"The Open Window" February 26, 2017

0:07 Well, a few minutes ago, we just heard Jesus' provocative parable of the rich man and Lazarus. 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. But one of the best definitions of parable is riddle. A parable is a riddle. There's some mystery to be plumbed, some enigma to be resolved. And the thing about Jesus' parables, right when we think we've got it, a trap door opens. And we fall down to an even deeper level of mystery. By the way, I think insufficient attention is paid to the fact that we serve a Lord whose favorite method of teaching was riddle. The writer of the Gospel of Mark doesn't exaggerate much when he says he never said anything except in riddles.

1:15 I think that bothered his disciples, frankly. We're told that one day Jesus had been teaching and preaching at the Sea of Galilee, one parable after another, one riddle after another, and when it was over, the disciples pulled him aside and said to him, Why did you do that? Why do you talk to them in riddles? As if to say, if you've got something to say to them, why don't you 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. Well, so did Jesus evidently. 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.

2:23 Did you catch that? Sufficiently in doubt to tease the imagination into thought. But even in the strange world of parables, the one we read this morning is particularly odd. You see, some people would define a parable as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Well, not this one. Most of the action in this parable takes place not in this world, but in the next world. In fact, you might say instead of being an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. This one's a heavenly story with a, or actually it's a hellish story with an earthly meaning. What happens in this riddle is that there is a rich man. We don't know his name, but we know how he lives. He wears designer clothing and he eats whatever he wants to every day. Right at his gate, right at his doorway there is a poor beggar 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.

3:43 There is no indication that the rich man ever saw him, noticed him, 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' parables there is a sudden reversal of fortune the poor man dies and according to Jesus the angels carry him into the bosom of Abraham that's an old Jewish phrase meaning right at the heart of God's family right next to the heart of God The rich man also dies, but he heads in the other direction. He ends up in Hades, in the old Jewish land of the dead, the underworld. And in torment there, he looks up and he sees Father Abraham with that beggar Lazarus in his bosom.

4:47 And he calls out, Father Abraham, please have mercy on me. Send Lazarus with some water to cool my tongue. I'm in agony in these flames. But Father Abraham says, oh, my child, no. In life, you've had your good things. 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. 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 theme in the Gospel of Luke. The theme is that in the age-old struggle between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, God is not neutral. God stands on the side of the poor.

5:55 They have no one else to stand with them, and God stands with them. And it's true, if we will read the Gospel of Luke with an open mind, an open heart, there is more material in Luke about what we might call economic justice than almost anywhere else in the Bible. So strong is the theme that when you read through Luke, you get the feeling that every time he uses the word rich, he snorts rich. Well, it's true. You may remember right at the beginning of Luke, when the angel Gabriel comes to the little peasant girl Mary to say, you're going to be the mother of the Christ child. She breaks into song. We call it the Magnificat, and the choir may sing it at Christmas time. But it's not a gentle mother's lullaby.

6:51 It's a political protest song. What she says is, my soul magnifies the Lord. Why? Because God has brought the high and mighty down from their thrones and lifted up the weak and lowly. The hungry, she sings, God has filled with good things. And the rich, God has sent empty away. Right before Jesus tells our riddle, he has a fight with the local clergy. He says to them, I'll tell you preachers what's wrong with you. You preachers think you can serve two gods, God and money. God and mammon, God and prosperity. Well, you can't. They are rival gods, and they both want your soul. So what's it going to be, God or money?

7:48 And maybe, just maybe, our story is the sad and tragic tale of a man who made the wrong decision. if that's what Jesus wants us to get out of this riddle then I must tell you there's something about that that I find very satisfying Back home in Atlanta, I have a number of neighbors who in the last 10 years have lost their homes, lost everything. You know the story. They got over their heads and their mortgages. They got upside down, and they lost their homes. Partly their fault, but they are also partly the victims of greedy people who manipulated our economic system for their own benefit, not caring about anybody else. And it makes my blood boil.

8:41 Or maybe you read the same newspaper story I read a few years ago about the professional basketball player 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 the tickets was for parking his Rolls Royce at Philadelphia Airport for two weeks in a handicap slot. And if what Jesus is telling us is that one day greedy, self-centered people like that will come before the bar of God's justice and hear the voice of God say to them, all right, buster, you've had all the good things you're ever going to have in life. there's something in me that says, yeah.

9:32 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 have been all of my career a teacher and a preacher, and believe me, I have been paid accordingly. I'm now retired and on kind of a fixed income. 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 up near the top of the pyramid. Or to put it in terms of our story, I have a whole closet full of nice clothes, and I eat pretty much whatever I want every day.

