Compare and Contrast

Poolesville Presbyterian Church

09.29.13; Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lesson:  Luke 16:19-31

Way back when, when I was the age of my boys and every week brought some test or another, there was one form of exam that always worked for me.  I had the skills in mathematics one might expect of a pastor, and that my brain had hardwired itself early with English as its programming language meant that I was pretty useless at translation.    But in English or in History, whenever I’d see we were being asked to compare and contrast, I’d light up.  “In a minimum of 1500 words, compare and contrast the sociopolitical dynamics of Andrew Jackson’s administration to the music of Michael Jackson.”  Awesome.  I’ve got that one.   Lining up one thing against another thing is just such a natural way to think.  It allows us to make distinctions and to highlight features of a thing.  This was an easy type of essay, because human beings do that compare/contrast thing almost automatically.

We just can’t help ourselves.  There’s a basic human desire to do it, to take a look at those around us and try to figure out exactly how what they have and who they are measures up to us.  Being a male Homo Sapiens Americanus, this compulsion wasn’t like that of the female of the species, which, if my wife’s stories of young adulthood are any measure, develops that skillset early around hair and shoes and skirts and who’s in right now and oh my god did you hear what she did?

Like many males, that proneness comparison clearly manifested itself on the parking lot of the high school, as I’d take a look at who was driving what as a way of taking stock of who was who.   There was the perfectly reconditioned black ’68 Chevelle with a white racing stripe and a 327 under the hood, driven by a skilled junior greasemonkey who worked in a garage and had built it from a wreck in autoshop.  I’m still pretty sure his lifetime income profile has significantly exceeded mine.   

There was the one kid who rode a motorcycle, a Yamaha RZ350, the last of the great snarling roadgoing two-strokes.  He was lean and French, and wore a leather jacket while he leaned against his bike and smoked Gauloises and seemed to always be talking to girls.  This, I think, is why Americans have an issue with the French.  They’re just so frustratingly cool.

And though I’d try not to, I’d compare and contrast.  I’d look at my old blocky tan Plymouth with the green vinyl interior, which burned a quart of oil a week, stopped running whenever it rained, and every once in a while would belch green coolant from the heating vents like it was Linda Blair in the Exorcist.  You compare.

Even now that I’m supposedly more spiritually and personally mature, I do this.  Whenever I spend more than a few moments in dead-stopped traffic, which happens with unsurprising frequency, I look out across the sea of vehicles at a dead stop.  Metal boxes, four wheels, not moving.  My brain does that comparo, particularly if I’m astride my bike or ensconced in my Prius.  Ninety-nine percent of them are using more gas than me, I think, as the Smugometer gauge in the dash of the Prius reminds me of my superior thrift and wisdom.  

We compare, we contrast, ourselves to others, assigning value and assessing our place in the social scheme of things.  It’s a natural thing for a social creature to do, but rarely does it challenge us to think about the implications of those contrasts.

Which, of course, is exactly what Jesus is doing when he pitches out the wild contrasts we see in the story from Luke’s Gospel today.  The story of the rich man and Lazarus could not have wilder human contrasts.  First we are shown a wealthy man, wealthy and  powerful.  He’s dressed in purple, which was both an expensive dye to use on clothing and also a mark of royalty in the ancient world.   One look at him would have told you that he was a person of distinction.   He had everything anyone could ever want, eating and drinking to his heart’s content.

Jesus then zooms us out to the doorstep of this nameless man’s home.  Lying there, we find a man called Lazarus.  This isn’t the Lazarus we read about in John’s Gospel, brother to Mary and Martha, the friend of Jesus who dies and is brought back.  It’s just a man called Lazarus.

And the contrast could not be starker.  Where the nameless rich man is covered in purple pantsuits majesty as he eats his way across the fruited plain, what Lazarus is covered in are sores.  Which may or may not have been purplish.  What we do know about them is that as he lay there helpless, a wreck of a man, he’s set upon by dogs which...well...do what dogs do when they encounter an interesting smell and taste.

It’s a foul story, all oozy and doggy and generally unpleasant.  Too Much Information, we want to whisper to Jesus.  Ixnay on the Ores-say, Jesus.  That’s a little graphic, isn’t it?  But what counts for Jesus the storyteller is really hitting us with the desperation of this starving, sick, and miserable Lazarus, and casting it in as stark a contrast as possible with the opulence of the wealthy, nameless man.

