Amos 6:1a, 4-7 and Luke 16:19-31

Have you ever sat in a different part of the church than you normally do? I had the opportunity to do that at the Bunkertown Men’s Choir two Sundays ago. Since as the pastor, I normally have to sit up front, I took the opportunity since I wasn’t doing anything during the concert to sit all the way in the back in the choir loft. 

It was weird to sit in a different spot. You hear things differently. You see things differently. For me, sitting in the back gave me a much bigger sense of how big and grand the sanctuary is. These high vaulted ceilings were built a long time ago to lift our eyes towards the heavens, as the Psalmist says. You don’t get that same sense of the majesty of things up front. 

Try sitting in a different part of the church some Sunday with different people than you normally sit with. See if you notice things in a different way. 

I bring this up because the ability to see things from a different vantage point, a different perspective, to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, is a critical skill to read the Bible and be a disciple, a follower of Christ. 

We need this skill for our Old Testament reading from Amos and our gospel reading from Luke. We’ll begin with our reading from Luke. In our reading from Luke, Jesus tells his disciples a parable, a story of sorts about what life in the kingdom of God will be like. It involves an unnamed rich man and a poor man Lazarus.

This rich man is at ease in this life. He has all of the creature comforts he could need – a nice house, good food, nice clothes, and plenty of time to rest and relax. In the rich man’s neighborhood was also a homeless man named Lazarus. He had a skin disease and not a dollar to his name. Life was hard for Lazarus. Luke tells us that Lazarus longed to “satisfy his hungry with what fell from the rich man’s table.” He wanted some leftovers and scraps for himself.

The story takes a twist when Jesus says both men die. But the irony of this story is that they experience a reversal in roles. Lazarus is put in the rich man’s shoes and the rich man is put in Lazarus’ shoes. The story goes that the poor man, Lazarus, was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. That’s supposed to get us to think about the Old Testament man Abraham, who was a faithful and righteous man before God. While the rich man is tormented. In the next life, the rich man experiences similar torments and indignities and hardships that Lazarus experienced in his earthly life.

The rich man pleads with Father Abraham (think of the Vacation Bible School song here, Father Abraham) for mercy. But mercy is not shown to him. Father Abraham has a stern message for the rich man, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.”

Do you see how things look different, depending on whose shoes you are in? The story ends with the rich man pleading with Father Abraham for someone to warn his brothers and neighbors (who are also presumably rich and well off). But Father Abraham tells the rich man they have all of the information they need – they have the Scriptures and the prophets. If they took their faith seriously, they would realize that hoarding their wealth and living a life of ease while others suffer is not from God.

Our reading from Amos is a similar warning. I’d like to share a story first that will hopefully bring it to life. When I was in college, a homeless ministry in Pittsburgh held a “One Night Without a Home” fundraiser. One Friday night in January, we were invited to come to their headquarters on the North Side of Pittsburgh. Like homeless men night after night, when we arrived we were told to line up outside and wait. As they do every night, the doors were opened at 6:30 and were invited to come in and receive a hot meal in their warm dining room. We were allowed to stay, like any other homeless man, for two hours. But then, we had to leave. And, on our way out of the door we were handed a cup of hot chocolate and a snack-bag for the night by a smiling volunteer.

With a backpack, my sleeping bag, and a Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate in hand, I was sent next door to an abandoned house to sleep for the night. It was a blustery Pittsburgh evening – about 25 degrees with a light flurry. We hadn’t been in this ‘home’ for more than an hour before the complaining started. But, mostly, we were just exhausted and the only thing we had done was stand outside to wait for a meal. As I laid down on the dusty old oak floor, I had a magnificent view of downtown Pittsburgh through one of the blown out living room windows. I could see the U.S. Steel Tower, Heinz Stadium, and the three rivers point all in one stunning panoramic view.

But, as I was looking out at the nighttime Pittsburgh skyline through that broken window, I started to wonder if someone who had to do this night after night thought this looked as beautiful as I did? What I considered to be a masterpiece showcasing the triumph of human ingenuity and hard-work (I could see the high rise I worked in), from a homeless man’s perspective may be a sign of greedy decadence. Or, what if what I thought must be a sign of God’s blessing, from heaven’s view is a tragic failure on the part of our society to adequately care for the least of these among us? 

At our debrief the next morning, after we had gotten hot showers and a warm meal, we went through the usual litany of Christian responses. There was a lot of gratitude and thanksgiving for having a warm place to lay our heads, hot meals to eat, let alone for all of the comforts and conveniences of modern life – a cell phone, car, and a closet full of clothing.

