An urgent word from our brother, Dives
Commentary
In choosing from the scripture listings for this Sunday, a number of compelling reasons suggest the gospel reading as the basis for the morning sermon.
1. People remember a good story and this parable is a dramatic and meaty one.
2. The unfolding scenes in the parable provide the ribs for the sermon.
3. This particular day is also World Communion Sunday. The picture of the rich man at his private banquet table stands before us in striking contrast to the table around which the whole people of God are called to share bread and wine.
4. In the parable the world in which we live stands before us in microcosm. It is a world marked by a vast chasm between the rich and the poor.
5. The parable collides with the seductions of the culture around us where money both talks and does our talking for us and Midas-like private fantasies replace a vision of the City of God.
6. We are mentioned in the parable. We are the family of the rich man. We are his brothers and sisters.
7. In many congregations it is time to focus on stewardship.
Today's epistle selection is an excellent companion to the gospel reading. It bids us to covet "the life that really is life." (That's a marvelous phrase.) The underlying word that I hear in the Old Testament reading is a word of hope. It would be well to give the congregation some briefing, either orally before the reading or in a paragraph in the service bulletin. Jerusalem is besieged and facing imminent disaster. In the midst of circumstances that cancel out a future for the land, Jeremiah gives a prophetic sign that affirms a new day of God's making.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
This reading is part of a section of Jeremiah that has been called the Book of Hope, chapters 30-33. Check out Leviticus 25:25-34 for the laws governing the redemption of property. In secular usage in Israel, a redeemer bought back a piece of family property that had fallen to someone outside the family. This reading relates a purchase by Jeremiah that redeems a piece of land formerly possessed by his family.
While it is Jeremiah's cousin who presents the opportunity, the prophet makes us know that this is a Word from the Lord. His act of purchase is a prophetic sign, a symbolic action. The Word was in the sign. What a time of destruction and desolation in which to buy land! Why hold acreage in a land that has no future? The real estate market is kaput. But the biblical context for hope is always absurdity (see Romans 4 and 8). The prophet's sign declares that life will go on, "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in the land." This is but one facet of the hope to which Jeremiah testifies in a situation that contradicts all such proclamation. Mark the sign given in the midst of absurdity and a sermon on the unique nature of biblical hope is in the making.
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Verse 7 reminds me of a comment made by Ernest Campbell in an issue of his quarterly journal, Notebook: "I have never seen a funeral coach with a luggage rack." Illustrations of the way greed leads to ruin can be found by simply reviewing the financial scandals of the last few years. This reading ties in quite well with today's parable.
In verse 16 the writer speaks of God who alone has immortality and thereby puts his finger on the idolatrous character of placing salvific significance in wealth. Jesus personalized wealth as Mammon, the god who fails us (Luke 16:13).
Luke 16:19-31
In the opening scene we meet two men who live side by side. One is quite rich, lives in a big house, presides at a table that is a gourmet's delight, and dresses in royal purple and fine linen. He is not named. Christian tradition via the Vulgate has named him Dives, which in Latin means wealthy. The second is a poor man who sits passively at the rich man's gate. His only companions are street dogs who lick his sores. He is given a name, Lazarus. This is unusual in the parables of Jesus. He longs for what falls from the rich man's table, pieces of bread used as napkins for greasy fingers and then discarded under the table. You might say this is one example of trickle down economics. In a few words Jesus has given us a cameo of the world around us: rich and poor, suburb and barrio, the up and ins and the down and outs. That's the way it is.
The next scene takes us to another world. Dives is in Hades and Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham. Do not look for any information about Hades or Heaven here. These sort of stories were popular, like our stories of Peter and the Golden Gate. The point is that the listening Pharisees would not expect this reversal. Why did Lazarus end up in heaven? Is being poor a virtue? Here is where the name comes in. Lazarus means God helps. He is where he is now because God helps those who call upon him in their distress. Jesus'does not let himself get pressed into the service of a class war, and that pressure was upon him from some fanatics.
