Rich Man & Lazarus in the Shadow of September 11

Luke 16:19-31; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Amos 6:1a, 4-7

Proper 21, Year C

Sept 30, 2001

Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Lazarus, poor, sick, weak, waits at the gate of a rich man. The rich man’s property, I can imagine, has a tall, foreboding stone wall surrounding it. You cannot see over the wall, or around it, because it is impenetrable. Yet somewhere inside, beyond the walls, deep into the rich man’s property rests his house. And inside that house the rich man lives and thrives, dressed in purple and fine linen, sumptuously feasting every day. Surely Lazarus has never been inside those walls, has never feasted at the table with the rich man. And it is likely that he has never even seen the luxury beyond the walls, except perhaps to catch a glimpse when the gate opens for the rich man to enter or exit. No, it is probable that he does not see what lies beyond the walls, but he does know. He knows that there are riches on the other side of the wall, and so he waits by the gate, so that crumbs of those riches might spill out.

Lazarus waits by the gate, “longing,” the Scripture says, “to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table.” Lazarus waits at the gate, waiting for some crumb, some morsel of food to fall or be tossed his way; waiting for some crumb, some morsel of hope and of life. Lazarus waits at the gate, sick and wounded, aching for someone to raise him up, to anoint him with a healing balm, to soothe the pain of his burning sores. Lazarus waits at the gate, too poor to sustain himself, too sick to work, too weak to even beg. He just waits at the gate, nothing more to hope for than the possibility that he might feast on the scraps that the rich man’s dogs reject. Lazarus waits at the gate, for there is nowhere else for him to go.

Within hours after the tragedy of September 11, friends and family of World Trade Center workers began to gather at Union Square, about a mile above the site of the tragedy. They gathered almost instinctively, nothing else they could do, nowhere else they could go.

Union Square was an appropriate place for them to gather, for it was the closest, large gathering place not restricted by police and rescue activity. Yet it could have been far away, in one sense, for in Union Square you are so surrounded by apartment and office buildings that, even before the tragedy, the twin towers were not visible from it.

And so they came. Family and friends of World Trade Center workers came to Union Square with pictures of their loved ones and flyers complete with photo, contact information, and name, declaring that a husband, child, friend was missing. They gathered with others because they shared the same loss. Rather than be alone in misery and sadness they gathered to share their loneliness and sadness with others. They gathered in small groupings and sang songs of hope. They wept and they wailed. And they waited. Especially during those first few hours and days, they waited for a word of hope to be sent their way. Like Lazarus they waited for something they could not see, and increasingly without hope, they waited for comfort, a soothing balm, a crumb to nourish their hungry and empty hearts. They waited there at

Union   Square

, like at a gate, not seeing their loved ones but knowing that they were there on the other side. Like Lazarus, they waited.

 

Soon people began to cry out, “Why did this happen? How could this happen?” People were angry – heck, many of us were angry. “If I could have just been there with him,” a woman who lost her husband in the tragedy said, “if I could have just been there, to hold his hand, to somehow take away his suffering. I wish I could have been there to hold him while he died.” The President declared that this attack on American soil would not go unpunished, that we will respond with unyielding determination and force.

Our nation’s anger took on many hues, many manifestations. Within days a military operation was named to seek out Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network – “Infinite Justice” it was called, for infinite justice we want to execute. Outside of Veteran’s Stadium, on that first night of baseball after the attacks, venders sold t-shirts with Osama Bin Laden’s picture on it, with the phrase “Wanted Dead or Alive” written in bold across the top. The word “Alive” was crossed out. And some people, filled with uncontrolled anger, attacked arabs and muslims and anyone who had darker skin than the average white person. Mosques were vandalized. Taxi cab drivers beat-up. All in the name of retribution. All under the power of anger.

