Amos 6:1-7
Alas for those who are at ease in Zion, and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria, the notables of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel resorts! Cross over to Calneh, and see; from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is your territory greater than their territory, O you that put far away the evil day, and bring near a reign of violence? Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music; who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.
Luke 16:19-31
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, 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.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
This week you have seen Greta Thunberg speaking in the greatest tradition of the prophets. This sixteen year old Swedish activist has taken a diagnosis of Aspergers and the unique gifts that come with it and forged them into a sword of razor sharp focus, unrelenting in its attack on arguably the most critical crisis of our time. And if that weren’t enough, she has also managed, again using the unique gifts of Aspergers, to forge an impenetrable shield of immunity from the very worst of our so-called-adult-leader's personal attacks. Attacks that would hook, distract and derail all but the most extraordinarily enlightened a long time ago.
If you’ve ever wondered what a prophet looks like and sounds like, wonder no more. She is what Amos would have looked like and sounded like to the people of his day. He too had razor sharp focus and an undistracted determination to deliver a message that transcends the ages. If you have any doubts about that, you only have to change the place names in our first lesson for today into ones closer to home, and the ancient beauty treatments into modern ones and THIS lesson cuts like Greta’s sword:
Woe to you who think you have it made in America who think Wall Street makes the good life for everyone. You assume you’re at the top of the heap, voted the number-one best place to live in the world. Well, wake up and look around. Get off your pedestal. Take a look at Canada. Go and visit Sweden. Look in on Denmark, Switzerland and Finland. Doesn’t that take you off your high horse? On that quality of life list, you’re 17th! Not much, are you?
Woe to you who are rushing headlong to disaster! Catastrophe is just around the corner! Woe to those who live in luxury and expect everyone else to serve them! Woe to those who live only for today, indifferent to the fate of our children tomorrow! Woe to the playboys, the woo-girls, who think life is a party held just for them! Woe to those addicted to feeling good—life without pain, and those obsessed with botox and spray tans—life without wrinkles! They could not care less about their country going to ruin.
But here’s what’s really coming: a forced march into exile. They’ll leave the country whining, a rag-tag bunch of good-for-nothings.
It is tempting to dismiss the prophets as people only meant for an ancient time, but in Amos’s time the rich and powerful left the poor and powerless to drink poisoned water. Ask the people of Flint how ancient that sounds. In Amos’s time they had driven the justice system into a joke and a shambles. Ask Eric Garner’s family, a man who was killed for selling single cigarettes on the street, if that is just an ancient problem. In Amos’s time the rich got richer on the backs of the poor. Ask the children who will soon no longer qualify for free or reduced school lunch, to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy if that is just an ancient issue.
With all of that it would be easy to conclude then, that money is the problem. Wealth and riches the prophetic problem at the root of climate change, injustice, and poverty. But if that’s the conclusion you’ve reached, today’s parable is there to show us we’ve missed something VERY important. Because even though I HOPE you will be generous with your pledge this year. And even though I HOPE you fulfill your capital campaign pledge so we can finish doing the work on the Memorial Garden and our Signage, in addition to the work that has already been done on the rectory. And even though I HOPE you remember the church in your end of life planning with generosity with something maybe even as simple as adding the church as one of the beneficiaries on a life insurance policy. While I HOPE for all of that… Money, Riches and Wealth are NOT what Greta, Amos, or Jesus are talking about.
Take a closer look at that hard core parable from Luke. It’s not wealth that got the rich man sent to hades and it wasn’t homelessness that got Lazarus a ticket to sit with Abraham. The difference is that it was clear to Lazarus that HE wasn’t God! Lazarus KNEW he wasn’t in control! Lazarus understood that all he ever had, or would ever have, in this life or the next, was always and only and completely... a gift from God. The rich man, on the other hand had believed his whole life… and EVEN IN HIS DEATH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD… that HE was the one who had the whole world in his hands! He was the one, who with a word from on high could make anything happen… “Send me Lazarus! Get me a drink! Send someone to my family!” Even in Hades, with 24 hour demon led aerobics from hell, he refused to wake up and confess that he was not God! In his mind he didn’t need God. In his mind he was God! He didn’t need to change. It was the air conditioning that needed to change! He didn’t need to change! He needed Lazarus to change and bring him a bottle of Perrier!
Greta, Amos and Jesus blast us all… but it is a mistake to see that blasting as a desire to scare, threaten or intimidate us. Instead, all of them do what they do with power, focus, and in-your-face clarity with the very DEEPEST hope and desire that we will FINALLY wake up and turn our lives from driving 100 mph toward the edge of the Grand Canyon and instead... please, please, PLEASE, take a new path... a path toward life. Greta does not wish for cities to flood, people to go hungry and life to be lost as a result of climate change. Amos does not WISH for the people of Israel to be sent into exile and Jesus does not wish for any of God’s creation to be tormented in hades. For all three, they wish for us EXACTLY the opposite!
Activist, Prophet and Messiah… ALL of them desperately want to remind us though, that it is only by going THROUGH DEATH that we receive the gift of life! Only when we die to the idea that we are god. Die to the idea that that our financial and political power is the ultimate force in the universe. Only when we die to the notion that the world exists only for me, myself and I and that we owe nothing to our neighbor. Only when we die to EVERYTHING else, will we finally discover what we have ALREADY been give the gift of life. And that’s not just any old life, but an abundant life that begins each moment we die to the ways of the world and rise into the gift of eternal life, given as a free gift from God!
May we die each day to the love of money, the lust for power, the comfort of living as we’ve grown used to living, and may we rise each day into the gift of abundant life that is neither impossible nor even far away. Because it really is just as close as the water in that font. It really is right there, in, with, and under the bread and the wine, and it really does sit right next to you, in the love of Christ that binds us together in the gift of Christian Community. Thanks be to God. Amen
