On that which divides us . . .

Abraham said . . . “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.” – Luke 16:26

I’ve been thinking a lot about chasms – or gaps. Big gaping holes or gashes in the fabric of the world separating us from each other. Partly because I preached on Luke 16:19-31 last Sunday – the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. [I’ve been asked to post that sermon and I will post it separately.] And I saw the movie Inequality for All this week, which made income inequality, the gap between the rich and the poor, the 1% and everyone else, starkly visible – and just as scary in it’s way as the chasm between the Rich Man and Lazarus in the parable – in this life and the next.
But today, it’s a different (though in some ways not unrelated) gap that is on my mind. Whatever you think about the government shut down – whether you think it is cool as cream cheese and are rubbing your hands in glee or it makes you angry about our leaders’ inability to act as reasonable responsible adults or it makes you afraid for the future of our economy and democracy or it simply makes you sad. Whatever you think about it – it is clearly an apocalypse in the traditional sense of the word. It is a revelation, a revealing or uncovering of the chasm that divides our country.
We are (at least) two different Americas – we see things differently, we get our information from different sources, we watch different tv channels, we live in two different realities. We demonize those on the other side, those who disagree with us, painting them as somehow less than us – less American, sometimes less human. And there seems to be no point of connection, no way for one to cross over the divide. We are separate and apart – just as the Rich Man and Lazarus are in the parable. One in “heaven” and one in “hell.” But we even disagree on who is in which.
The image of a chasm separating us is very graphic for me. If it were a wall dividing us, there might be chinks or holes in the wall through which one might see, or pass notes to those on the other side. Walls can be knocked down with the right tools by someone on either side.
But what has been going on in Washington recently is more like people running full out and having to pull up short because suddenly in front of them is the edge of a cliff – with a huge chasm or gorge between them and the other side. So there they are – on the edge of a cliff. Stuck. While exactly the same thing is happening on the other side of the chasm to a different group of people. If they had known the chasm was there, they could have run in different directions. But now it is too late. So the two groups stare at each other across the chasm and have nowhere to go. No good choices. Nowhere but down, off the cliff, into the abyss.
And yet – with people on both sides of the chasm there is another way. A rope can be thrown by the people on one side and caught by the people on the other side. Tied off and secured on both ends it becomes the beginning of a bridge. But that takes people on both sides, working together to bridge the gap. It takes a willingness to look at the faces on the other side of the chasm and see our own reflection.
In the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Rich Man begs Abraham to send a message from beyond the grave to his still living brothers to warn them not to make the same mistakes so they don’t end up in hell too. Abraham says, “No.” He says they have been warned – it is now up to them. And yet the parable itself is such a message to us. A warning. Turn back. Change your ways. Before it is too late.
Events like the government shut down, and the upcoming debt ceiling fight, are warnings too – as they highlight the looming cliffs ahead, and the chasms that divide us.
Chasms that are like gaping wounds in our country, with America’s lifeblood flowing out with each day they remain unhealed. But the process of healing begins with each of us. Throw enough ropes back and forth across the gorge and they become not just a bridge, but sutures to stitch our wounded country back together again – drawing the edges carefully back together into wholeness.
Anyone got some rope?