Trinity XV, Sunday 28th September, by Fr Jack

Jeremiah 32. 1-3a, 6-15
1 Timothy 6. 6-19
St Luke 16. 19-31

‘I could have danced in front of you in a pink tutu’, says Abraham - well, sort of - today, ‘and you still wouldn’t have understood’.

Look again at this Gospel passage.

Jesus’ parable is necessarily black and white - that’s how it works as an illustration. It isn’t a fully worked out theology of how this life and the afterlife interact. It’s not pretending to be, it is one parable. But we can’t ignore its potency. 

The judgement is real. 

The responsibility is real. 

The call on our lives is real.

 That is the first thing to say. 

 The second is like, namely this: All those things are as real as God’s mercy, and God’s infinite love. 

In philosophical terms, God is what is called a ‘simple being’. Not simple as in un-mysterious; that would be nonsense, obviously. But ‘simple’ as in, God does not have sides or moods or phases. God is complete, eternal and perfect. In classical theology, people like St Augustine (the great North African saintly bishop and theologian) want us to understand that God’s wrath is identical to God’s love. God’s judgment is God’s mercy. They are all one. 

 That should both pull us up sharp, and fill us with immense hope and gratitude. 

 So, back to Dives (which means the ‘rich man’ in Latin) and Lazarus 

 We are called not just to rely on God’s mercy for ourselves on that awe-filled day. But also to show it to others in the meantime! Our behaviour matters. Our choices are powerful.

 When I meet God on the last day, face to face, when I see LOVE, pure Love Himself, face to face, I do not expect it to be an easy experience, but a glorious and wonderful one. 

 And I half expect Jesus to look like every beggar I have walked past in the street, every person I have neglected or harmed, gossiped about, our thought less of.

And certainly, all the securities and social mores I cling to in this life, won’t be of much use to me then. 

 St Paul the Apostle, writing to the Early Church Bishop St Timothy hits the nail on the head today: 

17   As for those who in the present age are rich [as, by every measure across the human average in the world today, I certainly am], command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

18  They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share,

19  thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

 Deep down we know this. So why do we live as if it weren’t the case in so many ways? 

 St Paul writes of contentment. We have been programmed very successfully to always want more. More choice. More stuff. More this, more that. More him or her. More immediacy, more so-called convenience. But all that is not really for our good, it is usually for the good of those who have so successfully trained us, like pets, to desire in the ways we do. This is especially so in the years since the end of WW2, and the rise of a mass-produced, advertising-based, global, consumer economy.  

Admittedly, a situation that has been coupled with wonderful stability, peace, and prosperity, advances in health and education; so much good. But for all our progress, Dives and Lazarus persist.

There are clear links here with what popped out of last week’s readings, and that sermon is on the website, so I won’t preach it again. 

Instead I want to notice questions of desire and trust leaping out of the readings given for today. 

The Gospel and St Paul to St Timothy speak clearly and plainly. Take the Sunday sheet home, and as well as putting the notices in your diary or on the calendar in the kitchen, meditate on today’s readings across the week.

Including Jeremiah, to whom we will turn now.

The Jews in Jerusalem are under siege by the Babylonians in the tenth year of King Zedekiah. They are about to lose not only their capital city, their homes and businesses, but also the Temple itself. Their everything: the place of God on Earth, their connection and atonement. 

And God, through the prophet, tells them nonetheless to buy land for houses and fields and vineyards where they are. It is an extraordinary promise, a radical hope. It will all go wrong, the exile really will be the ‘end of the world’ in so many ways for them; but build, build because God is faithful, and this will not be the end. 

An amazing statement of where we put our trust. Not in riches or might, but in God’s faithfulness.

Trust, that is.

Not optimism, or ostriches with heads in the sand - but trust.

Not ignorance of our situation, but knowledge of the One with whom we are in this situation. 

Not knowing that everything will be as we want it, but knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God, (as St Paul writes to the Romans, and we hear at the start of the funeral service): 

‘Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

And that is the only thing that truly matters. ‘That really is life’ as St Paul says today. 

And this consideration of trust leads us briefly on to desire. Very clever people, who are very good at their jobs, have trained our desires for decades. Usually for their good, and not necessarily ours. 

We are invited to do a little of this ourselves I response. To train our trust and our desire in healthy and good Gospel-shaped ways. Habits built on the wisdom of scripture, formed of the grace of the Sacraments, a trellis that supports us in prayerfully living the promises of our baptism, and the hope and trust that helps us to ‘take hold of the life that really is life’, as St Paul tells us today. Holy habits of Sacrament, Scripture and prayer. Holy belonging here in church and in other supportive relationships. There are so many ways to gently but firmly cultivate the habit of desiring and trusting into real life, not a million shiny plastic alternatives that are waved in front of us every day saying ‘desire me!’ Trust in me!’

‘Thus [as today’s epistle says] storing up for themselves [and those around us] the treasure of a good foundation for the future’.

 What has arisen from today’s readings? Our choices matter. And God’s mercy and love are endless. God’s plan for us is good. Build well, and generously. Trust and desire in life-giving ways. 

I’ll end with well-worn, but no less wonderful, words from St Augustine: 

‘Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised… we, being a part of Thy creation, desire to praise Thee, we, who bear about with us our mortality, the witness of our sin… yet … Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee’