First Blessings

We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications. This violence God delights in (Tertullian, The Apology, Chapter XXXIX).

This excerpt comes from a description of early Christian worship by Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (c. 155 – 220 AD) — Tertullian — a second and third century Christian apologist from Carthage, modern day Tunisia in Northern Africa. He was one of the earliest theologians, if not the first, to think and write in Latin, and is thus often considered the founder of Western theology. A caution is in order. While the Church honors his early writings, it is more circumspect regarding Tertullian himself and it eschews his later thought. The early, Orthodox theologian was seduced by the heretical Montanist movement and ended his life outside — informally if not formally — the catholic Church. The Apology is among his early works and is sure and safe ground.

The language of the excerpt is strange and wonderful to my ears. In the description of prayer we find this intriguing troika of descriptors: force, wrestling, violence. This hearkens back to the puzzling language of our Lord:

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force (Matt 11:12, ESV unless otherwise noted).

Even before this, there is the image of Jacob wrestling with God — violence as prayer, prayer as violence: Let me go. Not until you bless me.

24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him (Gen 32:24-29).

Certainly, the grappling of Jesus in the Garden — unto the sweating of blood — stands as the ultimate example of forceful, violent prayer.

Today, we seem more likely to encounter centering prayer for making us whole rather than violent prayer for wresting blessing from God: prayer for “making us” but not for “breaking us,” prayer of sweetness and light but not prayer of wounding and martyrdom. Who or what teaches us to pray with force, with wrestling, with violence? The Psalms will teach us if we are faithful to their discipline, day in and day out, year by year. The Church Fathers will teach us if we submit to apprenticeship with them. But, it is perhaps the fallenness, the brokenness, the suffering of the world that is our best mentor: the hardships and losses of life, the headlong stumbles into sin, the heart-shattering abandonments and betrayals of friends-turned-enemies, the doctor’s diagnosis, the two o’clock in the morning worries and fears. And the cry is wrung from our lips and our hearts, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” from which we may limp away wounded but having seen God face to face.

I am an Anglican, and Anglicans do not “do” force and wrestling and violence in prayer, at least not in public. It simply is not done; it is not proper. But, I cannot help but wonder what might happen if the Prayers of the People just once turned into an all-out, no-holds-barred wrestling match with God Almighty, an encounter turned violent because we were praying as if our lives depend on it, which, of course, they really do. And not our lives only, but the life of the world.

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

The Problem for the Rich Is the Poor : A Homily On James 5
(1 Kings 15:1-30, Psalm 5, James 5)

Collect
O merciful Lord, grant to your faithful people pardon and peace, that we may be cleansed from all our sins and serve you with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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

I am now at that age where I generally preface every story with the disclaimer: “Now, if I’ve told you this before, please stop me.” I don’t want to be one of those old guys who runs out of stories before they run out of years. The problem is, I am going to tell you a story you’ve heard before. Fr. Jack told a version of it two Sundays past. I told a version of just last Sunday. This repetition is not our choice. We follow the lectionary and the lectionary is hammering this point home because Jesus and all of Scripture hammer this point home. So, here we go again.

We often speak of people groups as if they are monolithic, as if all the members of a group are essentially identical and interchangeable; if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. We know that’s no true. We know that in any group there are common features and great variability. But it is easy and convenient to minimize the differences and to maximize the commonalities so that we can, for good or ill, speak of the whole group.

We speak of the homeless. Depending on who is speaking, all the homeless are either helpless victims of a neglectful or oppressive social structure or else lazy, shiftless products of their own irresponsible choices. We speak of immigrants. Depending on who is speaking, immigrants are the very backbone of American exceptionalism — what made America great to start with — or else violent, drug-dealing abusers of the largesse of this country. We speak of political parties as if all our compatriots are saints struggling mightily to drag this land back from the brink of destruction and our opponents are demons hauling us kicking and screaming into the maw of the abyss. And we all know this is all nonsense and yet we all do it to greater or lesser degrees. Lord, have mercy on us and forgive us this foolishness.

