Jakob Topper 11:00 service Wilshire Baptist Church 25 September 2016 Dallas, Texas The Lazarus Effect In Philadelphia, there is a community that s difficult to define. Its name is the Simple Way, and it began when a group of college students became friends with their homeless neighbors. The students began sleeping in the streets with their friends- returning to the university for classes during the day. At first it was a night here, a night there, but it gradually became much more often until they spent more nights in the streets than they did in their dorms. Luke 16:19-31 out laughing to keep from crying. We didn t have electricity, much less a microwave and most of our friends had such bad teeth they couldn t eat popcorn anyway. That same week the mafia saw them on the news and also made a visit. They brought bicycles for the kids, baked turkeys, and they found a way to get the power turned on. Their founder laments, I guess God can use the Mafia, but I would like God to use the church. A priest offered them an abandoned church to stay in and they accepted-college students and their homeless friends. They lived simply, sharing food and taking care of one another. After a few months, they even received a little bit of media attention. After that, people began bringing things by: old mattresses, boxes of food, and things like that. One day they received a box on their porch from a wealthy church in their community with sharpie on the lid saying, For the Homeless. They opened the box to find it full of microwavable popcorn. One of their founders writes, I burst It is not difficult to admit that our lives have grown so incredibly disconnected from the poor. Our first instinct in the Lazarus story is to shake our fist at the rich man- to proclaim him hard of heart. But then we are challenged to admit that in some ways this rich man is more merciful than we are. He has allowed the homeless to sleep on his property. It s not hard to imagine that a man as rich as he is would have guards at the gate that would have tossed Lazarus out if he had not stopped them. Lazarus lays outside his home because he was given a place there. Yet we have systems in place to keep the poor far from our homes. Most of our
neighborhoods have nothing to offer them. One of the greatest injustices in the church is not that we don t care about the poor. It s that the we don t know the poor. It s easy to be an advocate for the poor with our votes, over social media, or even in a sermon. But have we ever invited Lazarus into our home? Have we shared a meal together? That s where things get little bit more complex and challenging. So maybe, if our conscious is bothered enough, we write a check to an agency that can do these things for us. We d rather pay someone to serve the poor for us. And is giving charity wrong? Of course not. But is it enough? It depends on how we look at it. One of the most threatening themes in this rich man and Lazarus story is that it teaches us that the stakes are higher than we realized. Our very souls are on the line. You see, if it was as simple as putting food in Lazarus stomach, and poverty is never that simple, but if it were, then writing a check might be enough. But if this is also about the health of our own souls, then we, need much more from this interaction than just charity work. Without a doubt, I believe that we should use our resources to support agencies that fight poverty in our world, but if that s all we do, then we are missing out on the gift. We need Lazarus as much as Lazarus needs us. We can give Lazarus food, and Lazarus can show us the face of God. For in serving the least of these, Jesus says, you have served me. First Baptist Church of Washington, DC experienced a taste of this many years ago. They have a beautiful building with 3 large arched doors facing the street. Arched doors big enough to sleep 6 homeless people each. The church had become an unofficial homeless shelter, and a shabby one at that. They spoke with the police to see if there was anything to do about the issue. The police told them no, they were victims of building such fine archways. One day their pastor Jim Somerville, who preached here at Wilshire last year, decided that he was going to spend the night in the archway with the homeless. So he and a few church members did. They sang 2
songs and told stories, prayed and laughed together. A few Sundays later one of the homeless men from the archway came forward during the church service and asked to join the church and be baptized. Though the pastor was skeptical, the man professed faith in Christ and was baptized. He began coming to services regularly, though he wasn t always easy to be around. Then, when hurricane Katrina hit he volunteered to go with a team to Louisiana and work. And so he went. The team was stationed in a warehouse loading and unloading boxes. Unfortunately, work began very slowly, because no one on the team could operate a forklift, but then they discovered that their friend from the archway was a certified forklift operator. He hopped on the forklift and saved the day! May have even saved the trip. Sometime after they had returned from Louisiana and more than a year after that first fateful night on the archway, their friend was married there in First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. Among the groomsmen at the wedding were both old friends from the archway and new friends from the church- both groups standing together as one in support of their mutual friend. What a foretaste of the Kingdom of