The Poor deserve the best

Sermon Proper c 21: The Poor deserve the best

Last Sunday’s Gospel we read the first part of Luke 16 which taught us that money and Christian spirituality go together like a horse and carriage. Followers of Jesus must apply their intelligence and energy to things of the spirit just as they do to financial matters, use wealth wisely, be good stewards of their possessions and not make money into a god. Today we read the second part of Luke 16, and it reminds us that we have a duty to share our goods with the poor.

Rowan Williams, our Archbishop of Canterbury, tells a story from a visit to he made to Bethlehem.  In Bethlehem, Williams toured the Holy Family Hospital. Williams wanted to do something useful, and someone gave him a baby to hold.  This was a very important job because the child was just one among dozens of abandoned children, probably born to single mother. Fortunately, Holy Family Hospital has the best funded maternity ward of the West Bank and equal to the best in Israel.  A doctor on staff showed the Archbishop around and as they stood over an incubator in the intensive care unit, this doctor casually remarked “This hospital is important, because the poorest deserve the best.” Yes, the poorest deserve the best.  It’s an idea so revolutionary that we can hardly grasp it.  They do not deserve the leftovers or the scraps that fall from the Rich man’s table or what can be patched together from on a minimal budget as a means of damage control.  And they don’t deserve the best because they’ve worked for it and everyone agrees they earned it.  They deserve it simply because their need is what it is and because where human dignity is less obvious, it is crucially important to proclaim it and shout it out for everyone to hear.  And—to put it as plainly as possible—this is probably the most radically unique and new thing our celebration of the Eucharist brings into the world.

The Gospel today about Lazarus and the rich man tells us that in God’s economy, the overflow of riches happens where the need is greatest. Where human dignity is most obscured, grace blazes out in excessive and extravagant ways to remedy the balance.  The parable in our gospel begins with the contrast of two characters.  On character (traditionally called Dives, the Latin adjective for rich) is a very wealthy man who dresses well, eats well and lives in a fine house.  The other character is a very poor man named Lazarus (oh by the way Lazarus means “God helps”).  He is sickly, a beggar who camps out at the door of the rich man’s house.  The rich man seems unaware of Lazarus’ existence.  The two people could not be any more different.  As the story goes, both men die.  And when they die, their situations are reversed.  The poor man enjoys perfect happiness in ‘Abraham’s bosom while the rich man finds himself suffering the punishments of hell. 

The second part of the parable is a conversation between the rich man and Abraham.  That the rich man is accustomed to giving orders and getting his own way is clear from his requests.  When the rich man asks that Lazarus be sent to give him some water, Abraham tells him that now it is too late, since there is no going back and forth after death.  When the rich man proposes that Lazarus be sent to warn his five brothers, Abraham replies that all they need to know about sharing their goods is in law and the Prophets.  When the rich man suggest that his brothers would understand better if someone form the dead would go to them,  Abraham responds that it would make no difference.  During life he took no account of poor people like Lazarus.  Now it is too late.

The poor deserve the best.  So who deserves our support?  Do poor children deserve the health care passed in congress this week?  Our world and the United States of America are not organized on the principle that the poor deserve the best.  Maybe, the truth about the poor will never become a political reality, but God’s truth doesn’t change, ‘the truth sent from above’, demands that we look squarely at the various specific poverties we confront here in Maysville and in the whole human family.  We so easily slip into thinking that love must go to those who deserve it; that help and reward are for those who achieve greatness.  But God seems to think otherwise.

As we gather together today to pray, let us look at ourselves from God’s perspective. From God’s perspective we are, because we are loved—not because we have merited it.  There is a line from Deuteronomy:  “I chose you not because you are the greatest among the nations, you really are the least.  I chose you because I love you.” As we gather around this altar and this table, we are invited to this meal because we are loved, not because we merited it.  When Jesus invites us to take and eat. We pray:

Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us. Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name.

In the spirit of renewal, join me in prayer no. 35 on page 826 of your BCP:

Almighty and most merciful God, we remember before you all poor and neglected persons whom it would be easy for us to forget: the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have none to care for them. Help us to heal those who are broken in body or spirit, and to turn their sorrow into joy. Grant this, Father, for the love of your Son, who for our sake became poor, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.