The other question also has to be asked: Why did Dives end up in hell? Is that where rich people go? We cannot say that for there is a rich man in heaven with Lazarus, Father Abraham. We find the answer to that question as we move into the next scene. Things are getting warm and uncomfortable for Dives. He calls across the chasm and begs Abraham to send Lazarus with cooling water. He knows Lazarus by name! He knew who Lazarus was. Here's the clue.
Stories like this circulated in the days of Jesus. A rich man and a poor man would die on the same day. The rich man would end up in Hades and the poor man in Heaven. But in these stories the two had never crossed paths on earth. It was just a mechanical reversal of fate. Jesus linked the two together. Dives made his own bed in Hades because he had lived every day of his life side by side with Lazarus and remained indifferent to his dehumanization and the silent plea of his condition. And Abraham reminded Dives of that. Check out the poem, "Dives," by Edith Lovejoy Pierce. It's worth a trip to the library.
As the third scene comes into view new faces enter the field of vision. Dives thinks of his five brothers who are still alive. He begs Abraham to send Lazarus to them with a warning. They still have a chance. Lazarus cannot go to them. Abraham told Dives his brothers should go read their Bibles and listen to Moses and the prophets. Dives should have done that. Listening to Moses he should have remembered his own roots, up from slavery. If he had heard the prophets he would have remembered that advantages create a special calling within the will of God. The story of Dives could be "I'll Cry Tomorrow."
What about the family of Dives? Was it too late for them? Pressures were building up in the world around Jesus. Not all the poor were passive like Lazarus. Some were in a defiant and revolutionary mood. The storm broke in the year 70 A.D. in a war that was a war of the poor against the rich as well as for national liberation. The big houses were plundered.
This mention of the brothers is a bit of a hook. We, too, are the living. Lazarus is visible in our land and world. The two Americas of the Kerner Report are still there, perhaps even more so. Mention of Moses and the prophets will crop up again in Luke's gospel. On Easter evening on the road to Emmaus, two weary disciples will meet the unrecognized Lord, who will open the scriptures and, beginning with Moses and the prophets, interpret himself to them (Luke 24:27). One has come from the dead not in some spectacular superstar fashion but in the quiet mystery of a communion, a sharing, an encounter that fires the heart, kindles the mind, and captures the conscience. How about us, the living, the brothers and sisters of Dives?
1. People remember a good story and this parable is a dramatic and meaty one.
2. The unfolding scenes in the parable provide the ribs for the sermon.
3. This particular day is also World Communion Sunday. The picture of the rich man at his private banquet table stands before us in striking contrast to the table around which the whole people of God are called to share bread and wine.
4. In the parable the world in which we live stands before us in microcosm. It is a world marked by a vast chasm between the rich and the poor.
5. The parable collides with the seductions of the culture around us where money both talks and does our talking for us and Midas-like private fantasies replace a vision of the City of God.
6. We are mentioned in the parable. We are the family of the rich man. We are his brothers and sisters.
7. In many congregations it is time to focus on stewardship.
Today's epistle selection is an excellent companion to the gospel reading. It bids us to covet "the life that really is life." (That's a marvelous phrase.) The underlying word that I hear in the Old Testament reading is a word of hope. It would be well to give the congregation some briefing, either orally before the reading or in a paragraph in the service bulletin. Jerusalem is besieged and facing imminent disaster. In the midst of circumstances that cancel out a future for the land, Jeremiah gives a prophetic sign that affirms a new day of God's making.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
This reading is part of a section of Jeremiah that has been called the Book of Hope, chapters 30-33. Check out Leviticus 25:25-34 for the laws governing the redemption of property. In secular usage in Israel, a redeemer bought back a piece of family property that had fallen to someone outside the family. This reading relates a purchase by Jeremiah that redeems a piece of land formerly possessed by his family.
While it is Jeremiah's cousin who presents the opportunity, the prophet makes us know that this is a Word from the Lord. His act of purchase is a prophetic sign, a symbolic action. The Word was in the sign. What a time of destruction and desolation in which to buy land! Why hold acreage in a land that has no future? The real estate market is kaput. But the biblical context for hope is always absurdity (see Romans 4 and 8). The prophet's sign declares that life will go on, "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in the land." This is but one facet of the hope to which Jeremiah testifies in a situation that contradicts all such proclamation. Mark the sign given in the midst of absurdity and a sermon on the unique nature of biblical hope is in the making.
