Sermon: The Chasms Between Us

Delivered at Zoar United Methodist Church in Greer, South Carolina on September 25, 2016

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

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The Chasms Between Us

Audio Version

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."

Luke 16:19-31 (NRSV)

All I really want to do is to fall into

The emptiness that is

The space in between us

Erase it and bring us together again

From "The Space In Between Us" by Building 429

Jesus has just taught the Disciples that one person cannot serve two masters and that one must instead choose which master he or she will serve.  Specifically, He has said that one cannot serve both God and money.  The Pharisees, who have been among Jesus' most vocal critics, overheard what He has said, and they scoff at Him because they tend to be rather well-to-do.¹  Jesus then tells them a story about a man they would have considered quite successful.  This man is not given a name, though some people refer to him as Dives, the Latin word for rich.  This rich man wore purple robes made of fine linen, the type of expensive garments worn by the priests, and every day he feasted on expensive, exotic dishes.²

At the gate to the rich man's house, there lived another man, a poor beggar, who happens to be the only character from any of Jesus' parables who is ever given a name.  His name Lazarus is a Latinized form of the Hebrew name Eleazar, which means "God is my help."  Lazarus was covered not with elegant clothing, but with open sores that attracted unwanted attention from dogs.  To further illustrate the disparity between Lazarus's poverty and the rich man's opulence, Jesus says that Lazarus longed to eat what fell from the rich man's table.  In an age before knives and forks, people ate with their hands, and wealthy people would wipe their hands on pieces of bread, as we might wipe our hands on paper napkins nowadays.  This discarded bread is the the type of food Lazarus dreamed of eating.³

Both men die, and, in the afterlife, they both experience a reversal of fortunes.  Lazarus is escorted by angels to Heaven where meets Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people.  The rich man, on the other hand, descends into Hell, where he is licked by flames.  He looks up and sees Abraham with Lazarus by his side, and he calls 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."  Abraham replies that between them there is a great chasm nobody can cross.  The formerly rich man then says, "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 replies that, if his brothers wouldn't heed the words of Moses and the prophets, they would not listen to a person who came back from the dead.

Typically when we imagine the inhabitants of Hell, we envision people who are writhing in flames, crying out in agony, and begging God for forgiveness, but this is not exactly what we see in Jesus' parable.  Rob Bell, in his controversial book Love Wins, makes the observation that the formerly rich man is not changed by his stay in Hell.  Consider the requests he makes of Abraham and Lazarus.  He's hot and thirsty, so he wants Lazarus to come to him and drip water into his mouth.  He's worried about his family, so he wants Lazarus to go to them and warn them not to make the same mistakes he made.  The rich man might have become the beggar, but he has not changed the way he views Lazarus, as evidenced by the fact that he wants Lazarus to go out and run his errands for him.  He wants Lazarus to serve him, proving that he still believes he is superior to Lazarus.⁴  He doesn't even speak to Lazarus directly; instead, he asks Abraham to tell Lazarus what to do.  The formerly rich man might have acknowledged that he made some mistakes to land him in Hell, but, even in the fires of Hell, he has managed to hold on to his arrogance.

That said, I ask, is the "great chasm" separating the rich man from Lazarus some metaphysical boundary between Heaven and Hell, or is it perhaps, as Rob Bell suggests, something within the rich man's heart?⁵  Even in Hell, the formerly rich man displays a lack of repentance.  In the New Testament, the Greek word translated into English as repentance is metanoia, which is literally defined as a change of mind.  It is used to describe a change of heart and mind that results in a change of behavior.⁶  The formerly rich man will not change his mind in regards to how he views Lazarus, and the hardness of his heart has left him trapped.  C.S. Lewis writes,
I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors to hell are locked on the inside...  They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.⁷

Lewis illustrates this idea quite vividly in his book The Great Divorce.  In this fantastical novel, Hell is depicted not as a lake of fire, but as a dank, dingy, drizzly town.  Every resident insists on having his or her own way, so people are unable to live in harmony with one another.  As a result, the city continues to expand as people move further and further outward to get away from each other.  A number of residents of Hell find their way to a bus station and take a flying bus ride to Heaven.  They are all more than welcome to stay in Heaven; in fact, they are all met by people they knew during their lives on Earth who actually beg them to stay.  Because they are accustomed to delusions and not to reality, they find Heaven uninhabitable.  Instead of staying and growing accustomed to the environment, a majority of the visitors, of their own free will, get back on the bus for the return trip to Hell.

