Alas, Poor Dives
(Rutgers, September 27, 1998; 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C)
I Timothy 6:6-12 (NT, p. 226); Luke 16:19-31 (NT, pp. 81-82)
"Alas, poor Yorick!" says Hamlet to Horatio in Shakespeare's play,
as Hamlet stares at the exhumed skull of a court jester whose
body has lain buried for some 23 years. (Hamlet V, i, 201)
A gravedigger has assured Hamlet that everyone placed in the ground
turns, within eight or nine years' time, to mere dust and bones,
and he hands Hamlet Yorick's skull as evidence.
As Hamlet surveys the skull, he muses that
even persons so powerful as Alexander the Great and Caesar
cannot escape such a fate.
They, too, must die;
they, too, must be buried in the ground;
they, too, must turn into the lowly dust and loam
from which come the plugs used in barrels of beer.
Hamlet sighs:
"To what base uses we may return, Horatio!"
"Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. ' ,
"To what base uses we may return, Horatio!"
'' Alas, poor Yorick!" , the jester of Shakespeare's story.
"Alas, poor Dives!", the rich man of Jesus' tale.
Indeed, Dives would probably have wished
that he had become just loam and dust and bone!
For such at least are blessedly inert and silent,
without any thought or feeling of pain,
the simple stuff barrel-plugs and wind-stops!
Alas! For poor rich Dives, death proved much worse than that,
much worse than simple, silent moldering in the ground.
For, as Jesus tells it, Dives' grave became a place
of tortured thought and searing thirst,
the fiery stuff of paradise lost.
“Alas! poor Dives!"
But "Alleluia! rich Lazarus,"
the poor man of Jesus' tale,
the one for whom earth had been a place of thirst and sores,
the one for whom death became a time of paradise gained.
So, "Alas, poor rich Dives!"
And "Alleluia! rich poor Lazarus!"
In Hamlet, Shakespeare crafted a dramatic dialogue
on the theme of simple "Alas!",
a dialogue focused solely on the theme of
humankind's diminishment at death,
our diminishment from the vibrancy of life
to the inert silence of the grave.
But in the story of Lazarus and Dives, Jesus created a fuller drama,
a tale of death's more complex reversals.
Oh, in Jesus' scene, as in Shakespeare's, the rich man at death
suffers a kind of incalculable impoverishment.
But in Jesus' story there's also a poor man
who at death becomes immeasurably rich.
Jesus' narrative moves beyond a simple “Alas!”
to include an "Alleluia!"
and then beyond even “Alas plus Alleluia!"
to a climactic "Beware!"
it moves from "Alleluia, rich Lazarus!"
and "Alas, poor Dives,"
to "Beware, O brothers [ + sisters]!"
For toward the conclusion of Jesus' story,
he suddenly shifts the narrative focus from his protagonists-
the now deceased and eternally fated Lazarus and Dives-
to a distant, unseen group-Dives' sinful siblings,
who have not yet died,
w hose eternal destiny has not yet been decided,
and who, with proper warning,
might still repent and find salvation.
By focusing the last part of his story on Dives' siblings,
rather than on Dives himself or even on Lazarus,
Jesus furthered his overriding purpose, his prophetic purpose-
to proclaim to the living
a strong, effective warning from God
that they should heed scripture and practice on earth
the kind of justice practiced in heaven.
Jesus realized that most of us would be unable to identify
either with the abject misery and poverty of Lazarus' life
or with the royal, purple-robed splendor of Dives' life.
But he realized that we most of us would be able to identify
with Dives' distant siblings,
whom we would be able to picture as only comparatively well-off
rather than as outrageously rich,
whom we would be able to imagine as still capable of noticing
a Lazarus at their door
rather than as hopelessly callous to the presence of the poor ,
whom we would be able to envision as still capable of learning
from scripture
rather than as completely blinded by the sin of self-absorption.
Many of you will have learned from past sermons
that a great number of Jesus' stories are open-ended-
that is, Jesus leaves the ending of many stories unfinished
and open to being completed by his audience.
Well, this is one of those open-ended stories.
Dives pleads with Father Abraham to send Lazarus as a messenger
to warn Dives' siblings about the torments of hell.
Abraham replies that for them to successfully avoid Dives' fate
they need only heed the scripture God has already given them.
N o special envoy is needed. They already
have everything they need to make the right choices.
And there the story stops;
whether or not the siblings learned from scripture and acted justly,
whether or not they avoided their brother's fate-
all that is left untold.
Jesus stops his story without ending it,
for his story has no ending independent of our own lives.
You see, each of us is a sibling of Dives, and for each of us
the ending of Jesus' story is to be written by our own life.
W e have all the resources we need to make the right choices.
We have scripture.
Will we or will we not heed that scripture + do justice?
