The following is the text of a sermon on Luke 16:19-31 given on September 29th by Rev. Christine Ng.
I love the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, that series of books from the 1980’s by Douglas Adams. I love the BBC radio play and tv series too. The more recent movie – eh – not so much. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the extraordinary story of one extremely ordinary Englishman named Arthur Dent. But it’s also the story of a book, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – which is kind of like the space traveler’s bible – full of all sorts of information, stories and advice written by travelers over time to help other travelers on their way. It has the words “Don’t Panic” written in large, friendly letters on the cover.
According to the Guide, true invisibility is almost impossible to achieve – Star Trek’s cloaking device and Harry Potter’s cloak notwithstanding. So instead someone came up with a device that creates an SEP field, which encourages this tendency. Apparently, there’s been a spaceship covered by an SEP field sitting in a cricket field in England for years and no one has noticed. It’s somebody else’s problem, so it becomes functionally invisible because of the blindness of those refusing to see. It was possible to see it, but just be catching glimpses out of the corner of your eye.
Our own Bible is kind of like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to a Life of Faith, with information, stories and advice written by travelers over time to help us in our own lives. Our guidebook doesn’t have the words “Don’t Panic” on the cover but perhaps it should.
In today’s parable, our book describes same thing an SEP. The rich man passed by Lazarus everyday, without ever really “seeing” him. Oh, he knew Lazarus was there – he even knew his name. But he never let the evidence of his eyes really connect with his brain, he never let it impact him or his life. And the result of his willful blindness is a widening chasm between him and Lazarus – a chasm that eventually become impassible. It’s like the two live in different realities, and eventually they become so different there are no places where they can connect, can find common ground.
And when the rich man finally understands, too late, he wants to send a message back to save his family from his fate. We wants evidence that will open their eyes, so they can see. He wants a sign so clear, so unambiguous, so miraculous that no one could possibly misunderstand or doubt that this was God’s own truth.
But Abraham tells him, “no.” That message has been given, over and over, in the words of the prophets. It’s right there in the book. The evidence has been in front of them all the time. If they have chosen to ignore it before, they will continue to ignore it no matter what new facts, signs, or miracles are sent. The fault is not with the message or the messengers – it is also the responsibility of the listener to hear, to accept, to believe the message and to act accordingly. You know the phrase, “seeing is believing” – well you have to see first – and they don’t or won’t.
The warning of this story, though, is that too often we open our eyes and see the truth – too late. Too late. By telling this story, Jesus, and the author of Luke, puts us in the position of the 5 brothers – the ones still alive – the one’s for whom it is not too late – if we but open our eyes and see.
We all have a tendency toward what one writer calls “ignore – ance” – not just “ignorance” but “ignore – ance” – a kind of willful blindness or deafness. It’s not just a passive thing – but is, at some level of our consciousness, a deliberate choice – a choice not to see, not to hear, not to know – because of what it would mean for us if we did. But it would disrupt our carefully balanced lives – it would blow our reality apart.
We say we just want to be sure – we want “better evidence” – clearer facts. But our search for certainty becomes an excuse for not acting. There is no evidence, no signs, no miracles that can overcome our own choice to turn our heads the other way, plug up our ears or hear what we want to hear and go on with our lives as they are.
And our culture doesn’t help – but instead tends to desensitize us – like a global or cultural SEP field. Studies have shown that violent media – like violent movies, video games, and even television coverage of actual war – makes people numb to the pain and suffering of others, and therefore less likely to offer help to people in pain or need.
In one stunning study in 2009, participants played video games – some violent, others not – for 20 minutes. After that, while they were filling out a questionnaire, there was a loud fight outside the door of the lab. It was clear from the sounds that one person was badly injured in the fight. People who played the violent games took much longer to help the injured victim, rated the fight less serious, and were less likely to even admit to hearing the fight, compared to those who played the non-violent games. It became an SEP -- and that was after only 20 minutes!
We can also become desensitized by the magnitude of a problem. Some problems seem so overwhelming that we can’t see how anything we, ourselves, can do can make any difference. The size of the problem becomes another excuse for inaction.
