Justice Denied is Fate Untied

We are tempted as preachers to highlight how the theology of our church is superior to the theology of another. Too often we preach sermons where we point the finger at misinterpretation "out there." On occasion though the lectionary gives us a passage that just doesn't fit neatly into our own theology. It is good and healthy to use these passages as opportunities to explore the limits of our own theological stances. By getting outside of our own "knowledge" and exploring another view point, we might just find ourselves closer to the truth. And if we are still standing once the confrontation has taken place, well then, we are stronger for it.

Last Sunday I was asked to preach on the story about the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16:19-31. What do you do with a passage that on the surface argues that rich people are going to hell and poor people are going to heaven, especially if you are preaching in an upper middle-class liberal white suburban neighborhood church?

Here was my attempt.

Let’s jump right in. Luke was accusing the Pharisees of misinterpreting scripture. You see, the Pharisees liked to use certain passages in the Old Testament which state that if you are faithful followers, if you obey God, you will be blessed. They had interpreted being blessed as having wealth and power. The argument goes something like this, if you are blessed with success in the marketplace and the field that meant that you were obedient to God’s commandments. You were justified in your lifestyle because you had won God’s favor. In essence, the Pharisees had invented the first rendition of the prosperity gospel.

But, Jesus didn’t agree with the Pharisees position on wealth and poverty. Jesus believed and taught and preached that God stands on the side of the poor. In chapter 4 of Luke’s gospel Jesus quotes Isaiah,

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.

In Luke 21, Jesus notices the widow giving alms and declares, “‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had.’

In contrast to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount which says, “blessed are the poor in spirit…” Luke’s Sermon on the Plain doesn’t mince words. It says, “blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God.

God favors the poor. God favors the hungry. God favors the vulnerable. And the Gospel message is directly for them, a direct conversation with them about God’s love. And this love, this favoring the poor, was there in the law and prophets from the very beginning. Any interpretation of scripture that results in wealthy people assuming they have God’s favor because of their wealth is a gross misreading.

This parable is not a simple parable about how the wealthy are going to hell and the poor are going to heaven. There is something much more substantial going on here and you start to get a glimpse at what that might be in the second part of the parable. In the second part, roles have been reversed. The rich man looks up from hades and notices Lazaurus cradled in Abraham’s arms. He calls out to Abraham, “send Lazarus to bring me some water to cool my tongue?”

Did you catch that? The rich man, who we don’t know by name, knows Lazaurus’ name. All of those years of passing by Lazarus at the gate to his house meant that the rich man knew him, he knew him well enough to call him by name. So, the reason the rich man rests in hades is not because he failed to notice, but that he had chosen to do nothing about it.

Again this is about wrong interpretation of scripture. The rich man and the Pharisees not only interpreted their favor with God through their material blessings and successes, they also blamed the poor for their own conditions and defended doing nothing to help on the grounds that they should not interfere with God’s divine judgment.

Notice how in the role reversal though the rich man is quick to ask for Lazarus to intervene on his behalf and on behalf of others. But Abraham, says “no.” The message from the law and prophets was clear, God favors the poor, not the rich. God favors the vulnerable, not the powerful. Verse 31 says, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’” Not even the powerful sign of a resurrection would alert the rich man and his brothers to the truth because they would just deny that God was in that as well.

The chasm that separates the rich man from Lazarus now is too great to cross and the vast distance that separates them is one of the rich man’s making. It’s not the rich man’s wealth that created the chasm, it was his failure see that his fate and the fate of Lazarus were intimately connected. He didn’t see Lazarus’ issues as his issues. In denying Lazarus justice and compassion, the rich man untied himself from Lazarus. And since we know that God stands on the side of the poor, he untied himself from God as well.

Justice denied is fate untied.

