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There are a handful of movies that I will watch on a particular day of the year. A significant number of them tend to fall in the fall, the Autumn or the Winter. One such film of the highest quality tells the story of a rich man who hoards and holds tightly to his wealth. Now there are many versions of the story of the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and one is better than all the rest. It’s the Muppet Christmas Carol. But it is one flaw in an otherwise perfect movie. When the actors Statler and Waldorf, playing the parts of Jacob and Robert Marley, sing the song to Ebenezer Scrooge about the chains with cash boxes and ledgers that they carry and the chains that Scrooge is forging, that were forged in their life by their values and the actions they took because of those values; in the middle of the song they sing “Doomed Scrooge! You’re doomed for all time. Your future is a horror story written by your crime.”
Ebenezer Scrooge did not commit crimes. He was fastidious in the following the rules to the letter, he committed no crimes, of course, that didn’t make him kind or generous or notice the needs around him
It was wondered if the story of Scrooge was a response to our parable today. Bible stories were part of the milieu of Victorian England. So maybe when Abraham tells the rich man that even the dead coming back would never convince his brothers, Charles Dickens thought, “I get paid by the word, I could make this happen.”
We don’t know if Charles Dickens use this story of Lazarus and the rich man as a model for his story of Bob Cratchit and Ebenezer Scrooge and we don’t know that he didn’t have some kind of futuristic premonition that someday Gonzo would regale us with the story as he tells it to Rizzo the rat. What we do know is that Charles Dickens had was disappointed and deeply felt that the Victorian world around him was changing, for the worse. He was concerned about the issues of debt and debtors and those who hold the loans; his father had spent time in a debtor’s prison. He was concerned about the conditions of the poor and working class, about the ever growing wage gap between the wealthy and the poor, and the use of child labor. He wanted to write a story that would instigate social reform, and it did. According to the internet, so it must be true, Victorian England loved the story of reformed Scrooge and there was an increase of charitable giving and awareness of the plight of the poor.
I wonder if Jesus’ story was as successful as Chuck’s.
The Lazarus in our story bears no connection to the Lazarus in John, who is Mary and Martha’s brother, whom Jesus raises from the dead on his way to Jerusalem or as Kelly tells it, made a zombie. It’s just a name, because it’s just a story. In all of Jesus’ parables, this is the only time a character is given a name. Lazarus comes from the Hebrew name Eleazar, which means my God is a helper, or the one who God helped. Do we call it Ironic? For when we first find Lazarus starving and weak and laying outside gated walls of a rich man’s home, desperate for whatever scraps might fall off their plate after they had filled their own stomachs.
Being just outside the gate leads me to believe the Rich Man had seen Lazarus. When the rich man left his house did he avert his eyes so he didn’t have to see Lazarus? Did he walk around the out the back door the long way so that he didn’t even have to cross paths with Lazarus? Did he tell his servants not to be generous to Lazarus lest they give him scraps from the table? That makes the rich man far more cruel than if he just avoided eye contact. He’s just like the rest of us when someone is standing at the side of the road asking for money.
But that’s an easy, low blow, because most of us want to do something to end hunger, poverty, and homelessness. But the issues and needs seem so vast we are not sure if we can do anything about them. It just seems as impossible as the rich man crossing the chasm to get to Abraham.
Now, it may not come as a surprise, but it is my opinion the empires, the powers, dare I say the principalities of this world, which would include those with incredible wealth, would like us to believe there are chasms, want us to function as if there are canyons between us and, well, honestly, everyone else…
It was through the strategic work of redlining, of demonizing integration, and supporting white flight that have kept black and white communities separate from each other; and then ongoing rhetoric, racist rhetoric, demonizing the poor of one race or another that kept the poor from gathering together for their shared causes.
There is a chasm between the products that we buy and those who make them. Those who grow and harvest, who sew and mine thousands of miles away from where we pick them up in a grocery store and put them in our cart. When the outcry of blood diamonds calmed down, it was the same people in power and the same groups of people in mining diamond that are now mining the minerals that are necessary to run our electronics; the ones we replace every two years so we can get a new and better one.
Many of our coffee-growing countries are decimating for the sake of the crop, growing coffee and otherwise on ground that cannot sustain the kind of farming they are doing. So the plan becomes fallow and the forests are destroyed. Coffee is often picked like cacao is picked–by children and slaves. And a company like Nestle’s can’t be held responsible for the children working in the fields of the cacao that they purchase to keep costs low because they don’t own those fields, they don’t hire the worker, but they also don’t choose to use their influence or power to close the chasm. It’s a good reminder to buy fair trade as we come into the season of Easter, which, of course is all about chocolate bunnies and eggs.
Poor women and men are still making our garments. Presumably, the less you spend on an item, the more likely it is that it is not being made with materials or by ethical means.
And on the other end, when we’re done with what we’ve purchased, 5 to 6% of plastics in the United States are actually recycled as a millennial. I feel lied to by everyone. That’s what we were told to do as we grew up.
Our clothing consumption has skyrocketed with the rise of fast fashion; and our per wear of articles of clothing is down. We think we’re being really good by donating to Goodwill or wherever. 700,000 tons of waste textiles are shipped overseas and 10 million tons, or 62% of the textiles we donate end up in landfills. And, we’re buying poor quality clothing generally made of polyester and spandex, so it’s not breaking down.
