What Really Matters

Sermon Proper 21 C The Sunday closest to September 28

I Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31
Preached at St. John’s Lancaster

We Americans tend to be a rather pragmatic people; and that is not a bad thing- as a general rule. Like the Ancient Romans, whose heirs we are in so many ways, we are inventive and flexible, willing to borrow good ideas whatever their source, and generally ready to put in the hard work to make a program work if we are convinced of its value. But the problem with pragmatism is that it tends to imagine that whatever works is ultimately right, and that is not always the case. Slavery worked pretty well in the pre-machine era. Paying sub-living wages without benefits works pretty well in a geographic area where there are lots of undocumented workers (or illegal aliens, you choose the term) and little enforcement of fair labor practices. A second potential problem with pragmatism is that it can easily come to value that which is quantifiable and measurable over that which is harder to conceive in material terms. Instead of valuing “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness” as our epistle lesson today encourages us to do, pragmatism taken to excess can lead us to measure the worth of our lives and the lives of those around us in terms of more visible economic factors. Disposable income, short term financial security, diversification of resources, and running in the right circles, power or control over others, can and often do replace those more illusive and hard to define virtues commended by St. Paul.
Today’s Gospel lesson tells the story of Dives and Lazarus, who lived in a town in ancient Israel and saw each other almost every day. One was very poor and one was very rich. But after their deaths, the poor man went into Abraham’s bosom, and the rich man went to that other place. Their Earthly roles were as it were reversed. When the rich man, Dives, cried out for mercy and sought relief for his 5 still living brothers if not for himself, he was told in no uncertain terms that we are all responsible for the decisions we make in life, and that his 5 brothers, like himself, must use the many resources God had given them to turn to him, amend their lives, and do the right thing. Jesus goes on to say that even the miracle of one rising from the dead would be unlikely to change their hearts, because they had decided long ago to pursue wealth and power and pleasure rather than the things of God. The blessings they had received had become idols and in effect turned their heads, and caused them to ignore those things which really are important, those things that we cannot measure in an account book; things like “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.”
The Fathers of the Church generally studied the scriptures by employing various independent methodologies to examine and evaluate the text, much like our Education for Ministry group does today when they engage in theological reflection. One of their standard methodologies was to look for hidden allegorical meanings in the Scriptural passage they were prayerfully studying. They sought to discern if God was telling them anything in the symbols, the numbers, or the circumstances of the story itself. St. Jerome, who lived from 347 to 420 and translated the Bible into Latin, looked into the symbolism of Lazarus and the 5 brothers of Dives, the rich man, and noted a deep and abiding truth about the nature of that pragmatic outlook which is so prevalent among us today. In his Homily on Lazarus and Dives, Jerome observed that Lazarus, the poor man, had much in common with the call of Jesus for us all to walk away from the wealth of the world and to embrace the things of God. He went on to say, “…you have five brothers: sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. These are the brothers to whom formerly you were enslaved. Since they were the brothers you loved, you could not love your brother Lazarus. Naturally, you could not love him as brother, because you loved them. Those brothers have no love for poverty. Your sight, your sense of smell, your taste, and your sense of touch were your brothers. These brothers of yours loved wealth, and they had no eye for poverty.” You see, Dives found himself unable to see and respond to Lazarus, the true spiritual poverty of Christ, because he was so enamored by the wonderful sensory input that was all around him. He was so focused on those things that he could experience in a measurable and tactile manner that he lost sight of those more immeasurable and spiritual things: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. So in our pragmatism, we must be very careful or we will become so caught up in those things that we know by the means of this world, that we fail to apprehend the truths of the Holy Spirit, which are again: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.
We, like the men and women of every era, have a tendency to focus on those things that are immediately around us, and in our busyness and amidst the responsibilities of life, we tend to focus on those things which we immediately perceive with our five senses. Perhaps the pragmatic, or “do what works” nature of our own age even makes these tendencies more pronounced. It is good to be attentive, and it is good to be practical, and it is good to employ those five senses that our Lord has given us and blessed by his own incarnation. But we must be very careful not to overdo a good thing, giving primacy to our sensory perceptions and our willingness to declare something good just because it works to the exclusion of those more important things: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. It is so easy like Dives to become so enamored by the distractions of sensory luxury and pleasure that we fail to see our brother Lazarus, who is Christ’s call for us to focus on the development of that spiritual poverty which is the door to heaven’s joys.
Before concluding today, I must return from St. Jerome’s spiritual interpretation of the parable of Dives and Lazarus to a more conventional interpretation which is every bit as valid. If we fail to see the poor in our midst and do what we can to help them, we will pay the price for our failure at the judgment. God expects us to use the gifts with which he has entrusted us to help our neighbors in need. Among us there will be differences of how this might best be done. Some will advocate for increased government action and some will call for more private sector efforts. Some will call for a greater proportion of direct aid in cash and kind and others will stress education and joint service to a greater degree. Some will call for immediate and direct aid , and others will call for more stringent, and perhaps slower, methodologies of delivery to address the possibility of fraud. We may disagree about how best to help those in need, but every Christian must heed the call of our Saviour to help those in need. The consequences of failing to heed this call are eternal.
In today’s lessons, I see a dual message. The more immediate reality is that there are many people today who suffer the ravages of poverty, and we as Christians are required to help them. The second is just as real, but perhaps seems less immediate in our day to day lives. It is that we sometimes get so caught up the physical aspects of life that we neglect those spiritual realities which ought to define who we are and how we behave. Would the people who know you best say that you are righteous, godly, and filled with faith and love for God and man? Would they say that your daily life is characterized by endurance and gentleness which is an inspiration to those around you? If not, perhaps you have chosen over the years to serve those five brothers of whom blessed Jerome preached. Perhaps today is the time to invite God to turn your heart from the pleasures and responsibilities of this world, that you might see Jesus more clearly, and serve him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.