The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the
Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, August 9, 2009.
My great-uncle Arthur was very ill at the end of his life. His wife, my
great-aunt Gladys, was of course sad about it all and went to a priest for
assurance that Uncle Arthur would be in a good place after he left this world.
The priest, being very progressive and kind, said, “Dear Gladys, getting to
spend eternity with God is as simple as spelling a word.” “What word?” my
great-aunt wondered. “Love.” Isn’t that beautiful?
Well, Aunt Gladys went back to her husband’s bedside. He was a little
concerned about the end as well, and so he decided to bear his soul to her. He
confessed indiscretions and mistakes… gambling debts and flirtations, lies
he’d told things he’d kept from her. Finally, after unburdening himself, he
felt better. And he said, “Sweet Gladys, do you think now that I’ve come clean
about it all I’ll make it to heaven.” And Aunt Gladys said, “Oh, Honey, I just
talked to priest about this very thing. He says spending eternity with God is
as simple as spelling a word.” “What word,” he asked.
“Antidisestablishmentarianism!”
To explain what I believe our gospel lesson is telling us today, I want to
share another story that might be easier to grasp, but that may be offering a
similar message.
In Luke’s gospel (chap. 16), there is a story about a rich man and a poor
man. The story imagines a rich man who ignores an indigent person named
Lazarus. Lazarus is in poor health, probably in no small measure from his lack
of proper nutrition. We’re told in fact that he is basically surviving on the
scraps from the rich man’s table. What the rich man throws out, Lazarus finds
and eats. Lazarus dies and the story says he is “carried by angels to
Abraham’s side.” One might assume that means Paradise.
Well, for some unknown reason, the wealthy man also dies. As it turns out,
he does not make it to Abraham’s side. He is able to see Abraham (we aren’t
told if Sarah or Hagar are nearby). He is also able to be heard by Abraham
when he calls out to him. In his arrogance, even in death, he presumes to
imagine that he is somehow superior to Lazarus. The rich man calls out to
Abraham asking him to send Lazarus to him to provide him some comfort… as if
Lazarus were his servant. The rich man says he is experiencing anguish, and
would like Lazarus to come tend to his needs.
Abraham does not pass the message on to Lazarus. Instead, Abraham responds
to the rich man, saying in effect, “too bad; so sad. It’s not going to
happen.”
The rich man then thinks of his family and says (again thinking of Lazarus as
his servant), “Send Lazarus to my family to warn them that they could wind up
like me.” And Abraham says, “they have the scriptures… Moses and the prophets;
let them listen to them.” And, of course, Lazarus is not sent to do the rich
man’s bidding.
Luke is rethinking some very old theology. It’s nice to know that our
spiritual ancestors gave theology a re-think once in awhile. When we ask
questions, we are in good company.
It was once thought that good luck meant one was favored by God while bad luck
meant God was not particularly happy with someone. But the unlucky Lazarus is
ultimately the blessed one in this story, while the very fortunate rich man
does not fare as well in the end. Maybe circumstances do not adequately
demonstrate one’s relationship to the divine.
Beyond rethinking the theology of luck, Luke is also showing us something
else that is very important. The rich man is not out of relationship with
Abraham and the faithful because of his beliefs. We aren’t told what he
believes. What his theological opinions might be are irrelevant to this story.
What we know is that he didn’t treat Lazarus particularly well. He may not
have been overtly mean to him, but neither did he care about him. He had no
compassion for one who suffered, for one who did not enjoy some of his
privileges. And by not realizing his unity with Lazarus, he didn’t experience
his unity with commonwealth of God… that commonwealth that is made up of the
least of these.
The rich man had the scriptures… telling him, “Hear, O mortal, what is
required of you; only to do justice, and love mercy, and live humbly…” (Micah
6.8); “Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the orphans and plead the
case of the widows” (Isaiah 1.17); “When you reap your harvest… leave
something for the poor and the alien” (Lev. 19. 9-10), and “Love your neighbor
as yourself” (Lev. 19.18). What kept the rich man from right relationship with
the divine wasn’t what he believed about the divine; what kept him from right
relationship with the divine was how he failed to be in right relationship
with his fellow human beings.