10:29 whatever this story has to say to the rich it has to say to me. The second thing that keeps me from stopping there is that Jesus doesn't stop there. Luke doesn't stop there. As soon as Jesus has told this story he gets back on the road to the cross and it soon takes him into the town of Jericho where he meets an honest to goodness rich man. His name is Zacchaeus, and he is a toady for the Roman IRS. Or as Luke puts it, he's the chief tax collector, and he was rich. But he wanted to see Jesus. So he climbed up into a sycamore tree when Jesus was passing by. And when Jesus got to the sycamore tree, he looked up at Zacchaeus, and he did not say, all right, Buster, you've had all the good things in life you're ever going to have.

11:33 What he said was, come on down, Zacchaeus, I'm staying 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 because this man too is in the bosom of Abraham.

12:00 Chook! The trap door opens. What is this riddle about? Is it about wealth and poverty? Yes. But it's about something even deeper. I think the clue to it comes in what Father Abraham said to the rich man. he said oh my child that's not the voice of an angry judge that's the voice of a heartbroken parent oh my child I can't come to you now a great chasm has been fixed it's too late 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 that it is never too late the mercy of God is from everlasting to everlasting the banquet of grace is always waiting and the prodigal daughter or the prodigal son can always come home 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 up a window of blessing where we can see what God is doing in the world and we are beckoned to participate with God in it for our behalf as much as others to receive this blessing.

13:35 Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't and then it closes and it's too late. the Pulitzer Prize winning author Tracy Kidder has written a fascinating book called Old Friends it's about life in a New England retirement home Tracy Kidder actually lived a year in a retirement home in Boston doing research for this book and he says in the book there are a lot of people in this retirement home who are plagued by the loss of memory but there is one man here who is plagued by the inability to lose memory. His name is Art. He's 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 one morning and he cursed her.

14:37 If I could have her back, she could drop a hundred frying pans and I wouldn't say a thing he's tormented by the memory of an argument that went on all 60 years of their marriage she wanted him to tell her more that he loved her oh I don't like to do that that ain't my way I don't like to talk about it I just like to show it oh sweetheart I know but sometimes I need to hear it no no that ain't my way the last week of her life she went into a coma he sat beside her bed saying over and over I love you, I love you she never said anything back to me, she never forgave me he said the day she died he was in the room watching television the Red Sox are losing I would have liked it, he said, if she had died in my arms.

15:39 some of us understand this very personally I cannot 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 I did that. Now that I'm older and maybe a little wiser, I know I made the wrong choice.

16:23 I am now ready to go to the father-daughter campfire girl. To which Melanie would say, oh, Daddy, it's too late. I'm all grown up now. I'm not that little girl anymore who needed her father so much that night. You missed it. I think Jesus heard a lot of sermons like this when he was a boy because it was a favorite theme of the old rabbi preachers in the synagogue, and Jesus went to the synagogue. They used to love to talk about how God would open up a window of blessing and invite God's people to be a part of it, and sometimes they would and sometimes they wouldn't, and then the window would close and it would be too late. They even had their favorite sermon illustrations that they used. They were called Eleazar of Damascus stories.

17:19 Who's Eleazar of Damascus? He's an obscure biblical character mentioned only once by name in the book of Genesis. He was Abraham's cousin and his right-hand man. But the rabbis made up stories about Eleazar of Damascus, how when God wanted to bless the earth, he'd tell Father Abraham, send your servant Eliezer of Damascus to earth as a blessing and Abraham would do it and Eliezer would come but always incognito he was the goat herd or the tailor or the guy next to you on the southwest flight you have to keep your eyes open if you're going to see Eliezer of Damascus by the way if you translate Eliezer into Greek it's Lazarus the beggar the blessing of God in the form of a beggar right at the front door.

18:19 The rich man needed Lazarus a lot more than Lazarus needed the rich man. But he missed it. Why did he miss it? Same reason we do. He was too rich, too self-sufficient, too closed in on himself, too numb to the possibility that God might be right there before him. A friend of mine was watching television with her teenage son the other night. She was folding her laundry. The two of them were watching something stupid on TV. In the middle of it, her teenage son said something smart. It didn't sit right with her, and she scolded him a little bit. He didn't like being scolded, so he said something really smart to her, and that did not sit well with her, and she scolded him even more harshly.

19:16 At that point, he brought his fist down on the coffee table, ran upstairs, slammed the door of his room, and she said, 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.

19:46 So she put down her laundry, and she put down her pride. And she went upstairs, and she made peace.