Sermon preached by the Reverend Nicholas Lang

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

Solemnity of St. Michael's and All Angels - September 30, 2007

In the name of our God of abundant, unconditional and radical love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

By selecting the Gospel we just heard— Luke’s text which would normally be read on this Sunday after Pentecost— rather than the one assigned for the feast of St. Michael and All Angels which we observe today, I have intentionally created an unusual blend of images in the lessons: images of angels and demons, the very wealthy and the dirt poor, the entitled and the outcast.

The backdrop of our worship today is this wonderful feast, a popular and much favored one of our Anglican heritage. The reading from Revelations recounts the fight between the forces of good and evil; Michael and his angels against the Devil, and even though our Anglican theology about angels is not very concrete, traditionally we have looked on these heavenly spirits as companions on our life journey.

The hymns, prayers, and anthems complement this morning’s celebration in honor of St. Michael and all Angels but for some reason I resisted the temptation to conform and to stick with the very safe Gospel text assigned to this feast and, having read the outstanding sermon that Mother Kalemkerian preached last week, I am convinced that I made a good choice. What we reflect on this morning is a continuation of the message Jesus delivers in the chapters of Luke’s Gospel assigned for the season, a message about abundance and about giving. In Louise’s words, “Whatever gift you have, be faithful with it. Bring your baptism to this community. Let it unfold with whatever gifts—great or small—you have to offer.”.

Luke’s text today, like the story told last week, underscores God’s call to us to be radically generous. The story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is pretty dreadful no matter how you look at it. There is nothing pretty or comforting about abject poverty, oozing sores, salivating dogs, the torment of hell, or the great chasm described therein. I don’t at all fault you if you are thinking “Why didn’t he just choose that other Gospel instead?” Or maybe just talk about angels. They’re much less intimidating than this drama.

Well, Jesus told this awful story for a very good reason. The rich man—and the bulk of the religious leaders and Pharisees of the time—were not lovers of money merely for its own sake. They believed that wealth was a sign that God favored them. The more you have the more God favors you. The less you have, the less God loves you. If you are poor, it’s because God is punishing you. And they picked and chose Old Testament texts to support this warped theology—not unlike some Christians do with bad theology today. So their worldview not only allowed them to enjoy their wealth, it also allowed them to ignore the poor, to step over the beggar in the gutter, thinking all the time that, in leaving well enough alone, they were not interfering with the fate God had dolled out to these poor bums.

Jesus hated what the Pharisees did with the Scripture as I am certain Jesus despises what some churches and their leadership continues to do with the Bible when they use it as a tool to denigrate, oppress, and make outcasts of any of God’s beloved people. In usual form, Jesus uses this story of the Rich Man and Lazarus to make his point and turn the perverted theology of the wealthy Pharisees upside down.

He begins with the very description of the rich man’s robe—the color purple which two thousand years ago was only worn by royalty because it was so difficult to make. He doesn’t name this wealthy “Somebody” but rather names the poor guy who resorts to sitting outside his gate—hoping against hope that this wealthy Jew will be moved by the admonition in Torah to feed the poor. Lazarus has come to his house in that awful state of desperation. There was no welfare system or poor house in those days. The “have nots” were totally dependent on the generosity of the “haves” and “the haves more.”

In the end, neither survives. Death becomes the great equalizer. But now Jesus is able to show his audience how twisted is their thinking, how abominable is their theology, how different is God’s economy. In the after life, Abraham explains to the rich man that the wealth he enjoyed in life were not signs of God’s favor at all. He just owned a lot of stuff and that in no way meant he was a good guy. Furthermore, he could have shared with poor Lazarus, made a life and death difference for him, given him at least some modicum of comfort and dignity. But he didn’t.

The great divide—the chasm that Abraham identifies—isn’t relegated to, nor does it have its genesis in, the after life. The rich man himself has dug the whole of the great divide every time he separated himself from someone who was in need of what he was fully able to give. The great chasm was entirely of his own making.