Ultimately, any visitor who wants to stay in Heaven must surrender whatever it is that would keep him in his own personal Hell, but few in the story actually do so.  One man will not give up his belief that he deserves to be in Heaven more than a reformed murderer; another will not give up his cynicism; and one domineering wife will not give up her desire to control her husband.  In other words, they will not repent of their destructive ways.  At one point in the story, the protagonist meets his intellectual hero, who says to him,
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."  All that are in Hell, choose it.  Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.  No soul that seriously and consistently desires joy will ever miss it.  Those who seek find.  To those who knock it is opened.⁸

Typically we assume that the rich man ended up in Hell because of his indifference toward Lazarus.  If we take into account the overarching narrative of Scripture, we might see that something else is going on in this parable.  At the very beginning of the Bible, we read that God created the world and all the creatures that dwell therein and saw that everything was very good.  A few chapters later, we see that everything fell apart when sin was introduced into the world.  The world was broken; humanity was fractured; and human beings were estranged from their Creator.  Throughout the rest of the Bible, we read of God's efforts to put it all back together again, first through the priestly kingdom of Israel, next through Jesus, and lastly through the Church, the followers of Jesus who carry on His ministry.⁹

The story finds its climax, of course, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  St. Paul includes in his letter to the Colossians what is thought by some to be an early Christian hymn.  This hymn proclaims that in Jesus Christ – "the image of the invisible God" and "the firstborn of all creation" – "the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" and that through Christ "God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things."¹⁰  The Greek word translated into English as reconcile is apokatallassō which means to "bring back a former state of harmony."¹¹  In Christ, God is working to restore what sin has broken.

God's work of reconciling all things is a recurring theme throughout St. Paul's letters.  Paul writes, in his letter to the Romans, that God's work of reconciliation had begun "while we still were sinners" or "enemies" of God.¹²  In his letter to the Ephesians, he writes that Christ "has broken down the dividing wall" of hostility between the Jews and the Gentiles "that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace."¹³  In another letter, Paul encourages his friend Philemon to welcome home his runaway slave Onesimus, not as a slave, but as "a beloved brother" in Christ.¹⁴  Paul writes most strikingly in his letter to the Galatians, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."¹⁵

God's work of reconciling all things to God's self through Jesus Christ has profound implications for our relationships with other people.  Imagine that people all around the world are moving toward a single fixed point. As they move closer and closer to that point, they are all, by necessity, moving closer and closer to each other.  In the same way, if we are all being reconciled to God, then we are all being reconciled to one another as well.  If being reconciled to God means being reconciled to one another, then, if we intentionally drive a wedge between ourselves and other people, we will also separate ourselves from God.  The things that alienate us from each other are things that alienate us from God.

Consider all of the biblical examples of ways in which one's relationship with God is directly connected to one's relationships with other people.  When one religious scholar asked Jesus which commandment in the Jewish Law was the most important, Jesus told him that the most important commandment is to love God with all one's heart, soul, mind, and strength.  He went on to say that the second most important is to love one's neighbor as oneself.¹⁶  I do not think that Jesus offered the scholar the second greatest commandment merely as a bonus: I think that Jesus had no choice but to give him both commandments because they are inextricably linked.  Similarly, St. John writes that anyone who claims to love God but hates a brother or sister is a liar.¹⁷  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that God will forgive our sins only if we forgive other people's sins against us.¹⁸  In one parable, Jesus says that we will ultimately be judged by how we treat "the least of these" – the the hungry and thirsty, the immigrant, the destitute, the sick, and the imprisoned.  What we do for them, we do for Jesus, and, what we fail to do for them, we fail to do for Jesus.¹⁹

