Broadway Christian Church
Columbia , Missouri

Morning Worship
September 19, 2004

Prayer of the Day

Spirit of the Living God, as we join in worship today, help us to open our hearts to you and one another that we may continue becoming a community of your beloved whose life together is pleasing to you.  Amen.

Scripture
Luke 16:19-31

Jesus said, “There was a rich person who wore the most expensive clothes, ate the best of foods every day, and lived a life of luxury.  At the gate of his house lay a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich person’s table.  Even the dogs came and licked his sores.  Now the poor man died and the angels came, and they took him to the place of honor, right next to Abraham.

“The rich person also died and was buried and went to hell, where he or she was in torment and suffering agony.  The rich person looked up and saw Lazarus and Abraham far away.  So he called to him and said, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me.  Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering terribly in this fire.’

“Abraham answered, ‘My child, remember that in your life you received your good things, and Lazarus received bad things.  And now he is comforted here and you are in agony.  And besides, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

“‘Then I beg you,’ said the rich person, ‘send Lazarus to my family’s house and let him warn my five brothers so that they may not come to this horrible place.’

“Abraham replied, ‘Well, they have Moses.  They have the prophets.  Let them pay attention.  Let them listen to them.’

“‘No, no Father Abraham, that’s not enough.  If only someone from the dead would come to them, they would listen.  They would repent, and they would turn to God’s way.’

“But Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets of God, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Message
The Opposite of Poverty
Rick Frost

Clarence Jordan, the great black preacher who founded Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia, had it right.  He said, “The parables of Jesus are like Trojan horses.  Open the door, let them in, and bam, they get you.”

Today’s text is a parable that Jesus tells.  It’s all about a door that never gets opened.  On one side of the door there is a rich person, living in luxury.  On the other side is a poor person in rags, sick, homeless, hungry.  So close are these two – separated only by a single door.  Just inches, literally, away from each other.  So near, and yet so far. 

Now the situation Jesus describes in this parable is not new.  We all know that.  In fact, it is fairly universal.  In virtually every culture, in every economic system, in every social setting, there are the haves and the have-nots.  The door between them is very, very real.  The have-nots, of course, want what the haves have.  And the haves just wish the have-nots would disappear – wish they would go lie at somebody else’s door.  Better yet, get a job, straighten up, and vanish.

But then the storyteller, Jesus, pulls a fast one on us.  Actually, he sort of fast-forwards the parable to the day the rich person and the poor person both die.  Amazingly, he pulls back the curtain and gives us on this side of eternity a peek into the unknown – a peek into the afterlife.  Now, I think this is where it gets exciting.  Both persons die.  Get this: their fates veer off as dramatically in the afterlife as they did in this life.  Only their situations are reversed.  Lazarus ends up at the place of honor next to Abraham.

Now, do you remember your Jewish brothers and sisters?  They believe in heaven.  You are not one of those people who thought that eternity and heaven was something that Christians invented?  This has been around a long, long time.  Our Jewish brothers and sisters believe those who are faithful are going to go to a great banquet that God will provide, and Abraham, they believe, is going to be the most important person at that banquet.  They will be the quest of honor, and they will be seated next to Abraham.  Did you know that?

So here is poor Lazarus.  Now he is at the banquet.  He is the honored guest, and most of us are saying, in our heart of hearts right now, “That’s OK.  That’s good.  Good for him.  Life was not very good for him here.  That seems only fair, doesn’t it?”  But then we hear about the rich person, and we start to squirm a little bit.  Or if we pay attention, we squirm a lot.  Why?  I think the scholars are right.  They say this story Jesus tells us is a story about all the people on this planet, and what all people on this planet are to do with their overabundance.

Is it wrong to be rich?  The answer in Christian faith is, “Absolutely not.”  But if we continue to keep the door closed, you can believe whatever it is you want to believe.  If we ignore the poor, we will go to hell.  Wow!  Those parables of Jesus!

You see, there was a problem in Jesus’ day, just as there is in our day.  There were people – religious, church-going people – who believed in something called the Gospel of Health and Wealth.  Anybody ever heard of that gospel?  There were church folks, even leaders, who loved money, and they justified their love for money from the Scriptures.  You know.  You can do that.  They read Deuteronomy 28, just as you and I can this day.  You can turn to your Bible today or tomorrow.  The word there is very clear.  It says, “If you obey God, you will be blessed at home.  If you obey God, you will be blessed with health.”  To be rich, to be healthy, in the book of Deuteronomy, is a sign of godliness.  Prosperity is a clear sign of God’s favor.  And do you know what?  That is exactly what it says in the book of Deuteronomy.  You can find Scripture, actual Scriptures, to support this position.

But Jesus comes along, and he says, “Folks, that ain’t necessarily so.  No servant,” he says, “can serve two masters.  You cannot serve God and money.  Besides,” he says, “sometimes, the saints do suffer.  And sometimes they suffer greatly.”

