(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on September 23, 2018, Proper 20)
The Old Man Playing Pinball
It was the beginning of my
weekend, a Thursday evening, and I was out with a friend at one of the eateries
in my neighborhood. There happened
to be a soccer game on the television, so I had all that I could ask for: time
to unwind, a friend to share the moment with, and soccer in the background.
But what I remember most from
that night is none of those things.
Instead, I still see what was in the corner of my eye: an old man
playing pinball. My first thought
was, “Good for him! This guy
probably grew up playing pinball.
And he’s still enjoying it today.”
The flashing lights and arcade noise of the machine drew my attention
throughout the evening. Whenever
they died down, I saw the man dig into his pocket and slip another quarter into
the machine. The glow of the
machine returned and washed over the man’s impassive face. When the man eventually left, I thought
he had run out of quarters. But
minutes later he returned with a drink from the bar. Taking a swig, he dug deep for another quarter and resumed
his play. The pattern continued
for the rest of the evening.
Slipping in quarters.
Grabbing another drink.
Every once in a while shoving the machine against the wall in frustration.
When I left that evening, the man
was still glued to the game. His
memory remains with me. It even
haunts me a little bit with a lonely feeling. The mindless digging for more money. The glow of the game on his glazed
face. The resignation with which
he would walk away for another drink.
I have a suspicion that this
memory haunts me most because I see its lonely truth not only in that old man
but also in myself and in the world around me. Of course, it looks different from person to person. For some, it may be a weekend Netflix
binge. For others, it may be
scrolling through Facebook. For me
in my college years, it was the computer game Championship Manager, where I
took the bottom-league soccer minnows Dagenham & Redbridge from obscurity
in the English league to champions of Europe.
“You Are Those Who Justify Yourselves”
Last week as we read at the
beginning of Luke about Jesus proclaiming good news to the lowly (Luke
4:16-19), I shared with you my dilemma, which is basically this: God’s good
news in the Bible is for the poor, and I’m not. That leaves me wrestling with the question: Where am I in the good news?
Today I’m scrambling to find an
answer to that question, and so I’m flipping several pages in the gospel of
Luke to get to a place where Jesus addresses people like me, people who are
more or less “comfortable.” I’ve
turned to Luke 16, where Jesus has been talking about money and has just made
the infamous proclamation, “You cannot serve God and wealth” (v. 13). When his audience ridicules him for
making this all-or-nothing claim, he suggests that they have their hearts in
the wrong place. “You are those
who justify yourselves in the sight of others,” he says, implying that they are
more concerned with justifying their way of life than with listening to any
message that might challenge it. I
can’t help but feel that he’s addressing people like me when he says this,
people who justify their place in life, saying, “I worked for it, I earned it,
it’s not my fault that others have it
more difficult.”
Next Jesus tells a story.
The Good News for Lazarus:
Not Money but Embrace
My kneejerk reaction to this
story is to justify myself. This
doesn’t apply to me. I’m nothing
like that rich man, dressing myself in the finest clothing and feasting every
day. But I remember how Jesus has
just pointed out my self-justifying behavior. And so I hold myself steady and try to hear what this story
might have to tell me about where I am in the good news.
The first thing I notice is that
as exaggerated as the story is, it still strikes too close to home. Sure, I’m nothing like the rich man,
feasting in his finest everyday.
But Lazarus at his gate—that’s like the beggar whom I pass each morning
on my way to church. Lazarus is
all around this city and all around this world, and the chasm between rich and
poor only gets bigger each day.[1]
As a story, the tale of Lazarus
and the rich man proclaims the message with which Jesus began his
ministry. It is good news to the poor. Many folks read this good news as a
simple reversal of fates for the haves and the have-nots. If you’ve got it bad now, you’ll have
it good later, and vice versa. But
if that’s the case, then I wonder why there’s nothing said about Lazarus
receiving riches after his death.
The good news for Lazarus is not wealth but welcome, not money but
embrace. In life, he knew
rejection, but now he knows love.
This little tale is undoubtedly about money, but I think it suggests an
even deeper dimension to the chasm between rich and poor. I think it shows the heart of the
matter. Because what matters most
to God, in the end, is that Lazarus be embraced and loved.
There is no embrace, however, for
the rich man. The rich man is
alone. It says that he sees Abraham
and Lazarus “far away,” at a great distance (v. 23). Later Abraham elaborates:
“Between you and us a great chasm has been fixed,” which is only natural (v.
26). As in life, so also in death. In life, the chasm was the great gap
between wealth and poverty, a gap that was symbolized by the rich man’s gate
that stood between them. In death,
there is no gate, but notice how the rich man twice calls out to Father Abraham
to send Lazarus on an errand for him.
Even now, he persists on seeing the world according to the old gap. He continues to view Lazarus as
something of a servant and presumes on his own privilege to get what he wants.
A Daydream and an Alternative Ending
I wonder, though, if the rich man
even knows what he wants. Water,
he says at first. Or a warning to
his brothers, so that they not also be deprived of their comforts. But I wonder if that’s really what he
wants.
I had a flash of a vision this
week as I was reading the story.
In my daydream, the man playing pinball and the rich man blurred
together. After slipping in
quarter after quarter and buying drink after drink, his face glazed over in the
glow of his happiness, which was actually not happiness at all, he woke up to
his great loneliness. Surrounded
by people, he was forlorn and friendless, lost in a game made up of money,
mastery, and the false promise of more.
And his eyes were opened, and he saw all around him a great chasm. And he looked across the chasm and saw
Lazarus and Abraham. And he felt
the torment for what it was, and hot tears, tears of fire, sprang from the
corners of his eyes as he saw Lazarus comforted in the embrace of Abraham. And he begged Lazarus: “Brother, I am
alone. Would you come be with
me?” And suddenly the chasm was
gone—had it even been real?—and Lazarus reached out and embraced me.
The Embrace of Lazarus
I wonder if we hear in today’s
story what concerns us most. If
it’s money that is most important to us, then we hear a story about money. We hear a criticism of our wealth. If it’s security that we’re after, then
we hear a story about the afterlife.
We hear a warning about eternal torment.
But if the story itself is any
indication, what matters most to God is not money or security. It’s relationship. Communion. Embrace. That
is what Lazarus receives from Abraham.
And that is what the rich man misses out on. He faces instead the chasm of his strength and security and
self-sufficiency. He faces the
chasm of his loneliness.
And that is where I find myself
today. Hearing Jesus proclaim good
news to the poor, and asking, “Where am I
in the good news?” I discover today, if I am honest, that I am often standing
in front of a chasm. It’s not a
chasm of punishment, but rather a consequence of my life. It’s a chasm of quarters and distraction,
money and mastery. It’s a chasm I
feel acutely when I pass by the needful, whom in fact I need. It’s a chasm of loneliness.
How is that good news for
me? Well, I’m still trying to
figure it out, but I know this much.
The God of Abraham desires to embrace me as much as to embrace
Lazarus. And to receive that
embrace is perhaps no different from giving that embrace to persons like
Lazarus, who lay on the other side of my chasm.
Prayer
God of embrace,
Who lifts up the lowly
And welcomes the ones
Whom the world rejects:
Uncover before us
The chasms
That separate us
From your embrace.
In Christ, for whom there is no
chasm. Amen.
[1] Cf. Matthew
Stewart, “The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy,” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/,
accessed on September 19, 2018.
See also this report that world hunger is on the rise: Jason Beaubien,
“The Fight Against World Hunger Is Going in the Wrong Direction,” https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/09/11/646786468/the-fight-against-world-hunger-is-going-in-the-wrong-direction,
accessed on September 19, 2018.
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