In Jesus' day, the Pharisees were regarded as the good, salt-of-the-earth, religious folk, and they prided themselves on this fact.  They loved money because, to them, it was a sign of God's blessing upon them and thus another outward proof of their own righteousness.²⁰  This only created further animosity between the Pharisees and other people.  N.T. Wright points out that the Pharisees treated the tax collectors, prostitutes, and other outcasts Jesus befriended in the same way that the rich man treated Lazarus in Jesus' parable.²¹  To the Pharisees, there were the righteous and the unrighteous, the successful and the unsuccessful, the blessed and the wretched.  What if Paul had also said that, in Christ, there is no rich or poor?  What if money was not something by which to separate the haves from the have nots, but rather a means by which the haves could be God's blessing to the have nots, thereby closing the gap between the two?

In Jesus' parable, the rich man would have passed by Lazarus every day, but he was so absorbed in his own decadent lifestyle that he never reached out Lazarus to help him.  Perhaps the great chasm was fixed in place, separating the rich man from Lazarus and ultimately from God, because he had kept open the very type of fracture God has been working to close.  He was left to suffer alone because he refused to be reconciled to Lazarus: he would not look upon the beggar as a brother.  If the rich man had truly learned to love his neighbor as he loved himself, the desire to reach out to Lazarus and show him mercy would have naturally followed.

The divide between the haves and the have nots is not the only "great chasm" in our world today.  There are many chasms of bitterness, pettiness, injustice, arrogance, bigotry, fear, and hatred that separate people from each other.  These chasms form along boundaries of skin color, ethnicity, gender, religion, ideology, and socioeconomic status or along any line we draw in the sand.  Our first impulse is often to point our fingers at the people on the other side of the chasm, but playing the blame game only makes the rift even wider.  Consider all of the turmoil that exists in our society today because people are unwilling to simply listen to each other.  We must be willing to put our differences aside and reach across the chasm with open arms, open ears, and open hearts.

There is an old story about a man who had the chance to visit both Heaven and Hell.  He first visits Hell where he sees a sumptuous banquet.  He sees tables covered with food, but when he looks at the people gathered at the tables, he notices that they are all skin and bones.  He takes a closer look at the people and discovers that wooden splints are preventing them from bending their elbows.  They are all wasting away because they cannot feed themselves.  The man then visits Heaven where he sees a similar banquet.  He notices that the people in Heaven also have splints on their arms, but, unlike the people in Hell, they are all healthy and happy.  The man wonders why the people in Heaven are faring better than the people in Hell, until he sees one person reach across the table to feed the person across from her.  Like the people in Hell, the people in Heaven are helpless to feed themselves; however, they realize that they are still perfectly capable of feeding each other.  The traveler returns to the banquet in Hell and tells one starving person that, if he feeds the person across from him, the other person will return the favor.  The emaciated person barks back, "I'd rather die than feed that lowlife!"²²

If the "great chasm" isolating the rich man in Jesus' parable is indeed something in his heart, would he be able to join Lazarus in Heaven if he only learned to love Lazarus as he loved himself?  To be honest, I have no idea, for Jesus does not go into such detail.  The purpose of this parable is probably not to let us know what happens to people in the hereafter, but rather to teach us something important about living with each other in the here and now.  Nobody has any hard evidence regarding what happens to our souls when we die, so we can only speculate on the matter.  What I do know is that the time to make the changes we know we need to make is not after we die.  It is not when we are on our deathbeds.  It is not on New Year's Day.  It is not the day after tomorrow.  The time to repent and be changed is right now, for the present moment is all we really know we have.  If we are unwilling to change in the present, then why should we think that we will change at some indeterminate point in the future?

As followers of Jesus Christ, we know that love is our top priority.  Jesus teaches us that it is not enough to love our friends and family: we must learn to love our enemies as well.²³  In Christ, God is working to reconcile all things to God's self, so we must learn to see our enemies for who they really are, as estranged family members.  May God give us the willingness to close the gaps between ourselves and others.

