Danger Zone

Danger Zone!

A Sermon by Rev. Mark R. Thomson

Harundale Presbyterian Church

September 26, 2004

26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Scripture: Jeremiah 32:1-15, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer.^{^[1]} Amen.

t never falls on me to have the easy texts to preach. Jim must plan his trips away after reading the lectionary.

There is no doubt that these are difficult and challenging texts.

They are texts that don't make us feel all warm and fuzzy.

But here in lies God's message to us today,

and we can not turn away.

I hate to admit it, but I used to watch Alley McBeal when it was on Fox. I won't burden you with all the details of this rather quirky show, but one of things I used to love was how everyone had chosen a theme song they would play in their heads that would strengthen them during times of self-doubt. I think right now I would have to say my theme song is the theme from Top Gun, "Danger Zone", by Kenny Loggins.

I say that because I believe that whenever you worship the living God, whenever you enter into God's presence, whenever you read these difficult texts, you are entering a danger zone – dangerous because God is challenging our attitudes, our prejudices, and asking us to see the world differently.

Ally McBeal had theme songs, but each of us should have "theme Bible texts" – texts that we are partial too, or that speak deeply to our soul. I am partial to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the whole book of Jeremiah, and a little story in Genesis where God wrestles with Jacob as he waits tentatively to meet his brother Esau whom he had defrauded of his inheritance from their father Isaac. God and Jacob wrestle through the night, and when it seems Jacob may have the upper hand, God simply touches Jacob in the thigh and gives him a limp to end the fight. The story ends with God changing Jacob's name, "Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed."^{^[2]}

It is my favorite text because it is a constant reminder to me that being in relationship with God isn't easy. God wrestles with us, sometimes wounding us to make better, as strange as that may sound. I am intensely averse to simple answers, or superficial religion that wraps itself in saccharine messages that Jesus loves me and everything's OK.

It is the obligation of Christians, the ones who know the love of God for the world, to be the ones who point out where its not OK, following in the footsteps of Jeremiah, the prophets, and Jesus himself. If the message of the Gospel were as simple as God loves me, then the Bible wouldn't need to be so thick.

Now it is true, the Good News of the Gospel is that "God Loves You!" But what's also is import is How God loves you, and the entire world. God's love revealed in Christ is a sacrificing love, a servant love that as Paul puts it in 1^st Corinthians 13:4-8:

is patient and kind;

is not jealous or boastful;

it is not arrogant or rude.

does not insist on its own way;

is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

Love bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never ends.

It is that kind of love that we are trying to emulate so that as our Lord's Prayer puts it:

Thy Kingdom come,

Thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.^{^[3]}

That's why God wrestles with us so much, because God is trying to teach us how to love like this. It’s not easy. That's why everything's not OK, because we humans often fail to love.

Welcome to the Danger Zone.

Let’s do an exercise. Everyone, real quick, cross your arms. OK. Note which arm you put on top: some put the left, some put the right. Now, cross your arms again, but this time, put the arm that was on the bottom, on the top.

Feels funny doesn't it? Took a little more effort didn't it?

Again, put your hands out in front of you palms facing each other and fingers spread. Bring your hands together, interlocking your fingers. Note which thumb and index finger is on top. Now do it again, but put the other index finger and the other thumb on top.

You had to think about it. It didn't feel comfortable, accept for those people around us who are ambidextrous. I would give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

It’s not easy to change what we are used to doing. It’s not easy to adjust our attitudes and thoughts about the world. It’s part of the reason prophets like Jeremiah were thrown into cisterns, and Christ was crucified. We don't like to be uncomfortable; we resist change. But God's Spirit is always at work, cajoling us, prodding us, and Yes, sometimes wrestling with us to move us out of our comfort zone and into God's Kingdom.

he Parable of Lazarus and the Rich man too often gets simple treatment. We like to think that Jesus made up all his Parables so that this one can be used as a proof of what the after-life is like. But there are other versions of this tale that have were floating around long before Jesus used it. There are Egyptian versions, as well as several different Jewish versions, some using a rich merchant and a poor teacher, or a rich and haughty woman and her servile husband.^{^[4]}

Jesus takes a familiar tale, gives it a little twist, in order to make a point that has really nothing to do with how the afterlife looks. It has everything to do with attitudes toward money and wealth, but it can not either be simplified into wealthy people go to hell and poor people go to heaven.

The parable is interesting from the beginning for a not so obvious reason: it is the only parable that uses a proper name for one its characters. Lazarus transliterated from the Hebrew means, "God helps".^{^[5]} Jesus also makes a point from the start, giving the poor wretched soul a name, while the rich man remains anonymous. In the world, we typically remember the names of the wealthy: the Rockafellers, Bill Gates, Donald Trump. The world seldom remembers the countless names of the poor. They don't have libraries or buildings named after them. But Jesus remembers.

The key to more fully understanding this difficult text is found in verse 13 and 14 prior to parable. Jesus has just concluded a previous lesson by saying that "You cannot serve God and Wealth". The Pharisees are listening and they scoff at this. They don't see a problem, and that's the problem Jesus has with their attitude, for the text says in verse 14 that they were "lovers of money". But we shouldn't interpret this to mean that they were simply greedy.