God. I don t know this man s name, but to me he s Lazarus. And he, and all the Lazarus of the world are a reminder. They remind us that our calling to befriend and serve the poor and needy is not only God s plan to redeem the world; It s also God s plan to redeem the Church. How we respond to the poor and needy is the litmus test for our spiritual health. How we show hospitality to the outsider, trapped beyond our gates is the measure of our religion. The rich man in our story seems surprised by that. He didn t expect to find himself in such a hellish place, but he does see people that he knows. He calls out to Abraham, to have Lazarus come cool his tongue with just a drop of water from Lazarus finger. And a lot is made of the rich man s eagerness to have Lazarus serve him even beyond the grave, but there s something else significant that is often passed over. The rich man calls Lazarus by name. He isn t called 3
stranger or recognized simply as the beggar from the gate. No, the rich man calls him Lazarus. Obviously, they ve had some real interaction in their lives. As if we needed further confirmation that this rich man is not a bad person. We are wrong to ascribe to him the hardness of heart that is so easy to give the villain in these stories. But that s just the point: the rich man is no villain. He is far more like each of us than we would like to admit. And that s being generous, because when was the last time we knew the homeless by name? The rich man asks that a messenger be sent back to share with his brothers the truth of their situation. And Abraham s response is chilling. If they didn t listen to the law and the prophets, he says- for they already teach that to love one s neighbor as oneself, to provide for the poor, and to show hospitality for the outsider are of utmost importance to God, well then, they won t believe even if someone were to rise from the dead. As if to say, another sermon, no matter how good, won t do them any good. They already know all that they need to know. We get the sense that a significant shift has happened and they aren t talking about the rich man s brothers anymore. Perhaps Luke is using this story to talk to all of us, who sit on this side of the resurrection, who have heard the call of one risen from the dead. If so, then our message is clear: We know all that we need to know. The real question is are we going to put it into practice? It isn t a matter of our education, but of our dedication. The founder of the Simply Way community there in Philadelphia says that he often meets business people who hear the story about their community and are moved by it. They ask how they can help, and they want to give money in support. He tells them to save their money, but he does invite them to come and see for themselves, because he believes that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end. I had a small taste of this when I used to serve at a soup kitchen on Thursday nights. One season, thankfully, we had so much help 4
inside that it was actually difficult to serve. So I decided that instead of serving food inside, I would take a checker board and sit on the curb outside to play with our friends while they waited to be served. My first surprise was that my friends wanted to play chess instead of checkers. My next surprise was that they proceeded to crush me in chess, game after game, and I m not a bad chess player. Without realizing it, I carried a whole laundry list of assumptions into this interaction and they were systematically dismantled- just like my chess game. This happened week after week, until one of my friends from the curb brought me a book that he bought for me from the used bin at the public library. It s title: Chess for Dummies. I thought I was the one doing the giving, but it was I who received. And not just a book, but a different and more beautiful way of looking at the world, and some of my friends in it. Some of you, along with FBC D.C. and those college students in the streets of Philadelphia, have also experienced this Lazarus Effect in your own lives or here at Wilshire, and you re better for it. Some of you may know exactly how God is calling you to respond. You may already have someone in your life that God is calling you to build a relationship with. Perhaps there s already someone inside your sphere of influence who is in need, and God is calling you to respond. Others of you may be wondering where you should even begin. There are often so many gates between us and the poor that even those who have the desire may not know where to go with it. In this case, Heather Mustain, our Minister of Missions is an excellent resource to turn to. She can connect you with some agencies that will allow you to serve. One of our partners that she might point you to is CitySquare. They are a great agency working to address the causes and effects of homelessness. CitySquare has plenty of opportunities to be involved in the lives of our homeless neighbors. They help people like us move from charity to solidarity. But don t be misled. If we go to CitySquare or one of our other partners thinking that we are going to help them, although that 5
might be true, we may just find that they are helping us even more. I m warning you now. If we go hoping to bring about some change in them or even their situation, we could be the ones who are changed. Remember the words of Jesus, What good is it to gain the whole world and to lose your soul? because just when we think that we are rescuing Lazarus, it may be that Lazarus is rescuing us. 6