The Chasm Always With Us
19 "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' 25 "But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.' 27 "He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' 29 "Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' 30 " 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' 31 "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "
Luke 16:19-31
The chasm was there, then, so long ago. The great chasm between the rich and poor, between the popular and forgotten, the chasm between the healthy and the sick, between those who had much and those who had nothing at all. There was a rich man, a man who was dressed in purple linen, as our story tells us—the purple linen of royalty that signified his status in the world as rich. Our story tells us that he lacked for nothing. His clothes were expensive and luxurious, his table covered with the best food at each meal. The man, when compared to the man who lay at his gates, was presumably healthy. This rich man had all that he needed, or so he thought. And then there was the poor man, Lazarus, who laid at the opulent gates of the rich man. He spent his days begging for food because he had nothing, even content to eat the scraps that fell from the table, the scraps normally reserved for the dogs of the home. His body was covered with sores, and he probably didn’t have enough clothes to wear to cover himself—for as the story tells us, even the dogs came and licked at his festering wounds.
Sadly, the chasm still exists today. There were two women, both in their late twenties, both employed by a church. One woman, though far from having the riches that the man in our story had, was rich in many ways. She was raised in a stable home by two parents who had been raised in Alabama, whose parents had valued education, whose parents had never had to endure the legacies of slavery or discrimination. The woman’s parents placed a high value on education—and although they sometimes had to work 2 jobs at a time to make sure their children had everything they needed, as well as money for college, they did it. As the woman was growing up, she always had ample meals and clothes for her body and a comfortable bed to sleep in under the shelter of a secure roof. Since her parents had always valued education so much, there was never any doubt that the woman would be able to go to college—and she did. Although she paid off loans until just a few years ago, she was able to go to a prestigious liberal arts college and then on to get her masters of divinity in seminary. The woman was able to find a full time job as an associate pastor for youth ministry, one with more than enough pay and ample health care benefits. Although she wasn’t one of our society’s highest wage earners, she was able to put more than enough food on her table, buy the work clothes that she needed from first-hand stores, buy gifts for her niece and nephew, and even spend some money on nice trips around the world. She was even able to save up and move from renting into home ownership, all the while saving a little money. She gave money to her church’s annual Thanksgiving Meal drive, and took pleasure in taking the meals to folks who couldn’t afford to come get them for themselves.
And the other woman? She was born into a poorer family, a family whose members had been subject to the discrimination of the South, especially the woeful discrimination that came from being an African-American in the state of Alabama. She was born into a family in which her relatives were lucky enough to graduate from high school without the option of college. Since she had graduated from high school, this woman had been working two part-time jobs, one as a nursery worker at the church and the other as a cashier/food preparer at a local buffet in town. She loved her job as a nursery worker, raising those children as though they were her own, sending them postcard for their birthdays even though she could barely afford stamps, buying them small gifts for them at the dollar store. Although she was one of the hardest and most loyal workers around, she was never offered the benefits of good health insurance—instead she had to depend on Medicaid. At one point, she even had to turn down the small raise that the church was offering her since it would put her just above the poverty line, forcing her off of Medicaid to look for more expensive health care. Since her second job required her to work odd hours, she always had to find care for her two children, care that came from relatives since she couldn’t afford child care. Since she only earned minimum wage, she barely able to afford the needs of her life such as groceries, power bills, and second-hand clothing for her children and herself, much less any “wants.” True, she had a roof over her head, but it wasn’t a nice one—it was certainly not big enough for her needs. And instead of giving to the aforementioned Thanksgiving meal drive, this woman came and asked for 2 sets of meals for her family each year.
These two women loved each other as dear friends, and one of them was very sad to leave her friend as she accepted a new call as a campus minister here in Auburn. In many ways, they were the same, but in so many others, they were so different. The chasm between the rich and the poor was certainly easily seen and felt between them. The chasm has always been with us—and sadly that chasm between the rich and the poor has only deepened and widened in the last few years. For those of us who come from the perspective of the rich man, and let’s face it—that is most of us gathered here simply because of the fact that we are Americans, it is so hard to look around us and see the pain of poverty that exists in the world. It is so much easier to ignore it or overlook it or walk right past it or ease our own guilt by saying, “They are just like me-they just made a mistake that helped them end up like this. It’s their fault.”
It is so much easier to be selfish and make excuses and walk through life with blinders on, so much easier to think that we are all the same, all have the same opportunities, the same chances, to think that we can all end up in the same place if we just try hard enough. I love how Barbara Brown Taylor puts it:
Most of us learned a long time ago that the chief person we are responsible for is ourselves. We have been put on earth to love our neighbors, but changing their lot in life is up to them, not us . . . the great American myth is that anyone willing to work hard can win first prize. It might be true if everyone were standing at the same starting line when the gun went off, but that is never the case. Some start from so far back that they can run until their lungs burst and never even see the dust of the front runners. Those are the hardest cases . . . people who have inherited poverty as surely as they have inherited brown eyes or curly hair . . . who hear the starting gun go off and do not even know which way to run.