For a Pharisee well acquainted with his Hebrew Scriptures, he would readily quote to Jesus Deuteronomy 28:

...if you obey the voice of the Lord your God,

being careful to do all his commandments which I command you this day,

the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you,

if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Blessed shall you be in the city,

and blessed shall you be in the field.

Blessed shall be the fruit of your body,

and the fruit of your ground,

and the fruit of your beasts,

the increase of your cattle,

and the young of your flock.

Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading-trough.

Blessed shall you be when you come in,

and blessed shall you be when you go out...

and the Lord will make you abound in prosperity,

in the fruit of your body,

and in the fruit of your cattle,

and in the fruit of your ground,

within the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.^{^[6]}

For all you engineers out there, there's an equation here:

Following commandments = God's blessing = material wealth.^{^[7]}

For the mathematicians in the group, the Reflexive Property of Equality allows the equation to be reversed:

Material Wealth

means I am blessed by God

and therefore must be following the commandments.

The dangerous axiom that many derived from this oversimplified calculus was that it must be then true that:

Poverty

means you are cursed by God

and therefore a horrible sinner.

And of course, if you read on in Deuteronomy 28, you find that exact equation. Instead of blessings, there are curses for those who do not follow the commandments.

Jesus has some serious issues with how the Pharisees have been applying these equations to their flawed understanding of the law. He wants to change their attitude and adjust their perspective on the world. Certainly following the commandments is good. But Jesus will not allow our understanding of the poor to be so simplified. Jesus summed up his attitude earlier, "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God."^{^[8]}

azarus, stricken with sores that the dogs lick, sits outside the gate of a wealthy man. I'm not sure if the dogs licking his sores means the dogs are more compassionate to Lazarus than the rich man, or simply adds to the gross factor.

The rich man cares nothing, because according to the formula, obviously this poor soul must deserve his plight. A lot of people today still think this way. If he would just follow the commandments, he wouldn't have his problems. Thankfully, I've got it all together.

BUT, all is not well with the rich man when he sits before the judgment seat of God. His simplistic math fails and he is condemned because he failed to love his neighbor, to take care of the poor, the orphaned, the widow, and the lame as the law and the prophets demand. Does not Deuteronomy earlier in chapter 15 say, "You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in the land." It is a failure of interpretation to assume that a lack of prosperity equals a lack of concern by God.

The prophet Jeremiah saw the world differently than these Pharisees; he saw the equation reversed when he cries out, "Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?"^{^[9]} It’s all a matter of perspective isn't it?

Fred Craddock, in his commentary on this passage, struck home with me when he sums up Jesus' point in all this saying:

...wherever some eat and others do not eat,

there the kingdom does not exist...^{^[10]}

How does that adjust your attitude? It hits me pretty hard. It’s pretty uncomfortable.

That is why we can never be entirely content with the world.

That is why God wrestles with us.

As Scott Cooper preached to us a few weeks ago about his ministry to a community in South Africa wracked with AIDs, that is why we engage in a struggle that at times seems futile.

That is why we are in the Danger Zone.

We must never feel that we have ever fully arrived in the Kingdom. This is easy for the poor, like Lazarus who do not share all the comforts of this world, but hope in the future yet to come. It’s hard for the more prosperous because life can be so good for us, that we forget, it’s not good for everyone.

aul's first letter to Timothy gives practical advice,

1 Timothy 6:6 There is great gain in godliness with contentment; 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world; 8 but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs.

17 As for the rich in this world, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on uncertain riches but on God who richly furnishes us with everything to enjoy. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, 19 thus laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life which is life indeed.

It’s all about attitude. It’s easy to be critical of the poor from a comfortable living room. The world still blames the poor for creating their own circumstances and uses that to justify a lack of concern. But Not Us. We feed those in need, we open a winter shelter, we support missions in South Africa, because we know that God loves every child of creation.

And if we don't love them, who will?

he charge for us and the world today is to not be complacent with our comfort, but to wrestle with its implications; not to simply justify our comfort in a way that denies the problems around us we are called to face, for

...wherever some eat and others do not eat,

there the kingdom does not exist...^{^[11]}

Thy Kingdom come,

Thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.^{^[12]}

It’s really not about money.

It’s about our attitudes toward the poor. Our prejudices.

It’s about Christ like compassion.

It’s about God like love.

It's living in the Danger Zone trusting in God.

To him who loves us

and has freed us from our sins by his blood

and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father,

to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.

Amen.^{^[13]}

^{^[2]} The entire story of Jacob and Esau can be found in Genesis 27:1 - 33:20. The story of Jacob wrestling with the mysterious angelic presence of God is found in Genesis 32:24-30. This quote is from Genesis 32:28 RSV.

^{^[4]} Craddock, Fred B. 1990. Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Preaching and Teaching: Luke. John Knox Press. Louisville, Ky. Page 195.

^{^[5]} Nolland, John. 1993. Word Biblical Commentary: Luke 9:21-18:34. Word Books. Dallas Texas. Page 828. Lazarus is a shortened form of Eleazar

^{^[6]} Deuteronomy 28:1-6, 11 Check out the curses starting in verse 15. Nasty.

^{^[10]} Craddock, Fred B. 1990. Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Preaching and Teaching: Luke. John Knox Press. Louisville, Ky. Page 197.

^{^[11]} Craddock, Fred B. 1990. Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Preaching and Teaching: Luke. John Knox Press. Louisville, Ky. Page 197.