The Open Window by Rev. Tom Long (April 17, 2016)

0:24 Thank you, Amy, and it is always a privilege to be in worship with this courageous and faithful congregation. I'm especially glad to be here today on the day that Mara and Chloe, the daughters of my dear friends Rich and Andrea, have entered the gates of righteousness through baptism. It was wonderful to participate in that. A few minutes ago, Michael powerfully read one of Jesus' most provocative parables. from Luke. It's the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Now, let me begin by admitting that I don't think it's going to be easy to figure out exactly what Jesus wants us to get out of that parable, or any of the parables, really. The word parable is a notoriously difficult word to define. It means a lot of things, really. But one of the best definitions of parable is riddle.

1:21 A parable is a riddle. There's some puzzle to be solved, some enigma to be plumbed. And the thing about Jesus' parables, just when you think you've got it, a trap door opens and you fall down to a deeper level of mystery. By the way, I think insufficient attention is given to the fact that we serve a Jesus whose favorite method of teaching was not rule, law, spiritual truth, principle, but riddle. The writer of the Gospel of Mark doesn't exaggerate much when he says, he never said anything except in riddles. I think that bothered his disciples, frankly. We're told that one day Jesus had been preaching and teaching beside the Sea of Galilee, one parable after another, one riddle after another. And when He was done, His disciples pulled Him aside and said, why did you do that? Why did you talk to them in riddles? As if to say, if you have something to say to them, just say it directly. But no, He never said anything except in riddles. The humorist Calvin Trillin once said that he failed high school math because his teacher never understood that he meant his answers ironically.

2:49 Well, so did Jesus evidently because He never said anything except in riddles. The great New Testament scholar C.H. Dodd once came up with a wonderful definition of a parable. He said, a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from everyday life, the meaning of which is sufficiently in doubt to tease the imagination into thought. Did you get that? in doubt to tease the imagination into thought. Well, even in the strange world of parables, the one that we read today is particularly odd. You see, most of Jesus' parables are about things that we know about. A farmer sows seed in a field. A woman mixes yeast with flour to make bread. A young man says to his father, I'm sick of this farm.

3:51 Give me my share of the inheritance. I want to go to the city and make a life for myself. We understand that. That's life. That's human life. In fact, one of the best definitions of parable is an earthly story, a very earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Well, not this one. In fact, most of the action in this parable takes place not in this world, but the next world. You might even say instead of being an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, it's a heavenly story or actually a hellish story. The dialogue in this parable comes from the bowels of Hades. What happens in this story is that there is a rich man. We don't know his name, but we know how he lives.

4:45 He wears designer clothing and he eats whatever he wants to every day. Right at his door, right at his gate, there is a desperately poor homeless man named Lazarus. So desperately hungry that he would love to have pawed through the hefty garbage bags that go out the back door of the mansion every day. But no, there is no indication that the rich man ever noticed him, ever saw him, ever paid him any mind. They live only a few feet apart, but they're in different worlds. But then, as is so often the case in Jesus' riddles, there is a sudden reversal. Lazarus dies and is taken by the angels into the bosom of Father Abraham.

5:47 That's an old Jewish phrase meaning right into the family of God, right next to the heart of God. The rich man also dies, but he heads in the other direction. He goes into Hades, Sheol, the Jewish land of the dead. And in torment there, he looks up, and what does he see? But that beggar, Lazarus, in Abraham's bosom. And so he cries out, Father Abraham, please, I'm in agony here. Send Lazarus with some water to cool my tongue. And Abraham says, oh, my child, no. You've had your good things in life. And what is more, a great chasm has been fixed between us. You can't come to us now, and those of us who would dearly love to come to you, we cannot.

6:47 It's too late. It's too late. It's too late. Well, what do you think Jesus wants us to get out of that riddle? Well, a good many New Testament scholars agree that this story fits beautifully into a major motif, a major theme in the Gospel of Luke, namely that in the age-old battle between the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, that God is not neutral. God stands on the side of the poor. They have no one else to stand with them, and God stands with them. And it's true. If we read through the Gospel of Luke with open eyes, there is more material in this Gospel on economic justice than almost anywhere else in the Scripture. So strong is this theme that you get the feeling that every time Luke uses the word rich, he He snorts.

7:50 It's true. Right at the beginning of the gospel, when the angel Gabriel comes to the little peasant girl Mary to tell her she's going to be the mother of the Christ child, she breaks into song. We call it the Magnificat. We sing it at Christmas time, but it is not a gentle mother's lullaby. It's a political protest song. My soul magnifies the Lord. Why? Because God has brought down the powerful and the mighty and lifted up the lowly and the weak. The hungry God has filled with good things, and the rich, God has sent empty away. Right before Jesus tells our story, he has a fight with the local clergy. He says to them, let me tell you what's wrong with you ministers.

8:47 You think you can serve two gods, God and mammon, God and money, God and prosperity. Well, you can't. They are rival gods, and they both want your soul. So what is it going to be, God or money? Well, maybe, just maybe, our story is the tragic tale of a man who made the wrong decision. If that's what Jesus wants us to get out of this, I have to tell you there's something about that that I find personally satisfying. Some of my neighbors in Atlanta in the last few years have lost their homes. You know the story, they got bigger mortgages than they should have. The bubble burst, they got upside down and couldn't get out from under it, and they lost everything. They bear some responsibility, but they're also victims of greedy people who manipulated our economy for their own advantage, and it makes my blood boil.

9:51 Or maybe you saw the same story several years ago that I did about the professional athlete in Philadelphia who owes the city of Philadelphia thousands of dollars in unpaid parking fines because he parks his luxury cars wherever he wants to. One of his tickets was for parking his Rolls Royce at Philadelphia Airport for two weeks in a handicap slot. And if what Jesus is saying is that one day rich and greedy and self-centered people like that are going to stand before the bar of God's justice and hear God say to them, all right, buster, you've had all the good things in life you are ever going to have. there's something in me that says, yeah.