But, even Scripture does this from time to time — generalizes a group while admitting of some exceptions. All Moabites are bad, except for Ruth; Ruth is fine. Ninevites all deserve destruction; but even their animals repented in sackcloth at the preaching of Jonah, so there’s that in their favor. Samaritans are scum, and yet that one Samaritan was the hero of Jesus’ most famous parable.

It is the same with the rich in Scripture. As a group, they are generally warned or castigated if not condemned outright. They are probably up to something shifty that is very good for them and very bad for the common folk. But, as with other groups, there are exceptions; Lydia and Barnabas, maybe Philemon, come to mind as among the few righteous rich.

So, what is it that makes the rich so suspect in Scripture, so likely to hear the word “Woe!” shouted in their general direction? The problem for the rich is the poor. God had instituted a social policy in the Law that would largely mitigate poverty. There were gleaning laws that allowed the poor man access to the rich man’s over-abundance. There were laws of manumission that freed Hebrew economic slaves in the seventh year of servitude. There was a general economic reset every fiftieth year in which all property reverted to its hereditary owners. All of these laws kept the power and the greed of the rich in check and ensured that the rich could not forever prosper at the expense of the poor. But the law, as far as we can tell, was never observed in full. That the rich had not followed the law, that there were the destitute among them, is the indictment against the rich. There were no woes for the righteous rich — cautions, yes, but no condemnation — but judgment aplenty for the covetous and miserly rich.

And that brings us to James who has nothing good to say about the rich. Let’s consider James 5:1-6.

1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you (James 5:1-6).

Harsh. Let’s look carefully at the text to see the specific charges against the rich. In verses 2 and 3 the problem is hoarding, specifically the hoarding of wealth: clothes, gold, silver — treasures in general. These rich do not use their wealth to make themselves happy — note the deterioration of their goods, the rottenness and corrosion — nor do they use their wealth to alleviate the suffering of the poor. They simply hoard it as testimony against them of their greed. These rich were surely the inspiration of Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge and his business partner Jacob Marley, men who made and hoarded money solely for the sake of making and hoarding money, good men of business. Marley realized only too late that, “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business.”

The rich are condemned because God had intended — had commanded them — to be a flowing stream of economic righteousness, but they had instead dammed up the stream to create a private reservoir of luxury solely for themselves. As St. Basil the Great (330-379) wrote:

When someone steals a person’s clothes, we call him a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to those who need it; the shoes rotting in your closet to the one who has no shoes. The money which you hoard belongs to the poor.

But, James’s charge against the rich is actually worse than mere hoarding. They are hoarding not what they had rightly earned, but rather stolen wealth, wages fraudulently withheld from the poor. Look at verses 4-6.

4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you (James 5:4-6).

Not us — certainly not! But what about a society or a business or an individual that accrues wealth by routinely underpaying those who can least afford to be underpaid? What about my barista friends at a local café who have to work two jobs simply to have adequate food and clothing and who are praying that they do not get sick because neither job offers health insurance? What about the itinerate farm workers — the pickers — the immigrants who go from field to field doing back-breaking work for a mere pittance, and then are demonized for being here at all? What about the single adult, with no children, working full time for minimum wage in Knox County, TN? The minimum hourly wage is $7.25. The hourly poverty wage is $7.52. The minimum living wage is $23.30, four and a half times the minimum wage. Read James 5:4-6 again, and see if there is not just a little discomfort, a little concern that our society might have gone awry and might, Lord have mercy, be ripe for judgment. Then read the whole of Revelation 18. To be clear, I do not not know the solution. This is where we need Christian, Gospel-shaped politicians and businessmen and sociologists and a host of other professions to bring their expertise to bear to begin implementing the Kingdom of God vision.

Given this abuse by the rich, what are the poor to do? A better question might be, What can the poor do? because poverty also implies a certain powerlessness. James says this in verses 7-11; it may be a general instruction to everyone, but it certainly applies to the poor in this context:

7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful (James 5:7-11).