News bulletin, from this week's New York Times:
In America, there are still 35.6 million-million-Americans
living below the poverty level-13% of the population,
and there are still 43.4 million-million-Americans
who have no health insurance-16% of the population.
To us siblings of Dives, scripture has said:
“If there is among you anyone in need. . ., do not be hard - hearted or
tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor.“ (Deuteronomy 15:7)
Will we or will we not respond to the Lazaruses at our door?
The end of Jesus' story is still to be written
in the lives of Dives' siblings, in our lives.
News bulletin, from last month's New York Times:
Lottery sales are at an all-time high,
fueled by people’s desire to become mega-millionaires.
To us siblings of Dives, the scripture of our First Lesson has said:
“... we brought nothing into the world,
so that we can take nothing out of it;
... if we have food and clothing,
we will be content with these.
But those who want to be rich fall into temptation
and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires
that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil...”
(I Timothy 6:7-9)
Will we like brother Dives remain wrapped in neighbor-numbness,
so absorbed in the pursuit of wealth
that we remain oblivious to others' needs?
Or will we heed scripture?
Will we or will we not respond to the Lazaruses at our door?
The end of Jesus' story is still to be written
in the lives of Dives' siblings, in our lives.
News items, from this week’s New York Times:
Nearly 1 of every 5 children in America is still born into poverty.
And the Senate has voted against increasing
the minimum wage to the munificent sum of $6.15 an hour.
To us siblings of Dives, scripture has said:
"Is not this the fast that I choose:
... to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them....?” (Isaiah 58:6- 7)
Will we, like brother Dives, continue to draw down the window shades
on what distresses us, so as not to disturb our enjoyment of life?
Or will we heed scripture?
Will we or will we not respond to the Lazaruses at our door?
The end of Jesus' story is still to be written
in the lives of Dives' siblings, in our lives.
I recently read excerpts from an essay entitled,
“The Gospel of Wealth," written over a century ago, in 1889,
by someone I'd always thought of, vaguely, as a kind of Dives-
the mega-millionaire, 19th-century capitalist
and steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie.
But as I read from his essay, I began to think I had misjudged him,
for what he wrote sounded to me
not like something composed by a Dives
but rather like something written
by one of those siblings of Dives who had read scripture.
-
For listen to the gospel of wealth he espoused: (quote)
“Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is
bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.”
"...the millionaire [is] but a trustee of the poor... I I
"The [person] who dies ... rich dies disgraced."
And before he died in 1919, Carnegie had followed his own philosophy
to the tune of having given away more than $350 million 19th-
century dollars, the equivalent of mega-billions of dollars today.
His numerous benefactions included our own Carnegie Hall,
the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
and more than 2,800 libraries throughout the country.
None of us, of course, has anything like the wealth of Carnegie.
But most of us do have some surplus income or savings,
an amount more than we need for simple living + contentment,
and we can benefit from following Carnegie's philosophy that:
Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound
to administer in his or her lifetime for the good of the community.
Today, we have several concrete opportunities to heed scripture
and to share our excess for the benefit of others in need:
As always we will receive an offering for the w est-Side food
pantry operated by Broadway Community Inc.
I challenge us to begin putting in not just $1 but $5 or $10.
let us stop buying those lottery tickets + start contributing
that amount we used to spend to buy food for Lazaruses.
Or if we haven’t participated in the lottery, let's put in $10.
Isn’t feeding the poor worth as much as going to a movie?
Today we’re also emphasizing our capital fund drive for the sanctuary.
Carnegie understood the value of practicing capital benevolence, of
providing bricks and mortar not for our own use, but for others'.
The sanctuary is now open during the week M-F, 10-4:45,
for anyone who has a need to come in and pray or meditate;
and the sanctuary will, of course, continue to be a place
of worship for generations far beyond ours.
I challenge you to make a gift to keep the sanctuary open for others.
I challenge you to offer one month’s rent for your own home
each year for the next three years
to help keep this house of God open and available to others.
I challenge you to pledge $1000, $3000, or even $5,000,
and to do it today or this week.
And next Sunday we will receive our annual Peacemaking Offering.
When the plate is passed, it will be tempting to put in just $5;
but I challenge those of us who are able to afford the cost
of a night out on the town, of dinner and a Broadway show,
to put at least that amount of money in the plate-$100.
Isn’t the cause of peacemaking as important, or even
more important, than our own good times?
The end of Jesus' story of Lazarus and Dives is still to be written
by us siblings of Dives.
And I pray that we may end the story well.
I pray that Jesus’ prophetic call of "Beware!'1 may lead us
to heed scripture and to act with justice,
so that when others take the measure of our lives,
they will exclaim not, '' Alas, another poor Dives!”
but rather, I' Alleluia, another saved sibling!”
Let us pray.
.
O God, each week we hear y our word in scripture.
Move us to practice in our lives what we hear through our ears.
Move us to minister to the Lazaruses at our door.
In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.
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