10:38 There are only two things that keep me from stopping there. The first is the chill of recognition. Look, I do not think of myself as a rich man. I don't. I have for all of my career been a preacher and a teacher, and believe me, I have been paid accordingly. I don't think of myself as a rich man. But if you pull the camera back and look at me in relationship to the population of the earth, I'm right near the top of the pyramid. To put it in terms of our story, I have a closet full of clothes and I eat pretty much whatever I want to. this has to say to the rich, it has to say to me. The other thing that keeps me from stopping there is that Jesus doesn't stop there. Luke doesn't stop there. No sooner has Jesus uttered this story than he gets back on the road to Jerusalem, and it soon takes him into the town of Jericho where he encounters an honest-to-God rich man.

11:57 His name is Zacchaeus, and he is muscle for the Roman IRS. Or as Luke puts it, he was the chief tax collector, and he was rich. But he wanted to see Jesus, so he climbed up into a sycamore tree. And when Jesus passed under the sycamore tree, he looked up at Zacchaeus, and he did not say, okay, Buster, you've had all the good things in life you're ever going to have. What Jesus said was, come on down, Zacchaeus, I want to stay at your house today. And before that day was over, Zacchaeus was jumping for justice and joy. and Jesus was saying, today salvation has come even to this man, for this man too is in the bosom of Abraham. The trap door opens. It suddenly becomes more complex. What is this riddle about?

13:07 Wealth and poverty? Yes. But something even deeper. The key to it, I think, comes in what Father Abraham said to the rich man. Oh, my child. That's not the voice of an angry judge. That's the voice of a heartbroken parent. Oh, my child, a great chasm has been fixed between us. those of us who would love to come to you, we can't. I think what this is about is what might be called the penultimate theology of the gospel, the next to last theology of the gospel. The ultimate theology of the gospel is it's never too late. The banquet of God is always waiting. That's what baptism is about. The The children can always come home.

14:06 The mercy of God is from everlasting to everlasting. It's never too late. But that would be cheap grace if it were not for the next to last theology of the gospel, which is that every now and then God opens a window, a window of blessing, a kingdom an opportunity to be a part of what God is doing in the world. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't, and then the window closes and it's too late. The Pulitzer Prize winning author Tracy Kidder wrote a wonderful book called Old Friends. It's about life in a New England nursing home. He spent a year in a Boston nursing home doing research for this book, and in the book he said there are a lot of people in this nursing home who are plagued by the loss of memory.

15:06 There is one man here who is plagued by the inability to lose memory. His name is Art, he has just lost his wife of 60 years and he's tormented by memories of failure in their marriage. When they were newlyweds, she accidentally dropped the frying pan and he cursed her. If I could have her back, she could drop a hundred frying pans. I wouldn't say a thing. He's tormented by an argument that went on all 60 years of their marriage. She wanted him to tell her more that he loved her. I don't like to talk about it. I just like to show it. She said, I know sweetheart, but sometimes I need to hear it. No, that ain't my way. That ain't my way. The last week of her life, she went into a coma and he sat beside her bed saying over and over, I love you.

16:04 I love you. She never said anything back. She never forgave me. The hour she died, he was in the room watching television. Look, the Red Sox are losing the game. I would have liked it, he said, if she had died in my arms. some of us understand this very personally I can't believe I cannot believe that when I was a young father I actually got on that airplane and flew somewhere to give a speech to people who no longer remember me or what I said instead of going to the father-daughter campfire girl banquet that my little girl Melanie was begging me to go to with her. I can't believe that I did that.

17:00 Now that I'm older and a little wiser, I know I made the wrong choice. And I am now ready to go to the father-daughter campfire girl banquet. To which Melanie would say, Oh, Dad, I'm all grown up now. I'm not that little girl anymore who needed her father so desperately that night. You missed it. When Jesus was a boy, I think he heard a lot of sermons like this. The old rabbis used to love to preach on this theme, how God would open up a window of blessing and then it would close if you didn't act. They even had their favorite sermon illustrations. They were called Eliezer of Damascus stories. Who in the world is Eliezer of Damascus? He's an obscure biblical character mentioned by name only once in the book of Genesis. but he was Abraham's kinsman, Abraham's right-hand man, and the rabbis made up stories about him, how when God wanted to bless the earth, he'd say to Father Abraham, send your servant Eliezer of Damascus to earth as a blessing, and Abraham would do it.

18:10 And Eliezer would always come incognito. He was the goat herd or the tailor or the guy next to you on the Delta flight. You have to keep your eyes open if you're going to see Eliezer of Damascus. By the way, if you translate Eleazar from Hebrew to Greek, it's Lazarus. The blessing of God disguised as a beggar. The rich man needed Lazarus a lot more than Lazarus needed the rich man, and he missed it. Why did he miss it? Same reason we do. He was too rich, too self-sufficient, too turned in on himself, too numb to the possibility that God might be trying to break through in an unexpected way with a blessing for his life.

19:08 Too late. One of my friends was watching television with her teenage son the other night. She was folding laundry. They were watching something stupid on TV. He made some smart remark about what they were watching and I don't know, it didn't sit well with her and so she scolded him a little bit. He didn't like being scolded so he got smart with her. That really didn't sit well. So she scolded him hard, and that did not go well with him. He brought his fist down on the coffee table, jumped up and ran up to his room and slammed the door. And she thought to herself, well, you can just stew in your juices. But then something told her that there was nothing more important in all the world at that moment than making peace with her son.

20:06 So she put down her laundry and she put down her pride and she went upstairs and she made peace. Don't miss it.