“You can’t get there from here”

A sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Christine Jerrett at Central United Church on September 26, 2010.

Scriptures: Luke 16: 19-31

There is a story about a preacher and a taxi driver who died and went to heaven on the same day. As they arrive at the pearly gates, the preacher is feeling pretty sure of himself. Here he is in the place he had been talking about ad nauseum all his life. When he arrives, he is assigned to a small house with a wooden bed and a black and white television set. He is given a bicycle to ride around heaven. However, he notices that the taxi driver has settled into a mansion with many beds and a home theatre style television.

Day by day, the preacher gets more annoyed at the discrepancy. Finally, he approaches the Almighty God, Ruler of the Cosmos, and says, “Excuse me, but I think there has been some mistake.” The preacher explains the differences in the standard of living accorded to him and to the taxi driver. “I am a minister and I am living like this! He is but a lowly taxi driver and he is living like that! You must have made an error.”

The Lord God Almighty replies, “Oh, no, Reverend. To the contrary. While you were preaching, people were sleeping. While he was driving, the people in his cab were praying and doing so with all their might.”

In this morning’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells a ‘pearly gates’ kind of story.

Luke 16: 19-31

One of the greatest challenges that the early church faced was trying to convince people that Jesus was the saviour that they had been waiting for. Here was a man who had suffered a horrible death as a common criminal. He had been executed by the powerful Roman Empire while onlookers mocked him. This was the saviour of the world?

When the apostle Paul wrote to the Christian Church in Corinth, “We proclaim Christ God’s saviour, crucified”, he acknowledged that such a claim was a stumbling block to Jews who had expected the Messiah to rescue them from Roman rule. It was foolishness to the Greeks whose mythic heroes were always strong, powerful, victorious. Those are the kind of people who save the world, not someone who suffers and dies. Even so, says Paul, to those who believe, Jesus of Nazareth is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

1 Corinthians 1: 22-24

One of the greatest challenges we face as we try to follow Jesus is that God’s salvation often doesn’t look like the salvation we are wanting. It does not come in the form we were expecting. In the section of Luke’s gospel that we have been working through over the past few months, we have heard Jesus tell parable after parable about the unexpected ways God saves us:
       God is like a shepherd looking for a lost sheep, even though shepherds were probably the least religious people they could meet.
       God is like a woman, tearing the house apart looking for a lost coin, even though nobody would have thought of casting God as a woman.
       God is like a father who humiliates himself in the community out of love for two sons, each lost in his own way. 

Luke 15

In today’s gospel story, Jesus says, “There was a rich man.” Jesus does not give him a name, but Luke has set the story up in such a way that we are to think that the rich man might represent the Pharisees. “Everyone knows they are lovers of money,” he reminds his listeners.

Luke 16:14

“And there was a poor man.” The poor man’s name is Lazarus, which means “God helps.” The name is somewhat ironic since God does not seem to help Lazarus in any way we might expect God to help. Lazarus is poor. Lazarus is so poor that he begs at the rich man’s gate every day. Lazarus is covered with sores. He is so sore-ridden that dogs would come and lick his sores.

When both men die, the rich man finds himself in a situation much like the preacher in the joke that opened this sermon. His accommodations are much below the standards to which he was accustomed. They are not at all what he had expected for his reward in heaven.

What was really irksome to him was that poor Lazarus was resting in the ‘bosom of Abraham’. Abraham - the father of those who live by faith in Yahweh. Abraham -- the one with whom God had entered into covenant. God had promised Abraham, “I will bless you and I will make you a blessing to others.”

There was Abraham with the poor person who had suffered all his life. The rich man is suffering by himself, with only his agony to keep him company.

The rich man does what he knows how to do. He tries to solve his problem and fix the situation. He begins by giving orders to Abraham: “Send Lazarus with some water. I am in agony.” Then, he moves to negotiations and developing a strategic plan, “Send Lazarus to warn my brothers so this situation will not be repeated.”
Abraham will have none of it. “You can’t get here from there,” he says. “It can’t be done.”  It is not that Abraham is hard-hearted and cruel. It is not that Abraham is happy to see the tables finally turned. Abraham will not negotiate with the rich man because the rich man’s problem is not something that the rich man can fix with his usual way of operating in the world. Abraham is the father of those who live by faith in Yahweh. You can’t demand or negotiate your way into God’s presence. God’s presence can only be received as a gift.

Throughout the stories of the scriptures, we learn that ours is a faith that is based on on the promises of God:

When Abraham was without children and without a future, God promised him he would be a father; that he would bless and be a blessing to the nations

Genesis 12: 2

When Jeremiah was a prophet of Yahweh at a time when the centre of life was crumbling, God promised: “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”

Jeremiah 29:11

Isaiah spoke God’s promise to a people who were growing weary and discouraged, promising, “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall rise up on wings, as eagles. They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint”.

Isaiah 40: 31

Those promises found their fulfillment in Jesus who said, “I have come that you might have life and have it in abundance”.

John 10:10

He promised, “I will never leave you or forsake you. . . In the world you will have trouble, but do not be afraid. I have overcome the world”.

John 16:33

When we are in agony or when we are suffering, the promised blessings can seem very far away. They can seem out of reach. A great chasm separates us from the future that God promises. In such times it can be difficult to hold onto faith -- to keep trusting the promises. Then it is that we are faced with one of the hardest lessons to learn. At least, we seem to have to learn it over and over again: hope does not come from what we know or what we can do, as clever or as powerful as we might be. Hope does not come from a ‘what’. Hope comes from whom you trust.

The one we trust is Jesus who spent much of his time with people who suffered or who lived on the margins of society. Jesus our saviour suffered himself and died. The surprising truth of our faith is that God and God’s salvation comes to us in the midst of our suffering. We do not find our way out of suffering as much as Christ leads us through it. He leads us into a life that is shaped by God’s resurrection power.

Times of suffering often take us beyond our usual ways of coping with the world. Mostly that is because those ways no longer work. When that happens we get frightened, discouraged, weary. Somewhere in that weariness we find God inviting us to let go of our attempts to save ourselves. We experience God’s invitation to receive God’s grace, even though it comes to us in a strange, unexpected form.

Said St. Augustine, “God gives where God can find empty hands.” The gift of our weariness and frustration is that they drive us into the arms of God who alone can save us. In that empty space where we are alone with God, God unmasks us. God exposes the idols to which we have given our lives but which cannot satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts. God exposes the false securities to which we have been clinging even though they do not make us more secure. God exposes the illusions we carefully guard but which keep us from dealing with the world as it really is. Those illusions keep us from telling the truth; yet, truth-telling is the only way we can move into hope.

That work which God does in our souls is painful work. We resist it. We avoid it as long as possible. Still, God does not abandon us in our resistance. Did you notice? Even the rich man in the parable gets a name, an identity. Part way through the parable, Abraham calls him, “Child”. He is a child of Abraham, of faith. That is who he really is -- not just a rich man, defined by something as fleeting as his wealth.

That is who we really are. Our true identity is not that we are rich or successful. Our true identity is not that we are poor or failures. Our true identity -- the one that shapes everything else -- is that we are children of the living God who knows the plans God has  for us, plans for a future with hope.

In your weariness, allow yourself to be held by that God. In your emptiness receive grace from Christ our crucified Saviour. It is the invitation of the One who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Our hope.