“The rich man was cut off from joy because he chose to not offer comfort to
those who needed it when he had the means to do so… Every preacher who has
ever frightened his or her congregation with threats of hell, every parent who
has rejected her or his child for being gay, every bully who has tormented the
weak or the different, and every keeper of power who has fought to keep power
at the expense of the powerless should re-read the parable of the rich man and
the poor man. A new reading might suggest to them (and to us all) that peace
and joy are the result of kindness, goodwill, tolerance, and love. Cruelty,
even disguised as religious values, can never bring peace and joy.”[1]
The rich man’s estrangement wasn’t because of what he did or didn’t claim
to believe; his estrangement came from being too stingy with his love;
because, as it turns out, “God is love and whoever lives in love lives in God
and God lives in them” (1 John 4.16).
I don’t believe in an afterlife prison called Hell. “When New Testament
writers were seeking a metaphor to describe what it must be like to feel
separated from the grace and beauty of Life, they used Gehenna, aka ‘Hell’ as
their image. To them, Jesus was their savior or healer or one who helped them
feel whole.
Jesus gave them a way of understanding God as the love that gave them
assurance that every life was sacred and infinitely valuable. Jesus, then,
‘saved’ them from fear of ever feeling cut off from God, or of being in
‘hell’”.[2] If the rich
man could have seen the sacred value of Lazarus, he would have experienced his
own sacred value so much more deeply. There can be no feeling of separation
from God, that is, there can be no hell when one does justice, loves mercy,
and lives humbly. There is no feeling of separation from God when one loves
one’s neighbor as one’s self. The life of love is the godly life.
That’s what John is saying with this bread metaphor today. The bread of
life, the bread that John saw in Jesus and claims on Jesus’ behalf as being
his very nature is the life-giving, nurturing, sustaining bread of divine
love.
Bread is wonderful metaphor for unity.
The ground is part of the bread… it gives life to the wheat.
Water is part of the bread… it too gives life to the wheat.
The farmer is part of the bread… her labor planted and harvested the wheat.
The baker is part of the bread… he mixed the ingredients and baked it and
sliced it.
The one who eats the bread is part of the bread, or the bread at least becomes
part of her.
The ones with whom we share the bread are all part of the experience, as they
too assimilate the nutrition of the bread.
To say, “I am bread” is to say, “I am a symbol of oneness that is
all-inclusive, life-giving, nurturing, and joyous.”
“I am bread” doesn’t mean disaster for people who hold one opinion instead
of another; I Am Bread means we are all bread… we are all part of the
experience of bread… earth, water, heat, labor, sharing, eating… who gets left
out? No one! Lazarus won’t be left out of the divine feast where the bread of
life is served. No one is left out. That’s the message of “I am bread.”
Because if I am bread, then you are bread, and we are all at the table of
divine love. “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for
we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Cor. 10.17).
It’s not about a doctrinal opinion that we unlovingly defend or promote.
It’s about the love we share, regardless of what our opinions happen to be.
The rich man believed in God… but he didn’t believe in Lazarus. That was what
kept him from knowing God more fully. Condemning, ignoring, judging the Other…
the gay Other, the Lesbian other, the Transgender Other, the agnostic Other,
the Muslim Other, the Jewish Other, the Catholic Other, the disabled Other,
the immigrant Other, the Other who lacks access to health care… failing to
care about the Other is what keeps us from experiencing the Love that God is.
Theologian Rudoph Bultmann tells us, “John portrays Jesus as… calling us
all to a deeper sense of what it means to be whole and human. To come to the
God present in Jesus for John was to discover the [divine] in each of us.”
We share in the one loaf that is the bread of life… we see it in Jesus… if
we look, we’ll see it in the Lazaruses of the world (the Other), and even in
ourselves. I am bread. You are bread. We are all part of the feast of
unconditional, all-inclusive, everlasting love.
This is the Good News. Amen.
[1] From my new
book, Wrestling With God Without Getting Pinned (2009)
[2] Ibid.