The ultimate remedy for poverty and the suffering it causes is the coming of the righteous judge who will put all things to rights. In the meantime, the poor, the abused, the suffering are to be patient, to guard their own hearts from bitterness and grumbling, to remember that the Lord sees and knows their plight and is compassionate and merciful. It seems perhaps too little, but both our Lord and his brother James assure the poor that there is blessing for them in what they are called patiently to endure, that their poverty is not the end of their story. We have to be careful here not to mistake James’s call for the poor to be patient for permission for us who are not poor to be negligent in our responsibility. Remember Matthew 25 and the corporal acts of mercy incumbent upon all Christians: feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; shelter the homeless; visit the sick and those in prison; bury the dead; give alms to the poor. That is how we can avoid the miseries that are coming upon the heedless rich on that day when the first are last and the last are first.

One more word about patience: we can mistake patience for passivity, for simply biding time and doing nothing. That is more akin to sloth, one of the deadly sins; but it is not Christian patience. Patience is a Christian discipline that must be exercised. Patience is a Christian virtue that must be practiced until it become second nature. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit that must be cultivated. Patience is not passivity; it is askesis, discipline that transforms one into the likeness of Christ. James mentions a key to moving beyond passivity and into askesis:

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray (James 5:13a).

For what are the suffering poor to pray? Well, that brings us back to the Sermon on the Mount, as James so often does. Hear Jesus:

44 “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:44-45).

And again, in the words Jesus taught us all to pray:

11 “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt 6:11).

In the midst of their patient, prayerful suffering, there comes this word from Jesus, a call to trust:

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt 6:25-34).

Those are comforting words to those of us who already have adequate food and drink and clothes, for whom the anxiety over basic necessities is largely foreign. But it is a holy challenge, a holy discipline for those in real need — a struggle toward virtue. Generosity, faithful stewardship, active compassion: these are James’s call to the rich, to those with resources. Patience, prayer, trust: these are James’s call to the poor, to those suffering need. There is something for each of us to do here.

Of course, those of us with resources should also pray, because none of us have enough to remedy societal poverty. A good prayer to start with might be the conclusion of the suffrages from Morning Prayer, words I used last Sunday. May these words be our prayer and our call to action:

Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.
Create in us clean hearts, O God;
And take not your Holy Spirit from us (BCP 2019, p. 22).

Amen.

There may, in other words, have been a different kind of vacuum into which the Jesus message made its way. It was not so much a matter of people giving up an old “religion” and then finding a new one. Nor was it explicable as dissatisfaction with existing philosophies and the discovery of the new one that Paul was teaching. Rather, people who were used to one kind of political reality, albeit with its own history and variations, were glimpsing a vision of a larger united though diverse world — and then, as they looked around them, they were discovering at the same time that Rome, after all, could not really deliver on its promises. When the new communities spoke of a different Kyrios (Lord), one whose sovereignty was gained through humility and suffering rather than wealth and conquest, many must have found that attractive, not simply for what we would call “religious” reasons, but precisely for what they might call “political” ones. This looked like something real rather than the smoke and mirrors of imperial rhetoric (N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, HarperOne (2018), p. 423).

And what of this creature, this mote of a bee?
For what flower is it and it alone crafted?
To what task of service and praise has it been called?
Why is it at all? Certainly not of necessity, but of — what? — the exuberance of the Creator, His sheer joy in the making from least to greatest?

And what of the hand upon which the bee pauses and rests?
For what purpose is it — and perhaps it alone — crafted?
To what task of service and praise has it been called, to what vocation?
Why is it at all? Neither of necessity nor happenstance but of — what? — the providence of the Creator, His grace in giving, his image-bearing energies expressing his ineffable essence?

That this hand may serve and praise at least in part as this bee does in full!

SAVED BY A HURRICANE, the caption says. “Salvation belongs to the LORD,” the Psalm says (Ps 3:8a, BCP 2019, p. 272). There seems no reason that both cannot be true. About another matter, but equally germane here, N. T. Wright says about St. Paul:

There are two quite different ways of approaching this question, and I think Paul would have wanted to have both in play. He would have known all about different levels of explanation. He undoubtedly knew what 2 Kings had said about the angel of the Lord destroying the Assyrians who were besieging Jerusalem, and he may also have known the version in Herodotus, in which mice nibbled the besiegers’ bowstrings, forcing them to withdraw. He would certainly have known that one could tell quite different stories about the same event, all equally true in their own way (N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, HarperOne (2018), p. 414).

