The Bridge

How did Lazarus get into heaven? What’s he "got" that seemed to earn him an automatic berth in the bosom of Abraham? Was it the sores? His state of malnourishment? The fact that he cherished the companionship of dogs, even though it was under gruesome and desperate conditions? Or was it just that in life, nothing seemed to come Lazarus’ way? Father Abraham himself says that Lazarus is comforted in heaven precisely because he received so little comfort in life; in life he experienced only evil things. Is that what it takes to get into heaven?

Or, on the other hand, what exactly is the rich man’s sin? That he wore purple? His general state of affluence? The fact that he did not sacrificially aid the poor man Lazarus on his doorstep? Remember, the story hints that he did, in fact, offer the excess of his table to Lazarus... what was left over...  a popular model for charitable giving. Abraham tells the rich man that he now suffers agony in Hades because he had received "good things" in life. Is that the formula for condemnation?

So, which of these two men would you rather be?

You’re off the hook. Jesus isn’t talking to us in this particular parable. At least not directly. This is a passage where it is very helpful to know the broader context. Jesus is addressing a specific group among the Pharisees of his day. These men cling fast to the theological conviction that success in war, profit in the marketplace and abundance at home are the direct result of God’s favor. Godliness and success are joined one to another. God shows approval by granting material blessings; the presence of those blessings is proof of God’s approval. And the converse is held to be true, as well. Poverty, failure, illness or suffering are signs of God’s disapproval. They are deserved punishments for personal sin or disloyalty to God.

The Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking affirmed these beliefs as sound theology, based upon Holy Scripture.

Deuteronomy 28: "If you will only obey the Lord your God, by diligently observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth…

Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.

Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your livestock, both the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock.

Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways…

But if you will not obey the Lord your God by diligently observing all his commandments and decrees… then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you."

Based on this theology, the rich deserved to be rich because they obeyed God’s commandments. The poor--Lazarus--deserved every bit of what he got because presumably he had not obeyed the Lord’s commandments and decrees. To the Pharisees who cherished that view, Jesus said: God’s Word to God’s people is bigger than just the words of Deuteronomy 28. Riches are not rewards from God; poverty is not punishment from God. Godliness does not generate wealth. Sin does not inevitably lead to poverty. So Jesus told a parable in which the poor man is rewarded in death, and the rich man is condemned to eternal suffering. He was challenging the Pharisees of his day to reassess a very specific issue in their particular moral theology.

So does Jesus’ parable speak at all to a broader congregation in the 21^st century? I expect few, if any, of us would champion the Pharisees’ theology, at least in its most bald extreme. We would not assert that cancer indicates God’s judgment, or that a profitable return on investments in the stock market is proof of God’s favor. But most of us probably carry a bit of these Pharisees deep inside. We lean that way every time we thank God for our prosperity or good fortune, as though God somehow favored us… every time we think to ourselves, "there, but for the grace of God, go I." So this parable speaks to us today, at least in some measure, even as Jesus spoke to the Pharisees two thousand years ago. Material blessing and physical suffering are not the measures of God’s pleasure or judgment.

So, maybe the parable isn’t quite as remote as it first seems. We are the Pharisees. And we are Lazarus. Those among us who have known loss or want most deeply may take comfort that your sadness will indeed be turned to joy. And I pray for all of us that we may sense and acknowledge the humble hunger of the spirit that turns our hearts towards God for fulfillment. May we all know Lazarus’ longing for heaven.

But, ultimately, most importantly, all of us—all of us who are human—are the rich man. Not because we are rich, although we are. We are the rich man because a great chasm is fixed between heaven and us. Like the rich man, we stand on the edge of an immense chasm, a chasm that no one can cross, separating us from God and the angels. The deep darkness of this chasm lies before us now, and it awaits us at death. We are helpless, isolated, cut off from the joy of God’s presence. And we have built this chasm with our own sin.

Through our sin—and we are all sinners—we separate ourselves from God. Wealth does not automatically lead to damnation, but when (as First Timothy says) we are haughty because of our privilege, or when we place hope in the uncertainty of riches, then we separate ourselves from God. We dig the chasm deeper and wider. In the line just before today’s Gospel, Jesus says: You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and wealth. Every time we serve any idol other than God, the chasm grows.

And every time we tolerate poverty or injustice around us, the chasm grows. None of us can be truly right with God as long as a single person is hungry or oppressed.

If I were to try to list all of the ways that, by our sin, we separate ourselves from God, this sermon would never end. Let us all look within our own hearts. We will find the chasm there, fixed by all those things in our lives done and left undone… all the sins, large and small, that create a vast void between each of us and the joy of heaven. It is a chasm that no one can cross.

Except Jesus.

There is a bridge.  There is a bridge across the chasm.

Although the depth and persistence of our own sin separates us from God, we are not condemned to live out our lives, or to spend eternal life, in torment and agony. We are not condemned.  Remember the words of one of our Eucharistic Prayers. O God, in Jesus, you have delivered us from evil and made us worthy to stand before you. In Jesus, you have brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.

Jesus is the bridge.

This is the very reason that God’s own Son became human and lived among us. To be the bridge. To guide us and lead us across the chasm of sin into God’s presence.

And, although, we will not fully know heaven's joy until our journey’s end, for each and every one of us, the bridge is offered, extended to us in baptism. These are the words of baptism:

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? I do.

Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? I do.

Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord? I do.

That’s the way across the chasm. Jesus is the bridge. And he will lead us home.

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