Amen.

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

~ St. Francis of Assisi

Notes:

1. Luke 6:13-14
2. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Luke.  2001, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 253
3. Barclay, pp. 253-254
4. Rob Bell.  Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.  2001, Harper One.  p. 75
5. ibid.
6. Wikipedia: Metanoia (theology)
7. C.S. Lewis.  The Problem of Pain.  ch. 8
8. C.S. Lewis.  The Great Divorce.  The quote is from chapter 9.
9. N.T. Wright summarizes the overarching narrative of the Bible in this way in his article "How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?"
10. Colossians 1:15-20 (NRSV)
11. Blue Letter Bible: apokatallassō
12. Romans 5:8-11 (NRSV)
13. Ephesians 2:11-16 (NRSV)
14. Philemon 1:10-16 (NRSV)
15. Galatians 3:28 (NRSV)
16. Mark 12:28-31
17. 1 John 4:20
18. Matthew 6:14-15
19. Matthew 25:31-46
20. Barclay, p. 250
21. N.T. Wright.  Luke for Everyone.  2004, Westminster John Knox Press.  pp. 201
22. Wikipedia: Allegory of the long spoons
23. Matthew 5:43-48

The painting of Lazarus was painted by Fyodor Bronnikov in 1886.

Perspective: No Sheep Left Behind

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Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

No Sheep Left Behind

Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?  When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost."

Luke 15:4-6 (NRSV)

---

I am the good shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.  And I lay down my life for the sheep.

John 10:14-15 (NRSV)

I left the ninety-nine to find the one

And you're the one

I walked a thousand miles in this desert sun

Only to bring you back

From "To Bring You Back" by Paul Alan

The religious leaders, particularly the Pharisees and the religious scholars, didn't always like the type of company Jesus kept, and they criticized Him for fellowshipping with "sinners."  One Hebrew term they might have used for these so-called "sinners" is am ha'aretz, which is translated into English as "the people of the land."¹  This term, which in some cases might equate to bumpkin or yokel nowadays, was sometimes used to describe rustic, uneducated Jews who didn't follow the Jewish Law quite as meticulously as the educated scribes and Pharisees.²

One day, when Jesus hears the murmurings of the Pharisees and scribes, He begins telling them parables to help them to get the picture.  In the first of these parables, which is almost framed as a rhetorical question, He tells of a shepherd who owns one hundred sheep and suddenly realizes that one of them is missing.  He leaves the other ninety-nine sheep in the wilderness to track down the one that went astray.  When he finds the sheep, he carries it home and celebrates.³

In the past, I've found this parable a bit confusing.  I understand that the one missing sheep is important to the shepherd, but I cannot help but think about the other ninety-nine.  Ninety-nine unattended sheep in the wilderness are basically a buffet for wolves.  Perhaps this parable would make more sense if we just assumed that the sheep the shepherd left behind are safe.  William Barclay notes that some flocks of sheep were owned by entire communities and that community flocks typically had multiple shepherds.  If the flock in Jesus' parable was such a flock, one shepherd could go out in search of the one lost sheep, while the others looked after the other ninety-nine.⁴

The point of the parable is not which sheep are more important, but rather the circumstances of the sheep.  Jesus concludes, "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."⁵  In other words, seemingly good behavior from supposedly good people is to be expected, but an experience that turns a troubled person's life around is truly a cause for celebration.

In another Gospel account, Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd."  When Jesus calls Himself the good shepherd, He is saying that He is not merely someone hired to watch the sheep.  If the sheep were in danger, a "hired hand" would rather risk his job by running than risk his life by protecting the sheep.  The Good Shepherd, on the other hand, "lays down his life for the sheep," because He is personally invested in their well-being.  Jesus says that the sheep He tends are His, and, since those sheep represent people, He is directly identifying with the Creator.⁶