Angels or mice? Angels and mice? Is it the binary Fujuwhara interaction between hurricanes Humberto and Imelda that will stall Imelda some 150 miles off the South Carolina coast and then pull it out to sea? Well, yes, quite possibly on a natural level. Is it the angel of the Lord who, at the Lord’s command, will stall Imelda and steer it into the Atlantic? Well, yes, most certainly on a supra-natural level. God deigns to use agents — material and spiritual — to accomplish his will and we praise him for both, remembering Psalm 3:8 — salvation belongs to the LORD.

As an Anglican, I often pray The Great Litany which contains this intercession:

From lightning and tempest; from earthquake, fire, and flood; from plague, pestilence and famine,
Good Lord, deliver us (BCP 2019, p. 92).

And, yes, I have prayed this with Humberto and Imelda in view. I never once concerned myself with specifying the method the Good Lord was to use in delivering us (them) from lightning and tempest and flood. The binary Fujiwhara interaction is fine with me.

Why God at some times stalls and steers hurricanes away from land and delivers those in the path of destruction and at other times seems indifferent to human suffering — seems, but is not — I have no way of knowing. That is far more complex than Fujiwhara. But, it is all somehow bound up in his love and our salvation, which brings us back again to Psalm 3: Salvation belongs to the LORD.

Imelda’s path could change once again, could confound meteorologists once again, could stall off the coast of South Carolina with flooding deluges, could slam ashore with devastating winds. So, let us not grow slack or weary in our prayers. Pray for angels. Pray for mice. Pray for both.

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost, 28 September 2025
(Amos 6:1-7, Ps 146, 1 Tim 6:11-19, Luke 16:19-31)

Politics, Religion, and Money: Dives and Lazarus

Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away (BCP 2019, p. 22).

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

There are, it is commonly said, three things that one simply does not discuss in polite, social gatherings: politics, religion, and money. But, you know, dear ones, that the church is not a polite, social gathering, but rather a convocation of insurrectionists bent on overthrowing the world and introducing a new world order under the rightful king. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever and ever, we say not to any elected official, appointed governor, or hereditary potentate of this world, but to the one who invaded this world, defeated its ruler, and claimed it as his own, even Jesus Christ our Lord and the Lord of all creation. So, yes, let us talk politics, religion, and money, polite societal norms notwithstanding.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men….

These words from the Declaration of Independence, written almost certainly by Thomas Jefferson, are among the most profound, the most significant political convictions ever penned by men. If the United States has any claim to being or having once been a Christian nation, the evidence lies in these words. Though throughout our history they have often been more honored in the breach than in the observance, they are nonetheless the ideal to which, in our best moments, we aspire.

And, they are wrong; Jefferson was wrong in this regard: That all men are created equal is not self-evident and never has been. Even the greatest of the classical cultures — the Greeks and Romans — did not consider all men equal; they would have considered that notion absurd. The equality of all men is not a self-evident truth; it is a Christian revelation, a spiritual truth proclaimed by Jesus in his summary of the Law, penned by St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians, and only lately incorporated into the political realm by our Founding Fathers as self-evident truth.

But, once accepted, Jefferson was right in the implications of the principle. If all men are created equal, then their rights are endowed by their creator, not granted by fiat or boon by other men, societies, or governments, but God-given. It is the responsibility of government and law, not to bestow these rights, but to secure them: to act in obedience to God and under God’s authority — and under God’s judgment — to ensure that no person is alienated from, deprived of, these rights, the most basic of which is the right to life. And, by life, we do not mean merely birth or basic biological existence, but a certain quality of life that promotes human growth in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and man.

And that quality of life brings us to money. Back-breaking, spirit-crushing poverty is not life, not life as God intended it. Poverty that keeps some people famished while others dine in Michelin Star restaurants is not life, not life as God intended it. And so God gave his people laws, a government to secure the unalienable right to life endowed by the Creator.

1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”

9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God” (Lev 19:1-2, 9-10).

19 “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. 22 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this” (Deut 24:19-21).