The two exist on entirely opposite sides of the spectrum of human society, and in so far as we human beings would like to be one of those guys, we're pretty sure we'll take the purple door.

But this is Luke's gospel, Luke who made a point of assembling every last teaching and saying of Jesus about wealth and power.  And as is so often the case, only Luke retains this story.  It ain't in Matthew, it ain't in Mark, it ain't in John.

And as is even more often the case, this little parable is a trap.  We have no sooner touched it with our imaginations than it has suddenly flipped itself over. Both Mr. Purple and Lazarus have died and passed on, and find themselves in utterly different relationships with God.

Their material wealth, which had so completely distinguished them in the world, that had melted away into nothing.  Lazarus, having been a righteous but desperately poor man,  is suddenly in heaven with God and the angels and Abraham and Jim Henson.  Most versions of the story leave out that last one, but I seem to recall it in one of the Syriac codices.

And the rich man?  He's in that other place.  Why?  This little story doesn't tell us directly, but we get hints.  He knows the name of the man who was in agony on his doorstep, but that’s as far as it went.  What did he do about it?  He wore purple, and feasted.  

It is at this point that the rich man speaks, calling out to Abraham to help him out.  It's worth noting that even though the story does not give him a name, he has a voice and Lazarus does not.   Why is this worth noting?  Because the rationale for it as a storyteller is pretty clear.  His is the voice we hear because we are meant to be drawn into a sense of association with him.   The people who first heard this story would have certainly felt it.  He's begging for water, asking Abraham for mercy, and by couching his request in terms of his position as an observant Jew, Jesus is clearly taking this character and connecting with his listeners.

They'd have gotten the comparison, seen themselves in this person.  When his request is rejected, and he finds himself not only unable to get help but also unable to further warn his siblings about the nature of things, his listeners would have registered it as a deep and personal connection.  This guy is us.

As he has mistakenly assumed that his worldly prosperity matters in the slightest to God,  so did they.  And, frankly, so do we.  As we listen to this challenging, challenging passage, there are a couple of things that are worth hearing in our time.  

First, there's our growing obsession with the peculiar realm of social media, which both connects us and casts us into a peculiarly relentless cycle of self-promotion and one-upsmanship.  It’s supposed to be a blessing, this ability to stay connected to one another, and yet studies have shown that deep engagement with social media can often only heighten our unhappiness.

We find ourselves surrounded in a wash of images that show all of our four hundred and seventy three best friends in the whole world at their very very best.  They’ve got a shiny new car.  Oh, look, here’s a selfie from their fabulous vacation, in which they appear to be posing with their new best friend Matt Damon.  Here’s a picture of that absolutely perfect and delicious home-cooked meal, which has been as carefully assembled for media distribution as a meticulously plated gourmet meal on America’s Top Chef.

We look at the rust spots on our eleven year old van, and think about our last staycation, and look at the flaccid Stouffer’s lasagna casserole we scrambled to get made, and we compare.  And sure, the images of our friends aren’t the whole story. They hide the job stress and the rocky relationships and the fear of loss.  But even if those images aren’t the total reality, and we know it, they nonetheless deepen our sense of social and competitive stress.

This story reminds us, in all of our scrambling and anxiety, that what really matters before God are not those things.  

But there’s a second, harder message.

Take, for example, the response we invariably have when we encounter deep and seemingly intractable poverty.   Having regularly visited my parents in Nigeria as a young man, I can still remember that visceral reaction.

When we took a wrong turn off of a highway at night, and found  ourselves in a slum filled with the burned out hulks of cars and vans, now used as shelter, I felt it.   When I saw a leper by the side of the road, his face devoured by that ancient and terrible illness, I felt it.  I am so grateful for what I have, I thought.

On the one hand, that's a great thing.  We should always give thanks for what we have.  Maintain an attitude of gratitude,  as they say.  But when we stand in encounter with poverty and that is our only reaction, this sharp little story provides something of a counterpoint.

You can’t walk by Lazarus every day, and know his name, and just think, thank you Jesus, I’m so grateful I’m not that guy.  God asks more of that from us.

So don’t fret about your place, mistaking the struggles all of us face for God’s displeasure.  And don’t walk on by, comfortable in your purple smugness.

Let that be so, for you and for me, AMEN.