The Downtown Presbyterian Church

Sermons

Being Indifferent

Luke 16:19-31

September 26, 2004

Rev. Kenneth M. Locke

Last week I was at a Bible study with some pastors from some suburban churches and they were bemoaning for them it’s very easy to romanticize the poor. They don’t see anyone sleeping on the sidewalk or rooting through a garbage-can so it’s easy to picture them as pleasant and clean-shaven and just a little down on their luck.

And indeed many of the poor and powerless in our city are that way. If we passed them on the street and didn’t know them we’d think nothing about them. Pleasant, clean, polite, ordinary people: you’d be glad to give them the time of day or ask directions from them. But we also know some of them are dirty and disheveled and smell like urine. Some wander the parking lots after a Titans game draining the last drops of beer from discarded cans. And some are like the lady I woke up the other day. She was lying down sleeping on a bench outside of Starbucks across the street here and I knew the police would have a problem if they saw her like that so I went up to speak to her. And I knew who she was. I helped her call Louisville one time to get her Social Security payment straightened out and once we kept some of her bags over night. So I went up and put my hand on her shoulder and said “Ma’am.” She jumped up straight and shouted “What, what, what do you want.” And I said “Ma’am the police aren’t going to like you lying down the like that.” And she shouted back at me as loud as she could, “All right, you told me, now go away.” And then she used the F word more times in one sentence than I’ve heard since I was in the Infantry. Seriously – I’ve got a reasonably thick skin but I have not been yelled at that way in over 20 years. And she was still yelling at me at the top of her lungs as I was walking away from her, every other phrase being F this or GD that.

The powerless run the gamut of human variation. Just like everyone else some are very pleasant and some are really mean. Some I would trust with my wallet and my wife. Others I wouldn’t trust further than I could throw them. Just like the rich, the poor have infinite variety.

So it intrigues me in this story we don’t much about Lazarus, do we? We don’t know if he talked to himself. We don’t know if he prayed for the rich man every day. Maybe he cursed him and threw mud at him whenever he went by. All we know about Lazarus is he is sick, powerless and poor. And we know his name.

And that’s important. Jesus doesn’t name his characters very often. There was a shepherd, a brother, a younger son, a woman: all very generic. And Lazarus too is a generic character but we do know his name. Lazarus.

The Rich Man, on the other hand, we know a lot about. He wears purple and dines sumptuously – which means he enjoys showing off his wealth just for the sake of showing it off. We know he cares for his brothers, which is good. We know he’s religious enough he can recognize Father Abraham when he sees him.

We also know even in death he won’t speak directly to Lazarus. Did you notice that? “Father Abraham, send Lazarus. Send the powerless flunky on a mission for important folks like you and me.” Even after they are both dead Lazarus is beneath him.

Now notice he doesn’t call Lazarus names or curse him. Nor does he weep and repent he didn’t treat Lazarus better. If I had to use just one adjective to describe the Rich Man’s attitude towards Lazarus it wouldn’t be malice or sorrow or anger or even contempt. If I had to use one word to describe the sin of his relation to Lazarus the word would be indifference. The man is simply indifferent. He notices Lazarus as if he were an ordinary chair or a lamp. Lazarus is utilitarian and that’s all.

Indifference is a powerful force. Over time it sucks the life out of us. We become like the Gollum character in the Lord of the Rings – shadowy, half-alive, indifferent to everything except our own passions.

And here Luke outdoes himself as a story-teller. How best to characterize this shadowy, hardly alive, indifferent rich man than to deny him the one thing that would make him stand out – a name. The rich man, who thinks Lazarus is at his beck and call, has no name by which to be called. Even Abraham, notice, does not give the man a name. Despite his riches, his indifference has made him a nobody.

Can we feel our blood boiling at this man? Are we burning with indignation? He has truly gotten what he deserves. God knows and names the powerless, but the indifferent rich just slowly fade into unnamed nothingness.

Perhaps we are berating the rich man because we are identifying with Lazarus. We’re not US Senators, we’re not governors or mayors, we’re not invited on the Letterman show to talk politics. We’re just ordinary people, powerless against the evil forces of a sexist, racist, agest society oppressing its poor and squeezing its middle-class. Certainly when we look at our medical bills we feel a lot like Lazarus.

The good news is God knows us. God knows our names. And God feeds us from the table of our Lord. Our food and drink is the body and blood of Christ and by serving him we are made strong and healthy. We rejoice that like Lazarus when we die we will be by Abraham’s side.

And then we remember. I remember. I was 16 years old and my mother and I were visiting my grand-mother in NC. There was a boy in the neighborhood who was a few years younger than I. He was one of those socially immature types always speaking too loud and laughing too much and wanting to fit in so bad he can’t. He used to mow my grandmother’s lawn once in a while.

I was walking around with my mother one afternoon and this boy was across the street playing with some younger children because the kids his age wouldn’t have anything to do with him. He saw me and jumped up and down and waved and shouted “Ken, Ken.” And what did I do?

I turned my head and walked on by.

My mother said, “Ken, wave at him. It would mean so much to him.” But I turned my head and walked on by.

There I was, dressed in the purple of my mother’s company, feasting sumptuously on my mother and grandmother’s love – and I wouldn’t spare a wave for Lazarus at my gate.

Who is the Lazarus sitting outside your gate? A few crumbs of kindness, a few nice words, politely laughing at a lousy joke, a friendly smile in the hallway, a kind remark in a meeting, a little patience: what would it take? Who would love to feast on just a little of the love we all share, but somehow we turn away and pretend not to see?

We look at our church – big office building across the street, big apartment building going up next door, building next to us for sale for a king’s ransom. But here we are, desperately working with the powerless to show them the hospitality of God. Wouldn’t we love just a fraction of what the Cohen Building costs to replenish our discretionary fund? Do we feel like Lazarus, desperate for the scraps Nashville’s table brings and the day old bread from Provence?

Except charity, as important as it is, is not the same as genuine concern. A few ID cards and a little food may be a balm to our conscience but it’s not the same as showing real interest, reversing indifference.

This story invites us to ask ourselves where we find ourselves in it, both you and I as individuals and you and I as a church. Are we clothed in the purple of worldly success? Do we sumptuously feast on our affluence and self-assurance and track record? Do we simply assume Father Abraham will know our names?

Are we Lazarus, sitting at the gate, powerless to change the world but assured God knows us and loves us and will reward us some day?

Or are we perhaps somewhere in between?

Friends, I don’t know where you are in this story. That’s between you and God. And frankly I’m not sure where we are as a church in this story, though I’m very confident for us.

But I do know this. If we will minister to Lazarus wherever we see her, if we will banish indifference and genuinely care for those sitting at our gate waiting for a morsel of kindness, if we will embrace the life of the cross and all it entails, then we will be clothed in the purple of God’s love and we will feast sumptuously at the table of our Lord Jesus. We will need no one to come back from the dead to tell us what Moses and the Prophets and the Gospels say, for we will hear their words from their own mouths in the banquet hall of the eternal kingdom.

Friends, this is how much God loves us. Thanks be to God. Amen.