t matter which chair we choose.

Amen.