You see, contrary to what our culture encourages us to believe, I truly believe that we don’t line up next to each other at the starting line—that some of us start so far back that we can never dream of the day when we might pull ahead, never even dream of passing leader at the front of the line. Contrary even to what the church sometimes encourages us to believe through the prosperity gospel—that if we work hard enough for God and trust God enough and pray to God enough, that God will bless us with monetary riches, I believe that there are some folks who, while they are dirt poor in monetary riches, have the deepest and truest and most pure faith in Christ that there is (and my co-worker in Decatur is one of those folks, one of the most faithful people I know). I also truly believe that this loving our neighbors stuff is the core of the gospel of Christ. Every single thing that Christ does reminds us, teaches us, chastises us, commands us to love our neighbors. We are called to love our neighbors by not assuming that their mistakes in life have brought them to their lowest points, but by asking them their life stories, listening to them with intent and purpose. We are called to love our neighbors not by judging or condemning them, but by sharing our faith experience, our faith story with them—and by opening ourselves up to hear theirs. We are called to love our neighbors not by walking over them as they beg at our doorsteps, but by picking them up, welcoming them, giving them the clothes off our back and preparing a feast for them.
The chasm between the rich and the poor is a constant and everlasting refrain in our world, and probably always will be. Jesus does say, after all, that the poor will always be with us. And I think part of the reason he says that is because we constantly fail to do our part for the poor. The chasm is with us, but our challenge—our call—is to make that chasm much less big, much less broad, much less wide. For as much as Jesus says that the poor will be with us, he says so much more that the rich are called to give everything that they have, to feed people, to clothe them, to give them drink, to give them shelter, to listen to them, to share with them, to give them relief. There is a thread that runs through our faith tradition, a thread that runs through the laws of Moses, through the stories of the prophets, a thread that comes to ultimate expression in through the teaching of Christ—the thread that tells us that God’s side is with the poor, the thread that inspires Jesus to command that we give all that we have and all that we are, the thread that tells us that giving is the essential and necessary and life-giving.
It is true that the chasm between the rich and poor is always with us, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t work our hands to the bone trying to make it smaller, work our hands to the bone trying to make the distance between the starting line and the back of the pack a little shorter. There is a constant thread, a constant refrain that runs through the Gospel—the refrain that tells us to do something about the chasm between the rich and the poor. It is there. So are we going to listen?
The chasm was there, then, so long ago. The great chasm between the rich and poor, between the popular and forgotten, the chasm between the healthy and the sick, between those who had much and those who had nothing at all. There was a rich man, a man who was dressed in purple linen, as our story tells us—the purple linen of royalty that signified his status in the world as rich. Our story tells us that he lacked for nothing. His clothes were expensive and luxurious, his table covered with the best food at each meal. The man, when compared to the man who lay at his gates, was presumably healthy. This rich man had all that he needed, or so he thought. And then there was the poor man, Lazarus, who laid at the opulent gates of the rich man. He spent his days begging for food because he had nothing, even content to eat the scraps that fell from the table, the scraps normally reserved for the dogs of the home. His body was covered with sores, and he probably didn’t have enough clothes to wear to cover himself—for as the story tells us, even the dogs came and licked at his festering wounds.
Sadly, the chasm still exists today. There were two women, both in their late twenties, both employed by a church. One woman, though far from having the riches that the man in our story had, was rich in many ways. She was raised in a stable home by two parents who had been raised in Alabama, whose parents had valued education, whose parents had never had to endure the legacies of slavery or discrimination. The woman’s parents placed a high value on education—and although they sometimes had to work 2 jobs at a time to make sure their children had everything they needed, as well as money for college, they did it. As the woman was growing up, she always had ample meals and clothes for her body and a comfortable bed to sleep in under the shelter of a secure roof. Since her parents had always valued education so much, there was never any doubt that the woman would be able to go to college—and she did. Although she paid off loans until just a few years ago, she was able to go to a prestigious liberal arts college and then on to get her masters of divinity in seminary. The woman was able to find a full time job as an associate pastor for youth ministry, one with more than enough pay and ample health care benefits. Although she wasn’t one of our society’s highest wage earners, she was able to put more than enough food on her table, buy the work clothes that she needed from first-hand stores, buy gifts for her niece and nephew, and even spend some money on nice trips around the world. She was even able to save up and move from renting into home ownership, all the while saving a little money. She gave money to her church’s annual Thanksgiving Meal drive, and took pleasure in taking the meals to folks who couldn’t afford to come get them for themselves.