On the evening before Jesus "lays down his life for the sheep," He warns the Disciples that trouble is coming.  Peter claims that he will face anything for Jesus, even imprisonment or death.  Jesus then predicts that Peter will deny even knowing Him three times before dawn, but Jesus also says to him, "Once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."⁷  A few hours later, Jesus is arrested, and, when Peter is questioned, he claims that he has never met Jesus.  After Peter's third denial, the rooster crows, and Peter weeps bitterly, remembering what Jesus said to him.⁸

I suppose everyone takes a turn playing the lost sheep, and Peter, with his denial, became the lost sheep.  Jesus knew that Peter would deny Him, but He had already forgiven Peter.  He knew that Peter would go astray, but He also knew that Peter would eventually return to the flock.  One Gospel account tells us that Peter, having decided that he was a failure as a Disciple, decides to return to his former life as a fisherman.  Jesus, like the shepherd from His parable, goes out and looks for him.  He finds Peter, asks him three times if he loves Him, and asks him three times to feed His sheep.⁹  The Good Shepherd does not give up on His sheep, even if the sheep give up on themselves.

In Jesus, we see a God who is not satisfied with even a ninety-nine percent success rate.  In Jesus, we see a Creator who is personally invested in every last one of us.  If we truly want to be like Jesus, then we must be personally invested in the well-being of others, especially when we find ourselves in places of leadership or influence.  May we learn to love one another as Christ loves us.¹⁰


Notes:

1. William Barclay.  The Gospel of Luke, Revised Edition.  1975, Westminster Press.  pp. 199-200
2. Wikipedia: Am ha'aretz
3. Luke 15:1-6
4. Barclay, pp. 200-201
5. Luke 15:7
6. John 10:11-15
7. Luke 22:31-34
8. Luke 22:54-62
9. John 21:1-19
10. John 13:34

Le Bon Pasteur was painted by James Tissot in the late 1800s.

Perspective: A True Crime

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

A True Crime

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.  For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.  Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your neighbor, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," while the log is in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.

Matthew 7:1-5 (NRSV)

No one knows what it's like

To be the bad man

To be the sad man

Behind blue eyes

From "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who

Like many people, I was captivated the audiological phenomenon known as Serial, a podcast produced by public radio staple This American Life.¹  Late to the game, as usual, I didn't actually start listening to this podcast until a few months after the first season had ended.  The first season tells the story of Adnan Syed, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee sixteen years ago.  Adnan has maintained his innocence ever since his conviction, and podcasts like Serial and Undisclosed² have shown that the jury that found him guilty was not presented with the pure, unadulterated facts.

If you're wondering about my own opinion about the case, I will say that, knowing what I know about the case, I do not think Adnan should have been found guilty.

I enjoy an occasional true crime story, but there is something that bothers me about such stories, particularly those that involve a possibly wrongful conviction.  These stories give me the sense that sometimes investigators and prosecutors are less interested in actually uncovering the truth and more interested in building a compelling case against their suspect of choice.  A number of years ago, I read John Grisham's The Innocent Man, which tells the true story of Ron Williamson, a former baseball player who was wrongfully convicted of murder.  During his trial, the prosecution relied heavily on character witnesses, not to prove that he had actually committed the crime, but to convince the jury that he was the type of person who could have committed the crime.³

Of course, I don't think that these investigators and prosecutors are guilty of any fault we cannot find in the rest of the population.  Consider some of the high-profile murder trials from the last couple of decades that captured the attention of the masses.  Hardly anyone who followed these trials had any earth-shattering insights that could crack the case wide open, but many people who followed these trials had very strong opinions about the suspects.  We say that suspects are "presumed innocent until proven guilty," but I don't think that principle is always reflected in people's attitudes.

I'm no sociologist, but I suspect that guilty verdicts might help people to feel more secure.  It is unsettling to think that a violent criminal is on the loose, but a guilty verdict can reassure people that there is indeed order in the world, regardless of whether or not the person convicted actually committed the crime.  As the FBI agent in the film National Treasure said to the protagonist, "Someone's gotta go to prison, Ben."⁴  Personally, I find it unsettling to imagine facing a wrongful conviction for no other reason than a lack of an ironclad alibi.  Even if I was found not guilty in such a trial, I would still walk out of the courtroom as a pariah, for many people would have already made up their minds that I was the scum of the earth.