But, what if gratitude isn’t being thankful for our stuff?

Me – well housed in the parsonage, well insured through the Pension Board, well educated in the education system – I hear Amos say, “Woe to you who are at ease. Woe to you who feel secure. God didn’t create the present order. God’s not interested in preserving the status quo” – I hear this and it makes me squirm. But, for someone whose life has been made hellish by the present ordering of things this is good news, this is gospel news. God is going to put the world right again. 

We tend to think that the prophets were people who were good at predicting the future. But, the biblical prophets were far more interested in critiquing the present. Their calling was to announce the word of the Lord to the people, and often their message was not well received. 

You can imagine the scorn that was heaped on Amos as he called out those who fought tooth and nail to keep themselves comfortable and at ease. He is dumbfounded that some people are more concerned to be well-rested, well-entertained, and well groomed than they are about what is happening around them. It can seem like Amos is just being a scrooge – “Alas for you who stretch out on your couches; alas for you who eat choice calves; alas for you who use the best perfume and cologne” – it can seem as if Amos is making God out to be opposed to anything fine and beautiful, a divine scrooge himself. But, that can’t be the case. God, is the author of all that is beautiful. Rather, God always uses things we are familiar with to make his point. And, the point is not that eating gourmet veal marsala is the cause of all injustice in the world. The point is that eating it without regard to others and what they are able to eat, is a form of moral scoliosis.  And, injustice is really just a society’s inward bent on itself, a refusal to see the humanity of another person, a rejection of Jesus’ call to do unto others as you would want them to do to you. So, God called Amos, and every other prophet since, to help us all see straight again.

A couple of miles down the road from Pittsburgh’s North Shore, on the opposite side of the Allegheny River, a man stood outside of the Chipotle near the University of Pittsburgh as he had done everyday for the past three years that I would walk that way. He begged for money, and if he was fortunate enough, he would stop you and tell you a sob story. Usually, his story would stay the same, but the details would grow depending on how much money he was hoping to get that day.

A couple of weeks after that “Homeless for a Night” fundraiser, I remember watching this gentleman, as I was waiting for a bus, get a couple of dollars from a passerby. A few moments later, he walked to the liquor store right across the street. In one fell swoop, he confirmed every stereotype there is about giving out money on the street. In the back of my mind, I figured that’s probably what this gentleman had been doing all along. But, seeing it play out in real time is a sobering reminder that everyone sins.

Can hear Jesus’ words echo before we sit in judgement on the man – “first take the log out of your own eye before you try and take a speck out of your neighbors.” I’m not sure what the best way to go about giving out money to people on the street. Maybe it’s an offer to buy lunch, a gift card to the grocery store, or maybe it’s just handing out a few dollars. For every person who unfortunately misuses charity, there are ninety-nine others who could not survive without it.

What is the word of the Lord for us this morning from these Scriptures?

First, as individuals and as a church, we can try and put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. The story of the rich man and Lazarus is harsh. Jesus meant it to be harsh and a judgement on greed and wealth at the expense of justice and mercy. The story is harsh because it doesn’t allow for change. The rich man and Lazarus stay in their lanes. But it’s not the full gospel. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection creates fellowship, it makes all of us brothers and sisters with one another. 

At the Council meeting two Sundays ago, the Council agreed to work together to move forward and work to heal from the conflict over the flags this summer. Healing is not magic. It takes hard work and by definition, involves change. Think about a human body when it is sick. You need to change something in order for it to heal whether that change is to your diet, exercise, medicine, or rest. It’s the same in the body of Christ. We can heal. We can repair the relationships that have been broken or damaged. It will take work and time. But one of the ways to heal is to learn to see things from someone else’s viewpoint and to honor them for that, and to apologize and seek forgiveness when necessary and to forgive and show mercy when needed.

The second word for us that I hear in these Scriptures is what I will call justice. Justice is love for our neighbors that is shown in a public way. It follows Amos’ lead in pointing us to God’s reign on earth as it is in heaven (think the part of the Lord’s prayer). We can’t solve the world’s problems or sometimes even our own – that is God’s job as our savior. But what we can do is seek to do the opposite of the rich man in the story of the rich man and Lazarus – share what we have, invite others into this sanctuary, take the logs out of our own eyes before we pick the speck out of others, and create an environment of hospitality.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.