And the other woman? She was born into a poorer family, a family whose members had been subject to the discrimination of the South, especially the woeful discrimination that came from being an African-American in the state of Alabama. She was born into a family in which her relatives were lucky enough to graduate from high school without the option of college. Since she had graduated from high school, this woman had been working two part-time jobs, one as a nursery worker at the church and the other as a cashier/food preparer at a local buffet in town. She loved her job as a nursery worker, raising those children as though they were her own, sending them postcard for their birthdays even though she could barely afford stamps, buying them small gifts for them at the dollar store. Although she was one of the hardest and most loyal workers around, she was never offered the benefits of good health insurance—instead she had to depend on Medicaid. At one point, she even had to turn down the small raise that the church was offering her since it would put her just above the poverty line, forcing her off of Medicaid to look for more expensive health care. Since her second job required her to work odd hours, she always had to find care for her two children, care that came from relatives since she couldn’t afford child care. Since she only earned minimum wage, she barely able to afford the needs of her life such as groceries, power bills, and second-hand clothing for her children and herself, much less any “wants.” True, she had a roof over her head, but it wasn’t a nice one—it was certainly not big enough for her needs. And instead of giving to the aforementioned Thanksgiving meal drive, this woman came and asked for 2 sets of meals for her family each year.
These two women loved each other as dear friends, and one of them was very sad to leave her friend as she accepted a new call as a campus minister here in Auburn. In many ways, they were the same, but in so many others, they were so different. The chasm between the rich and the poor was certainly easily seen and felt between them. The chasm has always been with us—and sadly that chasm between the rich and the poor has only deepened and widened in the last few years. For those of us who come from the perspective of the rich man, and let’s face it—that is most of us gathered here simply because of the fact that we are Americans, it is so hard to look around us and see the pain of poverty that exists in the world. It is so much easier to ignore it or overlook it or walk right past it or ease our own guilt by saying, “They are just like me-they just made a mistake that helped them end up like this. It’s their fault.”
It is so much easier to be selfish and make excuses and walk through life with blinders on, so much easier to think that we are all the same, all have the same opportunities, the same chances, to think that we can all end up in the same place if we just try hard enough. I love how Barbara Brown Taylor puts it:
Most of us learned a long time ago that the chief person we are responsible for is ourselves. We have been put on earth to love our neighbors, but changing their lot in life is up to them, not us . . . the great American myth is that anyone willing to work hard can win first prize. It might be true if everyone were standing at the same starting line when the gun went off, but that is never the case. Some start from so far back that they can run until their lungs burst and never even see the dust of the front runners. Those are the hardest cases . . . people who have inherited poverty as surely as they have inherited brown eyes or curly hair . . . who hear the starting gun go off and do not even know which way to run.
You see, contrary to what our culture encourages us to believe, I truly believe that we don’t line up next to each other at the starting line—that some of us start so far back that we can never dream of the day when we might pull ahead, never even dream of passing leader at the front of the line. Contrary even to what the church sometimes encourages us to believe through the prosperity gospel—that if we work hard enough for God and trust God enough and pray to God enough, that God will bless us with monetary riches, I believe that there are some folks who, while they are dirt poor in monetary riches, have the deepest and truest and most pure faith in Christ that there is (and my co-worker in Decatur is one of those folks, one of the most faithful people I know). I also truly believe that this loving our neighbors stuff is the core of the gospel of Christ. Every single thing that Christ does reminds us, teaches us, chastises us, commands us to love our neighbors. We are called to love our neighbors by not assuming that their mistakes in life have brought them to their lowest points, but by asking them their life stories, listening to them with intent and purpose. We are called to love our neighbors not by judging or condemning them, but by sharing our faith experience, our faith story with them—and by opening ourselves up to hear theirs. We are called to love our neighbors not by walking over them as they beg at our doorsteps, but by picking them up, welcoming them, giving them the clothes off our back and preparing a feast for them.
The chasm between the rich and the poor is a constant and everlasting refrain in our world, and probably always will be. Jesus does say, after all, that the poor will always be with us. And I think part of the reason he says that is because we constantly fail to do our part for the poor. The chasm is with us, but our challenge—our call—is to make that chasm much less big, much less broad, much less wide. For as much as Jesus says that the poor will be with us, he says so much more that the rich are called to give everything that they have, to feed people, to clothe them, to give them drink, to give them shelter, to listen to them, to share with them, to give them relief. There is a thread that runs through our faith tradition, a thread that runs through the laws of Moses, through the stories of the prophets, a thread that comes to ultimate expression in through the teaching of Christ—the thread that tells us that God’s side is with the poor, the thread that inspires Jesus to command that we give all that we have and all that we are, the thread that tells us that giving is the essential and necessary and life-giving.
It is true that the chasm between the rich and poor is always with us, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t work our hands to the bone trying to make it smaller, work our hands to the bone trying to make the distance between the starting line and the back of the pack a little shorter. There is a constant thread, a constant refrain that runs through the Gospel—the refrain that tells us to do something about the chasm between the rich and the poor. It is there. So are we going to listen?
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