I think that something else might be going on beneath people's desire for retribution.  In the past, I've written about my theory that people cope with their insecurities with the help of an "at-least" person.  An "at-least" person is a person about whom one say, "At least I'm not that person."  Another term for an "at-least" person is scapegoat.  The term scapegoat finds its origin in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Every year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would lay his hands on a living goat, symbolically transferring the guilt of the sins of the people onto the goat.  Someone would then send the goat out into the wilderness, far away from the people.⁵  The term scapegoat has since come to refer to the one who bears the blame for someone else's sins.

I think that suspects, particularly those in high-profile criminal cases, function as people's personal scapegoats.  Basically, if "scum of the earth" is a label we can pin on O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony, or JonBenét Ramsey's parents, then we don't have to wear the label ourselves.  If we can convince ourselves that other people are the cause of all the world's problems, then we don't have to take a good hard look in the mirror and face our own contributions.  We set ourselves up as both judge and jury, convicting others so that we can exonerate ourselves.

The scapegoat is a sacrifice, the one who is killed, figuratively or literally, for the many, like the virgin thrown into the volcano to keep the angry fire gods from destroying the village.

In first-century Palestine, the Jewish leaders basically had an agreement with the Roman Empire: if the people didn't cause any trouble, the Empire would let them go about their lives.  When Jesus entered the scene, many people began to believe that He was the long-awaited messiah who would defeat the Romans and restore Israel to its former glory.  One of the Gospels tells us that after Jesus miraculously fed thousands of people, the people wanted to make Him king by force.⁶  As Jesus continued to perform such signs and wonders, the religious leaders became increasingly nervous.

At one meeting, some of the religious leaders voiced their concerns that Jesus' followers would rebel against Rome and that the Romans would retaliate by destroying the temple.  The high priest said, "You know nothing at all!  You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed."⁷  Thus Jesus became the people's scapegoat.  He was eventually taken to court on trumped up charges and wrongly sentenced to death.

Scapegoating is a true crime.  It is an unjust bandage we use to cover up our own problems and the problems of society.  It doesn't solve any of the problems; it just keeps us from truly confronting them.  To truly solve these problems, we need to rip off the bandage and face them directly, owning our own contributions to them.  When one newspaper requested that its readers write in with their opinions about what is wrong with the world, thinker G.K. Chesterton responded with a two-word answer: "I am."⁸  May God give us the resolve to stop scapegoating other people and the courage to be honest with ourselves.


Notes:

1. https://serialpodcast.org/
2. http://undisclosed-podcast.com/
3. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003B02NZQ
4. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368891/
5. Leviticus 16:20-22
6. John 6:1-15
7. John 11:45-53 (NRSV)
8. http://www.chesterton.org/wrong-with-world/

The image featured in this perspective is believed to be public domain.

Perspective: Dinner Parties and Ladders

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Comments are always welcomed.

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Dinner Parties and Ladders

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

James 4:10 (CEB)

Calloused and muddied are His hands

From healing the blind and tracing the sand

The King of Kings on hands and knees

Scruffy and sweaty and tempted like me

It's worth it for Him to get messy to clean us

The filthy, unwanted know the Dirty Jesus

From "Dirty Jesus" by My Anchor Holds

In Jesus' day, the Pharisees would have been generally regarded in society as the good, upstanding, salt-of-the-earth religious folk.  That said, when Jesus speaks to them, modern-day Christians really need to take notice.  According to the Gospels, the Pharisees didn't seem to like Jesus very much.  They didn't like that He didn't observe the rules they considered important, and they didn't approve of the company he kept.  They ultimately became critical of everything He did.  On one Sabbath day, Jesus was invited to dinner at the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees, and the other guests in attendance were watching Jesus closely.¹  It must have been one tense dinner party.