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Verse 7 reminds me of a comment made by Ernest Campbell in an issue of his quarterly journal, Notebook: "I have never seen a funeral coach with a luggage rack." Illustrations of the way greed leads to ruin can be found by simply reviewing the financial scandals of the last few years. This reading ties in quite well with today's parable.
In verse 16 the writer speaks of God who alone has immortality and thereby puts his finger on the idolatrous character of placing salvific significance in wealth. Jesus personalized wealth as Mammon, the god who fails us (Luke 16:13).
Luke 16:19-31
In the opening scene we meet two men who live side by side. One is quite rich, lives in a big house, presides at a table that is a gourmet's delight, and dresses in royal purple and fine linen. He is not named. Christian tradition via the Vulgate has named him Dives, which in Latin means wealthy. The second is a poor man who sits passively at the rich man's gate. His only companions are street dogs who lick his sores. He is given a name, Lazarus. This is unusual in the parables of Jesus. He longs for what falls from the rich man's table, pieces of bread used as napkins for greasy fingers and then discarded under the table. You might say this is one example of trickle down economics. In a few words Jesus has given us a cameo of the world around us: rich and poor, suburb and barrio, the up and ins and the down and outs. That's the way it is.
The next scene takes us to another world. Dives is in Hades and Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham. Do not look for any information about Hades or Heaven here. These sort of stories were popular, like our stories of Peter and the Golden Gate. The point is that the listening Pharisees would not expect this reversal. Why did Lazarus end up in heaven? Is being poor a virtue? Here is where the name comes in. Lazarus means God helps. He is where he is now because God helps those who call upon him in their distress. Jesus'does not let himself get pressed into the service of a class war, and that pressure was upon him from some fanatics.
The other question also has to be asked: Why did Dives end up in hell? Is that where rich people go? We cannot say that for there is a rich man in heaven with Lazarus, Father Abraham. We find the answer to that question as we move into the next scene. Things are getting warm and uncomfortable for Dives. He calls across the chasm and begs Abraham to send Lazarus with cooling water. He knows Lazarus by name! He knew who Lazarus was. Here's the clue.
Stories like this circulated in the days of Jesus. A rich man and a poor man would die on the same day. The rich man would end up in Hades and the poor man in Heaven. But in these stories the two had never crossed paths on earth. It was just a mechanical reversal of fate. Jesus linked the two together. Dives made his own bed in Hades because he had lived every day of his life side by side with Lazarus and remained indifferent to his dehumanization and the silent plea of his condition. And Abraham reminded Dives of that. Check out the poem, "Dives," by Edith Lovejoy Pierce. It's worth a trip to the library.
As the third scene comes into view new faces enter the field of vision. Dives thinks of his five brothers who are still alive. He begs Abraham to send Lazarus to them with a warning. They still have a chance. Lazarus cannot go to them. Abraham told Dives his brothers should go read their Bibles and listen to Moses and the prophets. Dives should have done that. Listening to Moses he should have remembered his own roots, up from slavery. If he had heard the prophets he would have remembered that advantages create a special calling within the will of God. The story of Dives could be "I'll Cry Tomorrow."
What about the family of Dives? Was it too late for them? Pressures were building up in the world around Jesus. Not all the poor were passive like Lazarus. Some were in a defiant and revolutionary mood. The storm broke in the year 70 A.D. in a war that was a war of the poor against the rich as well as for national liberation. The big houses were plundered.
This mention of the brothers is a bit of a hook. We, too, are the living. Lazarus is visible in our land and world. The two Americas of the Kerner Report are still there, perhaps even more so. Mention of Moses and the prophets will crop up again in Luke's gospel. On Easter evening on the road to Emmaus, two weary disciples will meet the unrecognized Lord, who will open the scriptures and, beginning with Moses and the prophets, interpret himself to them (Luke 24:27). One has come from the dead not in some spectacular superstar fashion but in the quiet mystery of a communion, a sharing, an encounter that fires the heart, kindles the mind, and captures the conscience. How about us, the living, the brothers and sisters of Dives?
