my younger brothers. You better watch out, she warned, what goes around comes around.

Transcription

1 Melissa Maltman Luke 16: Growing up I received many threatening lectures from my Mom about my treatment of my younger brothers. You better watch out, she warned, what goes around comes around. One of these days they won t be so weak and defenseless. They ll be as strong as you are. Payback will be rough. On day the tables will be turned. But, with all due respect to my mother, it s been my experience that rarely is that ever the case. From what I ve seen, true justice is hard to come by. What goes around just keeps going around and around. The powerful squash the weak. The rich keep getting richer. The poor keep getting poorer. That just seems to be how our world works. It s rare that you ever see the tables actually get turned. Wells Fargo with its recent scandal in opening unauthorized accounts, has agreed to pay $185 million dollars in settlements, but the consumer banking chief who recently retired still walked away with her nine figure salary while the tellers on the front lines are trying to do damage control by providing good customer service. The banks who financed the risky mortgages around the year 2000 that lead to the housing crisis in 2008 seem to be doing just fine, but people who were given those risky mortgages lost their houses through foreclosure. During the Enron insider-trading scandal, the folks who really suffered were the lowerlevel employees who lost all their retirement, those whose only crime was trusting their 1

2 corporate executives to do the right thing. They had no recourse. They were stuck. All that they worked so hard for is gone. It s the same old story. The powerful crush the weak. When Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on the Gulf Coast, the evacuation clogged interstates for days. Thousands of fleeing cars, SUVs and RVs caused a frustrating gridlock as everybody scrambles to get out of harm s way. The only people who didn t evacuate were the most obstinate oh and those who didn t have cars, SUV s and RV s. The weakest and poorest, the handicapped and infirm, those without bus fare much less flood insurance were the ones who lost eh most, the ones who packed into overcrowded shelters without adequate food and water. Those with resources benefited from them. Those without paid some with their lives. Some people always get the short end of the stick. I ve never told my Mom, but I think she may be wrong. IF the tables ever do turn, it s the exception rather than the rule. In fact the rule is so reliable, so ironclad that many people have come to think that God is the one who set it up that way. IF someone has done well, accumulated a lot of riches, amassed fame and fortune, then apparently they have found favor with God. But if the person has fallen by the wayside, lost his job, found herself between a rock and a hard place, then, so the reasoning goes, he or she must have offended God, must have brought this divine wrath upon him or herself. At least that was the understanding of God that Jesus money-loving enemies the Pharisees had. I m sure Jesus parable fell like a bombshell on them. 2

3 There was a rich man. He ate steak and lobster every day, wore nice suits and Tommy Hilfiger pajama. He and his wife both drove Lexus SUV s and lived in a large home of plasma high definition TV s with all the channels you can think of. He had three sets of dishes, everyday, fine china, and even a set for Christmas. (Doesn t sound rich to you? Maybe not, but he s rich to about 90% of the world.) At the end of his driveway, there was this vagrant named Lazarus. His name means God has helped, but you can t tell it by looking at him. Dirty, tattered clothes. Skin covered in open sores. Smells to high heaven. He sits at the end of the rich man s driveway hoping that one day the rich man will take pity on him and bring him some table scraps, leftovers he ll never eat anyway only store in the refrigerator for a couple of days to throw away later. The amount he spends on one month s cell phone bill could buy Lazarus plenty of medicine for his oozing sores. With just the money he pays for extra channels on his cable, the rich man could easily provide fresh, hot meals every day for Lazarus. At the very least, he could wheel his garbage to the road for pickup a little early and let Lazarus rummage through it. But he doesn t. Instead he refuses even to acknowledge Lazarus presence. You can t be responsible for these people, he thinks. They don t work. They just lay around waiting for handouts. It s a disgrace. What they get is what they deserve. The only attention that is paid to Lazarus comes from the stray dogs. They re better than nothing, but they don t help his hunger go away. 3

4 So far the story is nothing spectacular. It is what one would expect. The rich man enjoying his riches. The poor man tormented by his hunger, his sores, his plight. I want to say, See Mom? The tables don t get turned. What goes around just keeps going around. There s nothing new. Happens every day. Even Lazarus death is no surprise. We don t know if it was hunger or infection or some other ailment that finished him off, but it s no surprise. He looked like a skeleton anyway. But then the story gets interesting. We expect Lazarus to die any time, but not the rich man. He s got great insurance, the best medical care money can buy, and a pricey membership at the gym. Yet he dies just like Lazarus. For the first time they are equals at the moment of their deaths. Only they don t remain equals. In a strange twist, it turns out that my mother was right. The tables are turned. In the afterlife Lazarus gets carted off to live in comfort while the rich man is tormented in a flaming abyss. You would think that would be enough to reform the rich man. You would think that agonizing flames would be enough to humble him, at least a little. But, with the same air of superiority he exhibited in his earthly life, he who never lifted a finger to help Lazarus, called out to Father Abraham. Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Send little Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool my tongue. It s hot as Hades down here. Only Father Abraham replied, Sorry. If you will remember, during your lifetime you lived in the lap of luxury and comfort while Lazarus lived in squalor and misery. Now he is going 4

5 to be comforted here with me and you are going to agonize there. There s no undoing it now. A huge ditch separates us. The rich man is not used to taking no for an answer, but he can tell there will be no persuading Father Abraham. Perhaps, though, he can have Lazarus run a different kind of errand. Then, father, I beg you. Send Lazarus back to my five brothers to warn them so they don t follow in my footsteps. to them. They have Scriptures, Moses, and the Prophets, Abraham responded. Let them listen listen. I know them too well. They won t but if somebody comes back from the dead, they ll If they won t listen to the Scriptures, neither will they pay attention if somebody is raised from the dead. That s it. End of the story. The curtain closed and rich man is up to his neck in the tortuous flames, while Lazarus comfortably lounges with Father Abraham. Finally Lazarus receives justice. What wen around came around. Apparently when Jesus is telling the story, the ending is different. The weak don t always get crushed. The poor don t always get the shaft. With Jesus the tables actually do get turned. Which is a very different picture of God than the one you might naturally get from observing the world, as we know it. Just to look at it, you might think that the rich are blessed by God and the poor are cursed. But Jesus tells a different kind of story. In this story Jesus says 5

6 the poor are blessed and the hungry are filled with good things, while the rich are cursed. They have already received their good things. All evidence to the contrary, that s the kind of God we ve got. Or more accurately, that s the kind of God who s got us. Our God just loves to take those who are on the bottom and put them on top. It s like God enjoys humbling those who are always coming in first place by putting them in dead last. Our God is a table turner. Whether this is good news or bad news all depends on which side of the ditch you find yourself on. Barbara Brown Taylor says that if we re looking for ourselves somewhere in this parable, we might try looking to the five brothers. Father Abraham refused to send anybody back from the dead to warn the brothers, but by telling the parable Jesus has warned us. We have the Scriptures. We have Jesus who, we all know, comes back from the dead. We also have this parable. All of these things serve as our reminders of God s coming kingdom, of a just God whose nature is to turn the tables on injustice. In fact, we are better off than the brothers because we have more information than they did. The question is: What will we do with it? With Jesus the tables actually do get turned? Will we join him in turning the tables? Quite a few years back ex-wrestler- turned governor of Minnesota, Jessie the brain formerly the body Ventura, made headlines when with this comment in an interview, religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength is numbers. I remember Bishop Will Willimon of the United Methodist Church s response at the time: That was an incredibly perceptive statement for a professional wrestler. Christianity is 6

7 for the weak and losers. That s exactly who Jesus was for. That s the kind of God we ve got. That s the kind of God whose got ahold of us. 7