Jesus and the Pharisees have been engaged in an ongoing argument about what is permissible on the Sabbath day.  On one occasion the Pharisees criticized Jesus for allowing His hungry disciples to pick food on the Sabbath day.²  On multiple occasions, Jesus healed people on the Sabbath day, to the disapproval of the Pharisees.  Instead of simply celebrating the fact that people were being freed from their chronic ailments, they complained that the healings were in violation of their religious rules.³

During dinner, Jesus sees a man who suffers from edema.  Knowing that He is being scrutinized, He asks the other dinner guests, "Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?"  Nobody says anything.  Jesus heals the man and then asks everyone, "If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?"  Again, the Pharisees will not engage with Jesus' questions.  No opinions are being changed that evening.

Jesus notices how people are selecting their seats at the dinner table, and He encourages everyone not to choose for themselves the seats of honor.  Someone who sits down at a seat of honor would be very embarrassed if he or she was asked to move because someone considered more "important" came along.  One who chooses to live by such a game could end up being disgraced by the same game.  On the other hand, a person who chooses a lower seat would be in for a welcome surprise if he or she was invited to take a seat of honor.  Perhaps Jesus isn't talking merely about the seats we choose at parties but rather our opinions of ourselves in general.  He says, "All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

Next, Jesus encourages His host for the evening to invite to his dinners or luncheons people who cannot do the same for him.  If he invites people who can return the favor, He will be rewarded through reciprocity.  If he invites people who cannot return the favor, he will experience an altogether different kind of reward.

One of the dinner guests says, "Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!"  This exclamation prompts Jesus to tell a parable about a man who throws a lavish dinner party.  When he sends out his messenger to tell the people he invited that dinner is ready, they all send their regrets because they all have things that require their attention at the moment.  One has just purchased a piece of property; another has just bought some oxen; and another has just gotten married.  Because none of the intended guests will attend the party, the man sends his messenger out to invite people on the streets to attend.

The Pharisees believe that they want to be a part of the Kingdom of God, living their lives in ways meant to prove themselves worthy, but ironically they've been missing out on the Kingdom altogether.  They are like the people in Jesus' parable who were invited to the dinner party but chose not to attend because they thought they had more important things to do.  Perhaps, if the Pharisees weren't so caught up in bickering about their religious rules and in jockeying for positions in society, they might have seen the Kingdom of God breaking into the world all around Jesus.  The would have seen it in His miraculous healings and in His befriending of outsiders, and they would have heard it in His teachings of love and hope.

The religious and social outcasts whom Jesus befriended certainly didn't miss the Kingdom of God.  With nothing to distract them, they welcomed it with open arms.  In another Gospel account, Jesus says to the Pharisees, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."⁴  Perhaps the people who think they're the closest to God run the greatest risk of missing God.

People like to climb proverbial ladders.  Some try to climb ladders to establish their position in society, while others try to climb ladders to God through their religious practices.  The Pharisees apparently tried to climb both kinds of ladders.  Ironically, the bottom of the ladder is where we are usually best able to see God.  In fact, Jesus identifies with the people who don't even have a place on the ladder - the hungry and thirsty, the immigrant, the destitute, the sick, and the prisoner, those considered "the least of these."⁵  It is the spiritually poor, the mournful, and the meek whom Jesus calls blessed.⁶

What might be distracting us from the ways in which the Kingdom of God is breaking through in the world?  How might our priorities be out of sync with the purposes of God?  If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: there is a reason that the announcement of the coming of the Kingdom of God is coupled with a call to repentance.⁷  We pray, "Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," but we must remember the Kingdom of God is not exactly what we expect it to be.  We must be willing to change the way we think, and we must not be afraid to reconsider anything and everything we think we know.


Notes:

1. This perspective is based on Luke 14:1-24.  Quotations from this passage are taken from the New Revised Standard Version.
2. Luke 6:1-5
3. Luke 6:6-11; Luke 13:10-17
4. Matthew 21:31
5. Matthew 25:34-40
6. Matthew 5:3-5
7. Mark 1:15; Matthew 3:2; Matthew 4:17

The photograph of the ladder is public domain.