16th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21C

16th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21C September 29, 2019 This past week, what had started out as a minor skirmish between the Lemburg family and our elderly next door neighbor developed into full-blown war. I had never actually met this woman, but she had not so nice words for Emerson when he was mowing our grass the first time, and I had noticed that she would openly glare at us when she was out walking her dog and we would drive by. Our neighbor spends a lot of time out working in her yard, and often when she is out in her back yard and our dogs are out, they like to go to the wooden privacy fence and act like they are going to eviscerate her. Usually, when I witness this, I call them back in and make them stay in the house. But this week, I wondered what would happen if I didn’t. So, I stood just inside the doorway on the screened porch, and I watched. I watched as my dogs went to the fence and began barking. I watched as the neighbor approached where the dogs were barking from her side of the fence and began fussing at my dogs. I watched as she disappeared again, and then I watched as she began shooting water at my dogs through the fence. I raised my voice: “Excuse me! Why are you trying to spray my dogs with water through the fence?” The neighbor, clearly unaware that I was outside watching, was caught off guard and said she was merely trying to water the plants on her side of the fence. I responded that I had been watching the whole time to which she countered that my dogs were disturbing her by being outside barking. Well, I will not bore you with the rest of the words that were shared except to say that while I never said anything untoward to our neighbor, I did have to apologize to our altar guild chair, Sandra Calver, who I was on the phone with during the whole encounter and to whom I vented some of my more colorful feelings about the nature of said neighbor. But even after the encounter was over, I still spent a fair amount of emotional energy imagining the revenge I could enact upon our nasty neighbor. Our gospel reading for today is yet another parable of Jesus. Just before the reading for today, Luke sets the stage by telling us that “the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this [Jesus’s parable of the unjust steward that we heard last week] and they ridiculed [Jesus].” So Jesus lets them have it, and then he tells the parable today—a story about a rich man who feasted sumptuously and the poor man named Lazarus (one of the only named characters in the parables) who lay at the rich man’s gate longing for the crumbs that fell off the rich man’s table and suffered his sores to be licked by dogs. Both men die, and the rich man goes to Hades, and Lazarus is taken by the angels to be with Abraham. When the rich man looks up and sees Lazarus with Abraham, he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to him to help ease his thirst. Abraham responds that he cannot do that saying “between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” Then the rich man asks that Abraham send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them of what is to come if they don’t change their ways, and Abraham refuses this request also, saying “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.' …‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'" We talked last week about how some of the gospel writer of Luke’s agenda is revealed in how he talks about money, and this parable, along with its introduction, bears witness to that as well. Last week, I cited another commentator who said that “one of the prominent themes in Luke is the proper use of wealth. Except it’s not just the use of wealth; it’s more like Luke is concerned with our relationship to wealth and how that affects our relationships with others.”i And that is certainly true of this parable, too, but this parable, I think, goes beyond wealth to whether or not we truly see people and how our lack of seeing people is what fixes great chasms between us. Notice how even from Hades, the rich man is trying to get Abraham to send Lazarus here and there doing the rich man’s bidding. He didn’t actually see Lazarus as a human being, as a beloved child of God-hungry and suffering at his gates every day of his life, and he still does not see Lazarus beyond what use can be made of him. This great chasm that exists between the two in the parabolic afterlife began, actually, in life, and it was a result of the rich man’s disregarding of the teachings of the law and the prophets, who tell us how to care for the poor, how to treat our neighbor. And sometimes it is even the same for us, we who know the teachings of the law and the prophets and who have tasted the transformed life of people of the resurrection, followers of Jesus. So much of the hardships of this life are a result of the great chasms that become fixed between us when we do not take the time to really see each other—to see the other as a beloved child of God, to see what the other loves and values, to respect what the other needs. Once you start looking for these great chasms, paying attention to people’s suffering, you can see them everywhere you look. It’s certainly at the heart of the newly declared war between the Lemburgs and our elderly neighbor. Also this past week, maybe on the same day that I declared war on our neighbor, I read a Facebook post by Carrie Newcomer who is a Quaker singer, songwriter, and poet that I really like. She shared a story that she titled “A Goodness Down Deep That Keeps On Singing.” In it, she writes, “Last week my flight out of Sioux Falls was delayed several hours and so I missed my connection in Chicago, resulting in 4 hour layover in O’Hare Airport. I found a comfortable booth in a busy Starbucks and settled in with a book. There were three baristas working the busy counter. One was a young African American man with a wide smile. This wonderful man was singing mini arias in a beautiful operatic voice. He was obviously a trained vocalist, and a seriously fine baritone. He kept singing out the orders in soaring melodies as they came up, lattes and cappuccinos, the name of the patrons, and then always (with a final flourish) a thank you . I sat there for an hour, just listening to him, closing my eyes, enjoying the resonance of his voice, the flourishes, the final gratitudes. I noticed how some people stopped, clearly delighted by something so fine and rarefied. Others hurried by, so intent on getting where they were going, they arrived at their gate, but missed the miracle. There is a lot in this troubled world that feels like a gathering storm. But then something utterly unexpected and truly beautiful happens. There is a goodness down deep....that just keeps singing.” She continues, “Eventually I got up, ordered a latte - sang it to him ‘a small, with almond milk please...’ We got into a conversation (all sung) back and forth (his name was Owen, he had a show in town next Saturday, my name was Carrie, I just had a show in Sioux Falls). Finally, I sang an affirmation, “You have a truly beautiful voice. I have been so moved today by your generous and musical spirit." And then with a bow, I thanked him. He stopped. Leaned in and whispered, ‘I needed that today.’ Then he straightened up and sang with a flourish as elegant as a quill tipped pen, ‘Thank you.’ Yes, there is a goodness down deep...and it keeps singing....it just keeps on singing.”ii As people of the resurrection, we are called to be those who truly see others, to be those who try to bridge the chasm (those that we create and those that we don’t). May you look for ways to see people and to bridge the chasm this week. And lest you think I do not practice what I preach….after I wrote this sermon, I thought about what sort of peace offering I could make to my neighbor. I strode up to her front door with a pot of mums and some dog treats in my hand. I rang her doorbell, and when she opened it and glared at me, I said, “My name is Melanie. I’m your neighbor. I bought these for you. I don’t want to be your enemy.” For a moment she seemed almost overcome, and then she quickly invited me into her house where we talked, shared parts of our stories and exchanged phone numbers. The exchange ended with her and her little dog walking me back to my house as they took a walk around the block, and I felt that, at least for this moment, we had built a bridge over the chasm. i. David Lose from http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&rp=blog53&post=2746 ii. Facebook post by Carrie Newcomer. September 24, 2019