Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

26:09 where Reverend Audrey Weber serves on our staff. Audrey loves this church and sings your praises. And so I am delighted to be with you this morning, and I'm so grateful for the warm welcome that I have received from you. It's a privilege for me to be preaching on this Pride Sunday too, especially given that I am openly, you know, from New Jersey.

26:34 That you would have someone like me here. I am honored and truly overjoyed to worship God with you today. Our second reading is from the Gospel of Luke chapter 16, verses 19 through 31. Hear God's word to us today.

28:40 this is the word of God for the people of God thanks be to God one day Jesus told a story about two men one rich and one poor and when they die the poor man Lazarus is taken to Abraham old father Abraham the rich man is taken to a place where he is tormented if it were as simple as that that poor people when they die go to one place and rich people when they die go to another place then most of us I suspect might be in trouble.

29:16 But whereas I think some parables sound complicated but are actually quite simple, I think this parable sounds quite simple when it's actually much more complex in a way that we might not realize at first. One of my favorite biblical scholars John Dominic Crossan once said, my point is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to tell them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally. So first things first, let's remember that this is an ancient story, one that Jesus told symbolically, meaning we shouldn't be taking it literally, though we should be taking it seriously. Second things second. I have a confession. I don't usually title my sermons and so when I had to submit something for today my instinct was to like go big and provocative. Hellfire and rainbows.

30:21 But that might have been a little too over the top even for Pride Sunday. So I went to the next best thing I could think of, there's no place like home, which in hindsight feels a bit cliche. And also after sitting with this text for the last week, it feels a little bit of a stretch, perhaps. I also wanted today's sermon to not feel entirely out of place with your summer series here, looking at the stories from Luke's gospel that center on Jesus and tables. Jesus was always going to a meal or at a meal or returning from a meal or in this case talking about a rich man who feasted sumptuously every day and about this poor man Lazarus who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table. I didn't want Pride Sunday to feel out of step with the conversation you're having here this summer.

31:22 And so while it's not exactly a story about Jesus at a table, it is Jesus' story about the kinds of tables we set and the people who have a place at them. Already there's an interesting element to this parable that Jesus tells us. The poor man is given a name while the rich man is not. Jesus also tells us that the rich man dresses himself in fine purple clothing and dines lavishly each and every day.

31:55 Every single day. While Lazarus longed to get some of the scraps that fell from the rich man's plate. It's a setup, of course. Jesus wants us to see the great divide between the rich man and poor Lazarus. a divide between us in life that seems somehow to mirror the divide between us in death. And that's where the story starts getting real.

32:28 The other night I was having dinner with some friends when one of them mentioned the letters she and her sister have started receiving from their father who recently found Jesus. You can imagine the content, I'm sure. Maybe you've been on the receiving end of such letters yourself. they seem simple enough there is a place where we all go after we die i want you to be in the place where jesus is the letters say but these letters are more complicated than that.

33:06 Just ask my friend who had to explain to her daughter what exactly grandpa means, or ask my friend's sister, the one with two gay sons, who refuses to share their mailing addresses with their own grandfather to protect them from these letters. They would rather have no relationship than be subjected to these words, banishing them to that other place. In the Old Testament, in the Hebrew Testament, the word hell doesn't come up at all. The closest thing is the word sheol, which at its root means place of the dead. You heard it in our first reading when the psalmist writes, where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there.

34:02 If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. In other words, even in the place of the dead, God is there. Now think about the difference between the word grave, which is literally the place of the dead, and the word hell, which is something else altogether. And you get some of the sense for the way biblical interpretation can shape or misshape our understanding of something so consequential. Now you might be thinking, the New Testament was written in Greek, not Hebrew, which is true. And so the term Sheol, place of the dead, has become Hades. At the time when the New Testament was written, the Greek empire had enormous influence in that part of the world, imposing their language and mythology for whom Hades was the God who ruled over the underworld.

35:04 Now in the New Testament, there are 11 instances where Jesus mentions the notion of hell. In 10 of those 11, the word translated as hell is Gehenna, which refers to a very specific place, an actual location on the outskirts of Jerusalem in the Valley of Hinnom, where people would bring their trash and burn it up, such that there was a constant fire there.