What you need to hear is, this much-loved and taught, but essentially mistaken notion, that the righteous always prosper and the wicked always suffer, is a reading of the law of God that, bottom line, is incorrect.  It is not true.  And if you accept it… If you believe it… And if you live that kind of life… It will lead you down a disastrous path.  Indeed, Jesus goes on to say, as the anthem said so beautifully this morning, “Blessed are the poor.”  He urges all people to freely share.  Freely share with whom?  Freely share with those who need it. 

What we have here is a parable Jesus tells, a story designed to vividly demonstrate to all believers in the Gospel of Health and Wealth of the gross misreading of the Scriptures and the consequences that take place when we do that.  If you want to know the proper interpretation of the Scriptures… If you want to know the proper interpretation of the Book of Moses and the prophets, Luke says Jesus insists, “Listen to me.  Here it is.  Love of money is a violation, bottom line, of Scriptures.  It is a violation of the laws of God.  The harvest is to be shared with the poor and the transient.”

Deuteronomy 15:  “You shall open wide your hand to your brother and your sister in need and to the poor.”

Isaiah 58: “Is not this what I require of you, to loose the bonds of the wicked, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to set the oppressed free?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your own homes?  And when you see someone naked, you clothe them.”

Bottom line: Where some people eat and some people don’t… Where some people have shelter and some people don’t have shelter… There the Kingdom of God does not reign.  You can quote whatever Scripture you want.

So in God’s economy, the rich, according to this parable, have a very huge saving role in this life.  Do you know what our saving role in this life is?  Our saving role in this life, because we are the rich, is to help the poor.  According to Scripture, we are blessed to be a blessing to those in need.  That is the one reason – the only reason – I can find in Scripture why we are blessed.

By helping the poor, here is what we rich people get.  If we are willing to live by God’s economy, we get the gift of eternal salvation.  That is the plan.  That is the will of God.  And that is not just for your life, and not just for my life, and not just for believer’s lives.  That is the will of God for all of creation.

The biblical scholars, the theologians, are right.  The opposite of poverty is not wealth.  The opposite of wealth is not poverty.  The opposite of both is community.  We need each other.

In the year I was born (just a little while back), Clarence Jordan, that guy I was telling you about earlier had been studying both agriculture and theology.  It’s amazing how those go together sometimes.  Clarence Jordan was a wonderful Christian man.  He decided to attempt a shocking experiment in living out the gospel that he read about in Acts 2.  He founded something called Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia.  Koinonia is the Greek word, the biblical word, that means “community.”  Blacks and whites were living together in 1942.  My goodness, the KKK had a field day. 

This was the model they used:  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and prayer…  They were together, and freely had everything in common, selling their possessions.  They gave to anyone who had need…  They ate together and were glad and sincere at heart and praised God, and they enjoyed the favor of all the people around them.  And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”  (Acts 2:42-47)

Among those who were saved in 1965 were Linda and Millard.  You know their story.  Linda and Millard Fuller.  Millard was a really, really good businessman, and he was totally absorbed in his work.  Because of being talented and gifted and working very hard, he made a ton of money.  The problem was his marriage and his family were going down the tubes.  By accident, the Fullers wound up at Koinonia Farms in Georgia.  They were there primarily to save their marriage.  When Millard and Jordan finally got together and talked, it’s reported that Millard said he felt a terrible, tremendous heaviness in his chest, to which Jordan replied, “Well, you know, making a million dollars a year can be a pretty heavy burden on a person.”  He went on to say that he thought Millard was an addict.  He was a person addicted to money, a person who suffered from a disease called affluence.  It was an addiction Jordan said he could help him with if he wanted help.  You see; Jordan actually believed what I think most of us in this room believe.  He said, “What the poor need is not charity.  What the poor need is capital.  What the poor need are not caseworkers.  What the poor need are coworkers.  What the rich need is a wise, honorable, and just way to divest themselves of their overabundance.”

Well, Linda and Millard heard the Gospel of Jesus.  They heard the Law of Moses, and the prophets of God.  They divested themselves honorably, and they banged down a huge door when they did.  Then they picked up a hammer and started making some new frames.  They began a new life together.  That new life was focused around a ministry.  You know the name of that ministry.  It’s called Habitat for Humanity.

It is the place where the poor and the rich freely come together to build houses and homes – 100,000 of them now throughout this land and in places like Zaire, and Guatemala, and Ireland, and Hungary.  This very afternoon, some of the churches in our town are going to break ground for yet another house.  This Friday and Saturday, the Broadway Building Crew – some of you sitting in this room – along with the Mid-Morning Snack providers, and the Lunch Providers are going to build that house.  By this time next Sunday, that house will almost be complete.  You want to help?  Just see Doug Phillips, or call the church.  We will get you hooked up.  And if this weekend doesn’t work for you, there will be others.

Folks, I think there is a vision here – a saving vision.  It is a vision this world desperately, desperately needs.  The opposite of poverty is not wealth.  The opposite of wealth is not poverty.  The opposite of both those things is community.  Let it be, Lord.  Let it be.

And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

Our time is short to gladden the hearts of those who journey with us.  Multiply our spiritual abundance that we might earnestly seek and share your love with those we walk alongside.  Amen.