You spot enough lies about immigrants or the queer community. You can villainize and demonize anyone. Our politics claiming that there are two sides to everything and that never shall the two touch, and if you don’t agree with everything we agree with, you might as well be the enemy. I think the powers of our time want us to believe there are only two options, and they will always villainize the other side. The powers of this world want us to look at people who are different as if they are unreachable, because the powers of this world want us to see the poor and the vulnerable. Those struggling, those being taken off the street by law enforcement and balaclavas. They want us to feel small. They want us to feel like Lazarus on the other side, as if there is a chasm there that keeps us from going to other, to them; keeps us from helping; keeps us from generosity; keeps us from trying. Because the problems seem so big and so far away and we feel so small.
And I think, if you walk by Lazarus, if you walk by the poor and the vulnerable every day, the first time you notice him and maybe you feel it in your gut (spleen) but you do nothing. And the second time you turn your head, and the third time you just scooch over, and the fourth time you walk out the back door; I think the more you say no to compassion and empathy, the easier it gets to say no to compassion and empathy. They want you to say no. They want you to not see it. They want you to be overwhelmed to the point of paralysis as you look at the depth and the distance between.
And when our characters die, because you cannot escape death, we hear a description of what we would call heaven and hell; but Jesus just calls Hades the place of the dead in Greek; where one is tormented and one has been received into the bosom of Abraham (and we say bosom because that’s what the word actually is there and it clearly made someone uncomfortable) because Jesus said earlier that blessed are the poor for they will be comforted and Abraham’s bosom sounds way more comforting than Abraham’s side.
And they are not there because Lazarus was more righteous than the rich man. These aren’t punishments and rewards for the lives that they had; it’s just that the rich man had comfort his whole life, while Lazarus had none.
And while the rich man knows Lazarus’s name, he still thinks he can boss Lazarus around. He still thinks he’s better than Lazarus, as if Lazarus were a servant in his household. Naming the poor man in this story Lazarus and not just poor man makes him real for the listeners, and yet the rich man continues to see him as less than him, maybe even less than human.
And when the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus (because a rich man doesn’t speak to Lazarus as if he were an actual person he could interact with), when he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers, Abraham says they won’t believe it and they have everything they need. They have the law and the prophets. The law given to so that the people Israel could learn how to live in community together and it says is that you should not have more than you need until everyone has what they need. And in those times when they fail to live into the law, because they were human like us, the prophets came and reminded them that God doesn’t want their worship while there are hungry people.
The brothers already have everything they need.
In our story it seems as if it is already too late for Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus has found his comfort and the rich man is still so caught up in his own place in the world that he cannot see that nothing is impossible with God and that God can be his help, just as God was for Lazarus; and maybe God could bring him to Abraham’s bosom too, if he could just see Lazarus as human.
Our story is over for Lazarus and the rich man, but it is not over for his five brothers, those listening to Jesus, or us.
And I know most of us don’t live in a world where we are purchasing the most expensive of everything. And we’re in our best fancy pants, throwing feasts every night. We don’t consider ourselves the incredibly wealthy, but I know I have more than I need
This isn’t a call to sell all you have and give it to the poor. This is a call to be aware, to see where they have put a canyon between you and someone else, to notice the space between yourself and others. Whether it is by demeaning them by calling them names, by narrowing them down to just a few stereotypes, by making sure you don’t know who brought your product from pieces or seed to your home.
They want you to believe you can’t do anything when they snatch people off the streets. They want you to feel hopeless. They want you to cross to the other side of the street or go and drive a different direction, so that you don’t have to be uncomfortable, or soothe your discomfort at the expense of everyone else.
Here’s the truth. We have everything we need. Our stories, our God tells us that each and every person is made in the image of God. That defines the value of a person, not what they have or produce or whatever else they think makes someone valuable.
We have Jesus teaching and reminding people and the disciples, and us, that the call of the law and the prophets is to love God with everything that you are, and that means everything that you have and spend and collect; and to love your neighbor as yourself, and to be a good neighbor to those in need.
We have the internet that can let us do research on the things that we buy and where we invest our time, our energy, and our money, so that maybe we make choices that are both economical and care for the creation, including the people that God loves- it’s everyone, all of it.
How do we be good neighbors? Do we have enough? Can we give to One Great Hour of
Sharing so that food, support, and disaster relief can be given or continued in places where it’s needed? But can we also work towards a world where we’re not supporting the systems that keep us separate from each other that keeps some pushed down and poor vulnerable? And instead, work toward, live in, co-create the Kin-dom of God with God, here and now.
And I am not perfect at it. There is way too much plastic on the things we buy at Costco, but we’re trying. Trying to reduce plastic in the bathroom, and makeup. Buying fewer better clothes if they are new and thrifting when possible. Giving what we can.
We keep trying. But can we try not to put canyons where they aren’t yet? Can we not make them bigger by avoiding coming together? Can we find a way to walk around, find a bridge, and comfort and care for the poor, for the Lost, for the vulnerable; show up, hold a hand, bridge the gap, offer companionship, community, compassion, and love.
We have everything we need and a God for whom nothing is impossible and who is our help.