In his book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, James Cone develops a very similar argument. Only in Cone’s book, the rich man is not based on church leaders 2000 years ago, the rich man is me, the rich man is you, the rich man is white America. Cone’s basic argument is that white American culture has largely ignored or brushed off the atrocities that we committed on our fellow Americans during the lynching era and as a result we have untied ourselves from the real meaning of the cross. W. Fitzhugh Brundage who teaches history at the University of Chapel Hill in North Carolina writes, “Perhaps nothing about the history of mob violence in the United States is more surprising than how quickly an understanding of the full horror of lynching has receded from the nation’s collective historical memory.”

Why have we done this? Cone writes, “visions of black bodies dangling from southern trees, surrounded by jeering white mobs – is almost too excruciating to recall. (3)” But, thousands of black men, women and children died in the hands of mobs. No part of the country was immune from the violence. During this time it was not uncommon for picnics to be held at lynching sites. People would mail pictures of themselves at lynchings to friends and loved ones.

Just like crucifixion, lynchings were designed for an audience. It is a communal message of terror and the horrors of lynching were felt by the entire black community. Silence and obscurity couldn’t even protect you.

We would like to believe that lynching is a thing of the past, but it is not. It has just worked its way neatly into our institutions. Consider that nearly 1/3 of black men in this country are incarcerated. Incarceration keeps men away from their families and creates significant barriers between them and good jobs. Until recently social service agencies used to search the homes of black children to find “evidence” of a man as an excuse to cut off aid.

How about the statistics about the educational divide right here in Minnesota where we have one of the best educational systems in the country, if you happen to be white.

It works in more subtle ways too. You know, the ways in which we judge the “unusual” names that children have these days and then quietly but effectively keep those names from appearing in our company rosters.

Then there is the not so subtle but the egregious. Like the appropriation of deep cultural meaning that took place this week when AIG’s CEO Robert Benmosche felt completely comfortable equating public disapproval over corporate bonuses to the lynching of black Americans. Really?!

And who do we blame for these disparities? The victims themselves. This is what wealthy and powerful people and institutions do, they accuse the victims of the system for their failures. They point fingers at the vulnerable and shame them for their sins which must surely be theirs and theirs alone. This position is the position of the rich man in our parable this morning. If Lazarus is hungry and sick it must be his own fault. He must be suffering from God’s divine judgment and who are we to interfere. It’s not our problem. It’s his problem.

Cone and Luke are making the same argument. When we put the blame for current conditions, not on our collective history, not on our institutions, not on ourselves, but squarely on the shoulders of those who are suffering, we invalidate our own faith. We untie ourselves from God. When we choose to forget how we hurt others or render ourselves blameless then the chasm between us and those whom God favors grows larger. And because God is standing with them, the distance between us and God grows as well.

Justice denied is fate untied.

This is why the gospel message of what Jesus does for us on the cross is so important. Jesus closes the chasm, but not in some kind of general way. The message of the cross is not general. It is specific. Cone writes, “the real scandal of the gospel is this: humanity’s salvation is revealed in the cross of the condemned criminal Jesus, and humanity’s salvation is available only through our solidarity with the crucified people in our midst. (160)” “The lynching tree is the cross in America. When American Christians realize that they can meet Jesus only in the crucified bodies in our midst, they will encounter the real scandal of the cross (158).”

Imagine if the rich man had recognized his connection to Lazarus and offered him assistance or made sure that Lazarus would be treated with dignity. What if the rich man in our parable had used his wealth and power to change things for Lazarus? What if he had recognized how his wealth and power were interfering with the needs of the poor? He would have probably stood convicted. And, convicted, how much more would the rich man be in need of God’s help at that moment?

So it is with us. When we recognize our personal and collective roles in the fates of black Americans, Native Americans, the poor, the lonely, the sick, and other victims of social and political violence we will be convicted. But that reveals the true power of the cross. Through the grace of Jesus Christ we are made whole again. When we are convicted, we are restored. When we are convicted, we are forgiven. That is what we call the Good News.

Convicted we are made low,
we draw nearer to the real cross,
grace narrows the chasm,
grace upon grace,
until we find ourselves
tucked into the bosom of a God,
who stands on the side of the poor.

AMEN