35:30 So most times when we read about Jesus referring to hell, he's talking about the city trash dump in Jerusalem. the one other occurrence of the word that's translated as hell is in our text for today two men one rich one poor they die the poor man Lazarus is taken to Abraham the rich man is taken to a place where he is tormented but it's not Gehenna it's that only instance translated as Hades Sheol the place of the dead where this divide between us in death seems somehow symbolic of the divide between us in life that was wide enough that you couldn't pass from one side to the other but was also small enough that you could see from one side to the other.

36:28 if what we take from this parable is that there's a place where we go after we die and it's either a place of suffering for rich people or a place of paradise for poor people then fine but I don't think it's really that simple or literal One of my preacher friends talked about presiding for a funeral for a young man who died while driving drunk. After the graveside service, the young man's aunt came up to the pastor and said angrily, why didn't you tell them the truth? My friend said, I'm not sure what you mean. The woman said in reply, why didn't you tell them the truth? That their son wasn't a Christian, that he died in sin, and that he's now in hell.

37:26 My friend said he couldn't exactly remember his reply, something about forgiveness or mercy or grace and about God's great love. But he said, I will never forget the certainty with which this woman announced that her own nephew was burning in hell. People make announcements like that all the time.

37:55 Not just about their non-believing nephew. As a gay man, even as a Christian gay man, I too have been on the receiving end of such pronouncements. So too have people of other faith traditions, so too have women who have had to make the most difficult choices. So to have people who saw no other way through their pain. So too it would also appear, if it were this simple, rich people who wear fine clothes and who feast sumptuously every day. but this parable, just like so many other things that Jesus teaches, it's more nuanced than we might realize at first, especially those of us who live so long after Jesus told these stories in cultures and places that are so far away from the one in which Jesus lived.

38:59 In an article titled, An Afro-Sociological Application of the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, a biblical studies professor at the University of Nigeria, makes the argument that the reference to dogs licking Lazarus' wounds sounds like the lowest of the low in Western ears. But in African culture, and evidence shows that this was true in the ancient Near East as well, dog saliva is known to have beneficial effects for wounds and open sores. So those dogs licking Lazarus weren't a symbol of his degradation. They were doing what they could. Even the dogs noticed. Even the dogs acted in compassion. That man who feasted sumptuously every day, had every resource and every opportunity, yet did nothing.

40:00 So here's the real question. Is this a story about what happens to us after we die? Or is it a story about how we're supposed to live? I vote for the second one. I vote for living generously and for loving extravagantly and for celebrating our humanity compassionately, even defiantly. And that's what pride is really all about. Pride started because people got tired of being told to hide who they are.

40:38 Tired of going unnoticed, tired of pretending, tired of shrinking, tired of standing outside the gate and hoping for the scraps of dignity that might fall from someone else's table. pride isn't just about saying look how fabulous i am pride is saying joyfully because it's true i am god's beloved fearfully and wonderfully made The rich man's sin, it isn't cruelty.

41:14 Jesus never says that he beat Lazarus or that he mocked him or he hated him. He simply lived as though Lazarus weren't there. Pride is for everyone who's ever been treated the same. made to feel as though you weren't there, as though there's no place for you in your family or in your church or at God's table. those of you who who get pride you understand lazarus better than most you know what it is to live outside the gate while other people debate whether you belong sometimes the opposite of love isn't hatred it's indifference just like sometimes the opposite of pride isn't humility it's shame just like sometimes the opposite of hell isn't heaven.

42:15 It's home. According to Jesus, home isn't built with walls. Home is built with welcome. Home is wherever the divide gets bridged. Home is where strangers become neighbors. Home is where the forgotten people are called by name.

42:38 Home is where no one has to wonder whether they belong. And friends, there really is no place like home. every time the church chooses love rather than indifference, pride rather than shame, welcome rather than exclusion,

43:00 tables rather than gates, we don't just talk about the kingdom of God. We come home. thanks be to God Amen As you're able, will you rise in body or in spirit and join with me in our prayer for the day. The Lord is our keeper. The Lord is our shade at our right hand. The sun shall not strike us by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep us from all evil and will keep our lives. The Lord will keep our going out.