Perhaps something like this happened to the rich man. Perhaps he saw so many poor people, begging, everyday, that he had become desensitized to their pain. There is nothing in the story that suggests the rich man was evil – just that he never really saw Lazarus – and went on with his life as if Lazarus wasn’t even there. Lazarus was someone else’s problem.
One of my favorite poems is by W.H. Auden. It’s based on a 16th century painting by Pieter Breughels, called The Fall of Icarus, which Auden saw in the Museum of Fine Arts in Belgium. Auden names his poem after the Museum. If you haven’t seen this painting before, take a moment, and see if you can find Icarus. In the story of Icarus, Icarus was the boy who took the wings his father made to help them escape imprisonment, and instead of simply flying to freedom he flew too close to the sun. His wing’s melted and he fell to his death. It was a tragedy.
Can you find him? He’s down in the bottom right hand corner of the painting, and all you can see are his legs as he enters the water. Here’s the poem, “Musee des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden:
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating
or opening a window
or just walking dully along.
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood;
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run it’s course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life
And the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance:
How everything turns away
Quite leasurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship
That must have seen something amazing,
A boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
It was not an important failure. Didn’t affect their lives. It would cause too much of a disruption to turn the ship around and try to save him. They didn’t know him. His suffering, his father’s suffering, didn’t touch them. It was someone else’s problem.
To what are we blind? Where are the invisible people, the invisible problems, the invisible pain in our world? Where are the chasms growing wider – dividing us from each other? Once you start looking you can see them all over – like cracks that form during earthquakes – breaking up the foundations of the world all around us.
Since our scripture story today was about the rich and the poor lets begin there – with income inequality and the widening gap between the rich and everyone else. I just saw the new movie Inequality for All this weekend and recommend it if you want to understand what is happening in our economy and our country.
But there are other blind spots. Like global warming – which many still deny even though scientists have been sounding the warning for decades, and even though it has now long been the scientific consensus – born out but new data everyday.
Like racial inequality – as studies show that a majority of white people think they are more likely to suffer racism than those of color despite voluminous evidence to the contrary.
Like those who continue to believe that homosexuality is a “lifestyle choice,” a matter of preference or disease. Like our wounded warriors and first responders – heroes for the moment, then all but forgotten later.
There are plenty of blind spots for us as individuals and as a society. Plenty of SEPs. Make your own list – but check other people’s lists too – because remember, you don’t know what you don’t know.
Sometimes those blind spots or SEPs can be closer to home. Ariel Castro held three women hostage for years in a house in Ohio, and no one in the neighborhood noticed. It’s not unusual for people to notice strange behavior in those who would later commit mass murder – but shrug it off: it was someone else’s problem.
“Ignore – ance.” SEP. It’s not new. Perhaps that’s why Jesus kept saying things like “those with ears to hear listen.” But this the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus suggests that regardless of the causes of our blindness, it can have devastating consequences – for all of us. The worst outcome they could image in the first century was to suffer the fires of hell after death, with no chance at redemption. But the story works just as well without a literal heaven and hell – because the consequences of the kind of blind spots I mentioned are dire indeed – torture, death, suffering, revolution, the end of the world. Our ignore-ance can be fatal.
Our parable for today is an apocalypse – which literally means “to uncover” or “to reveal.” It’s not foretelling of the future – but a story designed to help us to see – to see before it’s too late.
Because seeing is the first step to action, to making a change. If you really see, you cannot sit idly by and do nothing. And it begins with seeing what is right outside your door – in your home, in your neighborhood, in your community. The rich man wasn’t condemned for his failure to save “the poor” – but for not seeing, and therefore helping, this one specific man – Lazarus. For letting the gap between them grow. For not recognizing him as neighbor, brother. The problems may be huge – but our response begins one step at a time.
Who or what is your Lazarus? Who or what situation has been given to you to help? What do you pigeon-hole or dismiss as “someone else’s problem.” Guess what. It’s your problem too. Pay attention –your Lazarus is there. If you look carefully you may just be able to glimpse him out of the corner of your eye.
And when you do, don’t panic – just see. Because to see is to believe. And to believe is to do. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment