Jesus tells a powerful parable that leads us to reconsider our relationships to one another. Jesus’ image of the chasm speaks into our lives, as a terrifying symbol of all our divisions and separation. God’s Word reminds us that God desires to close the chasm, bringing reconciliation to the whole creation.
Vicar Erik Nelson
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 23 C
Texts: Amos 6:1,4-7a; Psalm 146; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31
Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This story used to terrify me. When I was little, I had awful dreams about the fires of hell and eternal torment. When I heard this story, I would get caught up on this horrible vision of hell that I missed what Jesus was trying to say. We’ve let Dante’s inferno overshadow Jesus’s whole point here.
The point of the story is not flames or eternal torture or the topography of the afterlife. The point is the chasm. The separation.
Christian tradition has talked about hell as separation from God, but as we see from this story, it’s more than that. Hell is also separation from each other.
In a way, the rich man was already living in hell. His wealth made him feel insulated from the suffering of the world. He heard the message of the prophets that call us to care for the poor and scriptures that reject the love of money. He heard those lessons, but let his heart become hardened because of the gilded cage in which he lived. He saw Lazarus every time he walked through his gate. He encountered Lazarus enough to even know his name, and yet his love of riches kept him from seeing Lazarus as a fellow child of Abraham, another bearer of the Image of God.
Even before he had died, the rich man separated himself. He chose the chasm.
When we look at the headlines today, we see countless examples of people choosing the chasm … choosing the void. We see school and church shootings. We see rising political violence, in our own city and far beyond. We see families divided, father against son, brother against sister.
As I look at the world, my heart hurts to see us choosing the chasm. I see all the ways, big and small, we choose our own way over the way of God.
All the readings this week, together, tell us about the way of God. In this passage, we see Lazarus named, but not the rich man. In our Psalm, we hear that God “keeps promises forever,” “car[ing] for the stranger, sustain[ing] the orphan and widow, … frustrat[ing] the way of the wicked.” Throughout the Bible, God names the poor and lifts up the lowly. To this day, God sides with the outcast and the forgotten.
There are times that like the rich man, our hearts become hardened, and we choose the wrong side of the chasm. Rather than following God into a world of justice and mercy, we choose our petty kingdoms and gilded cages.
As we hear the parable this week, we hear the voice of God offering us the opportunity to follow God’s way. Hear God say that it’s not too late. Jesus’ hyperbolic parable isn’t intended to terrify us into compliance, but it’s an invitation to God’s way. To reject the chasm.
I’m convinced that more than anything, God wants to close the chasm. The reading says “a great chasm has been fixed,” but it doesn’t say by who. Contrary to what you’ve heard, this story doesn’t say that eternal separation is God’s desire. I believe with all my heart that God wants to close the chasm. God wants to end all division and separation. The will of Christ is that all would be reconciled in him.
There are parts of this text that still terrify me. I no longer think of hell as the place where God torments us forever. But what scares me is the idea of the rich man staying on that side of the divide. Even when he sees Lazarus finally receiving comfort and rest, the rich man’s only thought is “what can I get out of Lazarus?” He asks Abraham to send Lazarus as his servant to the rich man’s household. He still doesn’t get it.
And many people who read this story are still not going to get it. I think of people whose faith becomes entirely about who’s in and who’s out. That’s how we usually interpret this story, right?
I think when we see how vast and wide God’s love is, a love that encompasses the whole universe, an embrace that welcomes in the people we most hate … I am scared that that might feel like hell. When we see others receive what we think we deserve … when we realize the worthlessness of our little empires … that might feel like hell.
I’m afraid that that is the torment on the other side of the chasm. That’s the offense of the gospel — that it’s not the know-it-alls who go to heaven or the people who always do the right thing or have the nicest clothes. The ones who do get there, the ones who rest in God’s embrace, are there because they’re the ones who God loves. Not because of anything they did or any of their own deserving, but because of God’s scandalous love.
And that’s true for me, and you, and it’s true for the people we like, and the people we love, and it’s especially true for the people we most hate.
That’s a hard word for a world that loves the chasm.
God’s will is that the chasm be closed. And God invites us to join in the healing work. And we don’t do it alone. We do it together.
We do it, following Christ, who in his dying on the cross, stretched out his arms to show us how wide his embrace is, wide enough and deep enough and high enough to embrace the whole world.
In his rising from the dead, Jesus shows us that even death cannot separate us from God’s love.
And in his ascension and promise to come again, Jesus reminds us that our divisions, our chasms that we choose now, are not forever. He will return and make all things right, closing the chasm, once and for all.
Thanks be to God.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
