Luke 16.19-31

What if we cared more about the plight of the poor than we did about sex?

Raise your hand if you think the Church is obsessed with sex, and especially homosexuality. If you read the news reports with any regularity you might think there is absolutely nothing else worth discussing in the minds of church folks. Okay. I admit that’s a bit over the top, but not by far. Every other day there is a news report about some church fight over what to do with gay and lesbians Christians who might actually desire to serve the people of God in leadership. Last week it was the struggles of the Episcopal Church meeting in New Orleans within a few miles of those still suffering from hurricane Katrina. They bring in one of the finest theologians of our time, Rowan Williams, who also is the Archbishop of Canterbury, to help them avoid a schism that would multiply the current bizarre situation of having a Nigerian bishop providing pastoral guidance for a congregation in the marshlands of South Carolina. During the same week the Presbyterians were scrupulously interrogating candidates for ordinations to ensure compliance with ordination standards barring homosexual candidates. We are not alone – all the churches seem obsessed with the same subject – and last week the international community got involved when one of the world’s more despicable leaders spoke at Columbia. Of all the outrageous things he said, the one that seemed to create the most media buzz had to do with ... guess what ... homosexuality, or the absence thereof.

What is the deal? Okay, I admit, it was a laughable moment but I wish the buzz were about his some of other not-so laughable moments that seriously threaten the planet, not to mention Israel and Jews everywhere.

While I share the desire for high moral standards among clergy and understand the disagreement over what that means with regard to sexual orientation, I think there are other pressing matters that the people of God might attend to if we weren’t otherwise distracted by such scrupulously narrow attention to gay and lesbian Christians. What if instead we gave the same attention to this parable of Lazarus and Dives that sits uncomfortably before us?

II

It think it is our unfailing ability to be distracted that allows us to avoid the disturbing realities of the world’s poor that are at our doorstep. Endless discussions over who to bar from serving the Church, quibbling over obscure biblical passages, demanding a righteousness among some that no one, other than Jesus could match, avoids the fact that over 6 million people are dying each year from preventable diseases malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, and 1.1 billion people have no access to clean water.

Our time would be well spent focusing our attention on that fact alone long enough for it to make us seriously uncomfortable. Do not reach for the remote control, don’t fast forward to the celebrity news or switch to the game. Let us simply sit with the sobering truth that according to the best estimates of medical experts 6 million people, many of them children, will die from lack of vaccines for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV. Why, because good vaccines to treat these diseases don’t even exist. The current issue of Newsweek is filled with the positive efforts being made to address these problems.

Might God be pleased if we set aside our endless wrangling in order to address the real problems of the poor and join with social entrepreneurs, scientists and development workers in solving them?

III

In the parable before us, Dives the rich man dressed in the finest of clothes, living in the finest home, feasting on the finest meals apparently doesn’t notice the poor beggar at his gate. Perhaps he does notice Lazarus – malnourished, hungry, sick and thirsty outside his luxurious home – but he ignores him on his way to other more pressing matters. Dives appears to be living a successful life not unlike any other reasonably wealthy person in our time, which would include the majority of Christians in North America. There is no indication that he mistreated or abused the beggar, only that he lived his life in such a way that the afflicted and the hungry were rendered invisible. A friend of mine has said that’s the problem with a narcissistic culture: you don’t see people. The blind, the lame, the dirty, the poor are outside the field of vision. Always there, always invisible.

It is only later after he has died that Dives realizes nothing is more pressing than a suffering human being at your doorstep. That your eternal destiny and mine is involved with how one treats the poor and the hungry is the urgent news that Dives so desperately wants his brothers who are still living to hear.

But they have Moses and the prophets whom they ignore. Nothing else will convince them not even one risen from the dead. I understand this to mean that it is not a lack of information that keeps them – or us - from attending to those who are suffering. Rather it is a refusal to pay attention to what is before their very eyes and act with compassion.

What is before their eyes is before our own if we only pay attention long enough to see without distraction that we in this country exist on an island in a world of suffering. More than two thirds of God’s people in the world are outside our gate. Conspicuous consumption along with conspicuous wealth, of which our culture is all too familiar, makes the current spectacle of people desperate for clean water or food or medicine all the more disturbing.

This is not a parable for the squeamish, or for those who think how we live now has no real consequences. Nor do we need to get off on discussions about whether hell is real or metaphorical. It is sufficient to say that either way your take it, hell is a not where you want to be. Ask Dives.

I can’t tidy this up in some clever way that will relieve our discomfort. That would be disserve to you and a mockery of the gospel. But I do believe Jesus offers an invitation to a different way of life. The invitation – nestled within the disturbance - is to choose to live now in the wisest way possible before you are dead and have no choice about the matter.

Isn’t this precisely the point of Father Abraham’s sharp reply to the Rich Man? Dives had a lifetime to live in a way that honored Moses and the prophets and failed even to notice the poor dying man at his front gate. So do we have a lifetime filled with choices. By implication, we are like those five brothers; we still have time to make the choices that will bring our lives in tune with God’s way now, while we are still living.

The purpose of Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is to wake us up to the consequences of our life choices now. We will have no excuse later. The time to set about living in God’s way is now. That’s the invitation.

What are you waiting for, a message from the grave?