And in our anger many asked, “How could God have let this happen? Where is God in all of this?” Amidst the dust and the smoke and the rubble and broken bodies and broken spirits it can be hard to see God, to understand God, to experience God. And to make it harder to understand, this attack was apparently carried out in the name of Allah, in the name of God, by extremists who distort the loving and compassionate teachings of the great religion of Islam. On our continent, tele-evangelist Pat Robertson, on his 700 Club television show, suggested that perhaps this attack was God’s punishment on the US for abortion, gay rights and other sins (he later apologized and changed his message). With all this anger, with all this confusion, with all these distorted visions of God in the midst of great chaos, what are we to think? How are we to understand God, ourselves, the world?

Indeed, we feel helpless in the shadow of the World Trade Center disaster. On September 11 in the late afternoon a firefighter, exhausted and overwhelmed by the events of the previous few hours, broke down and cried. “I don’t know what to do,” he told a radio news reporter as he burst into tears. He had lost several companions when the towers collapsed. And we here in Philadelphia, we too feel helpless. Our schools were closed on the day after the attack, our baseball parks closed for a week, our daily routines were altered, our travel plans halted. Yet beyond logistics, we have entered a new way of life, an uncertain one, it seems. Feeling helpless we are not sure what the future holds for us.

The rich man in our Gospel passage feels helpless at the end of the parable. Suffering in the torments of Hades, he begs Abraham to let Lazarus, who is in paradise, warn his brothers about the fate that will soon befall them. “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 responds, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” The rich man says, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” Abraham replies to the rich man, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

Dear friends, we gather here to listen to Moses and the prophets, yet we do not hear their good news. We gather here to experience Jesus, the living Word, who rose from the dead, and yet we do not hear his good news. Indeed, in the last few lines of this parable Jesus is telling us the truth – that we are limited in our ability to understand God. We don’t get it. It’s there in the books of Moses, Jesus tells us. It’s there in the prophets, Jesus tells us. Indeed, it is there in the crucified and risen Christ, but not even that seems to be enough. “Neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” A tough dose of reality. We cannot understand, we cannot conceive of this God.

Yet like the mourners who gathered at Union Square in New York City, we gather here, almost instinctively, not sure where else to go. We gather here to give praise to a God who is greater than ourselves. Indeed, we are gathered here by the Word of God alone – not by our power or our will or our determination, but by the power and will and determination of God. We gather here and we experience, we participate in something beyond us, something greater than us.

Yes, dear friends, on our own we are limited in our power, as Paul reminds us in his letter to Timothy – “We brought nothing into the world – it is certain that we can take nothing out of it.” There is little we can do, and this leads to our helplessness. Yes, we are in bondage to sin, wrapped up in sin, manipulated by sin, and even directed by sin. Yet in spite of our sin, God sent a son to us, who claims us, makes us his, and gives us his life, his victory on the cross, so that his life and victory might be ours as well.

And so dear friends, as we stand in the shadow of the World Trade Center disaster, we ask where God is in all of this. We stand, our gazes fixed upon disaster, destruction, pain, suffering, and death. We stand, mourning that buildings and lives have fallen. Dear friends, we are standing not only at the foot of the World Trade Center disaster, but we are standing at the foot of the cross, gazing up at unjust pain and suffering.

When we look at that cross we see that it is God on that cross. We see the Galilean, the man who walked with the poor and the needy; the man who healed the sick and made the broken whole. We see the man who turned water into wine and who served five loaves of bread to five thousand people hungry for food and the Word. We see the man who preached good news to the poor, freedom to the oppressed, and love to the hated. We see the man who reached across ethnic and religious lines to gather all into his Kingdom. It is this Jesus, the Jesus of love, grace, mercy and miracles, the Son of God, suffering on that cross, who suffered on September 11. God suffered on that cross. God died on that cross.

Our sufferings are not alien to God. God knows our sufferings, our loss. God knows the sufferings of those who perished on nine-eleven.  God knows the pain, the anguish and the deep sadness felt by the family and friends of the tragedy’s victims. This is our comfort, this is our balm: that God is with us and with all who suffer. The promise of God’s love and comfort, of God’s everlasting life which reaches beyond our human understanding, endures; God’s promise endures, even in our sorrow.