The Chasm – Lent 2014 – Week 6

Luke 16:30-31 And that one said, “No, Father Abraham.  But if someone from the dead may go to them, they will repent.” But he said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.”

As we step into the week that leads to the cross, we come to the final words of this parable—this story we have been reading together during these weeks of Lent.  We come to this statement that some people are so hard-hearted, so deaf that even if someone were to rise from the dead and testify to them it still would not be enough.

Death is a prerequisite for rising from the dead.  And it is Christ’s death that lies most heavily on my mind as I think of this week, this story, and upon separation.  The cross, for me, is a powerful symbol of separation and reconciliation.

Slowly dying, it is remembered, Jesus cries out in a loud voice, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”  Hung between two criminals, Jesus felt the wide chasm between himself and the Source of All Hope.  In fact, it was not only from God that Christ felt separation but from all humanity.  His friends had abandoned him.  The world he had come to redeem in love had not only rejected him but conspired to murder him.

That chasm, it must have seemed, was greater and darker than possible.  It yawned forth, swallowing hope.  And its despair must have been just as deadly as the nails and the wounds.

But on the Sunday following, something amazing, unprecedented happened.  And in an instant, with the sound of a rock rolling upon the spring ground, the chasm was filled with such earth and light that it was as if that great separation never existed.  Nothing, the Risen One declared in His rising—not height, nor depth, nor anything—could separate us from the love of God.

Love has that power: the power to span any chasm no matter how deep it has grown. It is fierce enough that it can bear hope in the darkest of places.  It is, as the old poem says, stronger than death.  And love can overcome the separations our own hard and calcified hearts have established.

But that means we must reach forth in love, stretching our hands not just forward but also to each side—outstretched.  We have to do it humbly and stripped bare with the full knowledge of the possibility of rejection.  But God will not leave us alone in the darkness, separated by chasms or stones.

And when we can’t believe it, there is the One who rose from the dead who will tell us it is true.

The Chasm – Lent 2014 – Week 5

Luke 16:29 But Abraham said, “They have Moses and the Prophets.  Hear them.”

I am an impatient teacher.  My wife often complains that I have an unspoken quota on how many questions any person is allowed to ask.  Though I get mad at her over this statement, I know that I can be less than patient when someone returns to me, again and again, with the same question.  “You already know this,” I will sometimes say.  You’ve heard me say this, tell you this twice (okay, sometimes it’s only once).  You know this.

Maybe it’s my own disposition, but I hear Abraham as a little impatient in this verse.  And why not, this rich man isn’t getting it.  He’s asked that Lazarus—as if he’s a servant—to come and bring him some water.  Realizing there was no way that was going to happen, he starts pleading that poor old Lazarus—again, like he’s his own personal servant—go warn his family about this fate that has befallen him.  Please send Lazarus, he begs, to tell my brothers what has happened to me, what might happen to them.  Oh please, oh please Abraham, however will they know such an awful fate is possible otherwise?

Abraham sighs and says, “You know this.”  They know this.  Moses and the Prophets already told you and your brothers all about how things work.  You’re to reach out to one another.  You’re to care for one another and not let divisions grow into giant chasms so wide and deep they are almost impossible to cross.  Your brothers should love God and love your neighbor.  You already know this.  And if they do not, they need to open their ears and listen.

Irony is defined as an inconsistency between actual and expected events.  This story Jesus is telling is an example.  The rich man, due to his status, is assumed blessed as evidenced by his wealth.  But the way things turn out is that he is, in fact, not blessed and not following in the way of Moses and the Prophets.

Another example would be someone who gets so impatient with people who do not remember something they’ve already been told testing the patience of another by doing the exact same thing.  That someone would be me and the patience I know I must test is God’s.  Day after day I am aware of the things that I allow (dare I say cultivate), which keep others at a distance.  And, in some moment of repentance, I find myself lamenting that separation, that chasm that has formed.  How, I ask, can I bridge that divide?  How can I heal that wound?

And God responds, “You know this.”