Proper 21C, the scripture appointed can be found here
"By Schism Rent Asunder"
It is one of the duties of the priest to share with her
congregation news of the wider church. Last week, the Bishops of the Episcopal met in the city of Detroit and from their meeting issued a letter
A Word to the Church for the World (link attached for reference, but full text printed below)
“Greetings from Detroit, a city determined to be
revived. Greetings also from the city of Flint, where we are reminded that
the gift of water has for many of our brothers and sisters become contaminated.
Here we have been exhorted to set our sights beyond
ourselves and to minister to the several nations where we serve and the wider
world.
We lament the stark joylessness that marks our present
time. We decry angry political rhetoric which rages while fissures widen
within society along racial, economic, educational, religious, cultural and
generational lines. We refuse to look away as poverty, cruelty and war force
families to become migrants enduring statelessness and demonization. We
renounce the gun violence and drug addiction that steal lives and crush souls
while others succumb to fear and cynicism, abandoning any sense of
neighborliness.
Yet, in all this, “we do not despair” (2 Cor. 4:8.). We
remember that God in Christ entered our earthly neighborhood during a time of
political volatility and economic inequality. To this current crisis we
bring our faith in Jesus. By God’s grace, we choose to see in this moment
an urgent opportunity to follow Jesus into our fractured neighborhoods,
the nation and the world.
Every member of the church has been “called for a time such
as this.” (Esther 4:14) Let prophets tell the truth in love. Let
reconcilers move boldly into places of division and disagreement. Let
evangelists inspire us to tell the story of Jesus in new and compelling
ways. Let leaders lead with courage and joy.
In the hope of the Resurrection let us all pray for God to
work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish God’s purposes on earth.”
+++
The Bishop’s of our Church speak of fissured and fractured
ground. They speak of division. They speak of fear and of death.
They speak truth, and they speak hope—and the truth hurts and
the hope heals and we are both wounded and whole. We, we who hear these words and see these
truths, and live in this broken world.
And there is no denying the brokenness.
In today’s Gospel this brokenness is represented by the existence
of chasm. A literal rift has opened up between Lazarus and the rich man. A rift
that seems too real then and all too real now.
Because, there is no denying the chasm that we have made,
the chasm between those with privilege and those without. Between those who
fear for their children and those who assume the prosperity of their children. Between the rich and the poor. Between the
dead on the ground and those in the air, “that looks like a bad dude” the
officer said...
There is a chasm.
And, we stand at the edge of that chasm. We stand and try to see across to the other
side. We stand and wonder—if I take this step will I fall?
And across the way lie the dying. Across the way lie the
feared. Across the way is death. Or perhaps we are across and here there is
death and fear?
I do not know. But what I do know is the longing to reach
across. What I do know is that between here and there is a journey that we must
take. What I do know is that crossing this chasm is a holy calling. That where we are is not where we are called
to be and that if we as a people are to not just survive, but thrive as God’s
beloved, than we have to figure out how to take that step across. To take that
leap and trust that if we see, truly see, those who stand across the fractured
ground, that God’s grace will guide us across the way and into the new life
that seems so impossibly distant.
We cannot hope to cross if we do not take that first step,
if we do not reach, if we refuse to see those who stand on the other side. We
cannot hope to cross if our fear of death keeps us from life and from the love
that has been so freely given.
Hope, love, life—these are all too easily hindered by fear.
Is it any wonder that throughout scripture we are bid, “be not afraid” that
before the divine can be truly experienced, fear must be cast out? Fear
keeps us from seeing the presence of God in our neighbor, fear causes us to see
a gun where there is a book, fear causes us to see a man where there is only a
child, fear causes us to look at the color of a person’s skin as a threat.
The propagation of fear is a tool of the oppressor.
Fear keeps us from keeping the covenant we make in our
baptism and deepens the chasm which we must cross in order to survive.
In the first letter of John, “there is no fear in love, but
perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment and whoever
fears has not reached perfection in love”. In a sermon on this passage,
Augustine instructed his audience to “Extend your love to those that are
nearest, yet do not call this an extending: for it is almost loving yourself,
to love them that are close to you. Extend it to the unknown, who have done you
no ill. Pass even them: reach on to love your enemies.” (St. Augustine,
homilies on the Gospel of John, 1 John IV, v2404)
Extend, pass, reach, bridge, cross, leap from this side to
the next.
And, love those you would call enemy and in doing so, no
longer enemy but fellows beloved by the same God who loves us.
And in this, we cross the chasm which our fear has made.
I speak these words as a lament at the existence of this
chasm we have made, but in hope that we will find a way across this chasm by
following THE way of Christ in this world.
I speak these words because the Rich Man, who our tradition
names Dives, and Lazarus are both made in the image of God. I speak these words
because in baptism, in the household of God, in the broken body, in the blood
that is shed, in the love that is shared, in the water of new life, in the
joining of our voices, in our very presence and our willingness to see and to
believe…in these things we move beyond ourselves and into “the presence of God
who gives life to all things”.
Which then begs the question, will we accept the gift of
this life? Will we be made new by God’s
love for us? Will we see, in God’s love for us, God’s deep and abiding love for
all of humanity?
Will we see across the chasm and into the heart of God?
And in that vision, will we be made complete?
Amen.
Dives and Lazarus, Unknown Illustrator of Petrus Comestar's Bible Historiale, 1372