Here is where we all should be prepared to squirm. If we are tempted to keep this story and its message stuffed way back in first century Palestine, we are clearly living in a bubble. If we think that it is in no way relevant to our modern, enlightened lifestyle, we are in trouble. Our culture makes the same equation between wealth—the accumulation of stuff—and a person’s value and status. The Reverend Claire Fischer-Davies, of Christ Episcopal Church, Blacksburg, Virginia puts it this way: “The divide between the rich and the poor in our country isn’t a crack—it’s a gaping abyss, and it gets wider and deeper every time someone suggests that if people are poor, it’s their own fault.”

Do you recall what happened when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Evacuation tied up the interstate for days. Thousands of SUVs and RVs caused a gridlock. In the end, it was the weakest and the poorest, those without bus fare let alone flood insurance or alone SUVs who were sardine canned into overcrowded shelters without enough food and water. Times have not changed all that much since Jesus told this awful story. Lazarus still lives—in many, many disguises and all around us.

And where does that leave us? It brings us full circle to the words Mother Louise offered last week: “Whatever gift you have, be faithful with it. Bring your baptism to this community. Let it unfold with whatever gifts—great or small—you have to offer.” But we also need to consider the wider context, the manner of life to which most of us are accustomed.

In the past five years Americans have spent over 2 billion dollars just on chewing gum; more than 4 billion on movies; 12 billion on vacations; 20 billion on cosmetic; 49 billion on soft drinks. We could add to this list computers, upgrades, camcorders, sports utility vehicles, and electric toothpaste squeezers.

In American Beauty, a darkly comic film about suburbia, Lester Burnam is a man who has lived a meaningless, almost trite life. Throughout the film, he strives to recover whatever it is he has lost in his marriage and family over the years. In one touching scene he comes close to experiencing the dynamic, joyful quality that he and his wife shared in their early years.

They are in their living room. Lester addresses his wife: "You’ve lost your joy . . . Whatever happened to that girl I once knew? . . . have you forgotten about her, because I haven’t"

They sit together in silence and then he sidles up next to her and begins to kiss her neck tenderly. She receives his tenderness and shuts her eyes to take it in. Noticing, however, that Lester has a bottle of beer in his hand, she suddenly reverts back to the present. "Lester, you’re going to spill beer on the couch. "Backing away from her and the couch, Lester responds: "So what? It’s just a couch."

"This is a four-thousand dollar sofa. Upholstered in Italian silk,” she shrieks. “This is not just a couch." "It’s just a couch,” Lester shouts back. And then there is a great silence before he adds, “This isn’t life. This is just stuff. And it’s become more to you than living."

The Gospel today is not so much about the rich and the poor, about wealth and poverty, as it is about life and how you and I choose to live life. Do we live in the mindset of God’s abundance and in faithfulness to radical generosity or in the great chasm, the great divide that we are all able to create.

Each of us can name our Lazarus who lives outside the wall of our own little safe haven and poverty comes in more than one form. I believe that for the Rich Man in the story Lazarus was an unrecognized “angel” who was offering him the opportunity to alter his entire way of living—guiding him to a new life that would have been much richer and more joyful than the one he knew. How ready are we for the unexpected insight, the surprise of grace, the sudden encounter with human need, in the small "changes and chances" of life.

This morning we welcome into our community our new deacon Christopher whose role apart from his liturgical one is to model servant ministry for us and to encourage you in your ministry as the baptized. Shortly, we will pour the blessed water of life on Nicole Mary Bartlett who will be the newest member of Christ’s Church and the youngest of our ministers. It is a wonderful occasion for all of us to resolve to live life fully both in the church and in the world, to bring your baptism to this community, to let it unfold with whatever gifts—great or small—you have to offer.

All of it, our gifts, our talents, our money, our possessions are a blessing, a blessing given to be enjoyed, yes, but also to be shared. “If our goods are not available to the community,” Martin Luther said, “they are stolen goods.”

Mother Barbara Brown Taylor, whom you have heard me quote so very often, provides a better ending to this sermon than I could ever create. “The best thing about this story,” she says “is that it is not over yet. For the rich man, yes, but not for us, because we are the five siblings.

Even though Father Abraham would not let Lazarus come back from the grave to tell us this story, Jesus has sneaked it out for us. Now we have that as well as Moses and the prophets and someone risen from the dead to convince us it is true. All that remains to be seen is what we will do about it.”