The gleanings of the fields and the vines and the trees belong not to their owners, but to the poor, the sojourner, the widow, and the orphan — not as a remedy to their poverty, but at least as a relief from it. That is a God-given unalienable right to life for the poor and a God-mandated responsibility for any government or people that calls on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

It is not just in the Law proper that God demands those with goods to honor the rights of the poor; it is a theme running throughout the prophets.

Isaiah writes:

6 “Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh” (Is 58:6-7)?

And, in today’s reading from Amos:

4 “Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory
and stretch themselves out on their couches,
and eat lambs from the flock
and calves from the midst of the stall,

5 who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp
and like David invent for themselves instruments of music,

6 who drink wine in bowls
and anoint themselves with the finest oils,
but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph” (Amos 6:4-6)!

Joseph — Israel — is blissfully ignorant of its true state as Amos speaks his words of woe. Assyria — that dreaded threat to the north and east — seems exhausted, but is in reality only catching its breath for a final assault that will sweep Israel away forever. The rich are living in pampered luxury garnered at the expense of the poor. This is a people, a society of golden idols and golden toilets, of the one-percenters who strip their fields bare and who leave the poor, the sojourners, the widows and the orphans with nothing to glean. This is a people, a society which no longer acknowledges — if it ever did — the unalienable right to life of the poor, the sojourner, the widow, the orphan.

Some eight centuries later, another prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, is on his way to Jerusalem for the final time, meeting both acclaim and opposition as he goes. As is his wont, he is still speaking in parables, but they are sharp-edged now and pointed. The Sadducees, scribes, and Pharisees feel their sting. Jesus even dares to speak of politics, religion, and money. The Pharisees are especially vexed when he speaks of money.

14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. 15 And he said to them…

19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish” (Luke 16:14-15a, 19-25).

This single parable ties together politics, religion, and money; it links the law, the prophets, and the Gospel. Jesus is speaking woe to the Pharisees just as Amos had prophesied destruction to Israel, present Messiah and past prophet both condemning the sin of luxury at the expense of the poor: the Pharisees, the Rich Man, and Israel are one and the same, under one and the same judgment.

And what of Lazarus? His one desire is to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table — to glean under the table of the rich man. Lazarus is the incarnation of the poor, the sojourner, the widow, the orphan to whom the Creator — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — had given the unalienable right to life, for whom the Creator had established the law of gleaning, ensuring the poor their rights to the excess of the rich. The rich man was breaking the law of God — the spirit of it if not the precise letter — by denying Lazarus even the scraps from his table. This is not the rich man’s denial of optional charity; this is the rich man’s refusal to obey God, to fulfill his God-mandated responsibility. In Jesus’ parable, the rich man’s willful disobedience to the law of charity is the only charge leveled against him, the sole criterion used in judgment, the single factor that determined his eternal destiny. This is only one parable, used to make one particular point, directed toward one specific sin of the Pharisees, so we dare not mistake it for the whole of the Gospel. But, we dare not minimize it either; these are the words and the judgment of Jesus himself. And he is consistent in this indictment:

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Mt 25:41-46).

Was this just hyperbole, or did Jesus perhaps mean what he said?

This parable of the rich man and Lazarus is unique in one respect; it is the only parable in which Jesus names a character — Lazarus, Eleazar in Hebrew. I don’t know with confidence why Jesus chose that particular name — it may simply have been a common name — or even why he chose to name this poor man at all. Of course, he may have chosen the name symbolically and pointedly; it means “God helps,” and God was Lazarus’s only help. Regardless, I know what the name does; I know how it functions in the parable. The name humanizes the poor. It reminds us that the poor, the sojourner, the widow, the orphan are not mere types, not abstractions, but are people with names, people with names known to God. And a name does something else in the parable; it moves Lazarus from the category of stranger into the category of neighbor. Did this rich man know Lazarus’s name? Yes, he calls it out in his own plea for mercy. Lazarus lies daily at the rich man’s gate; his proximity makes him a neighbor. Lazarus has a name; his identity makes him a neighbor. Lazarus has an obvious need; his hunger makes him a neighbor. And Jesus had something to say about neighbors, not just in parables like The Good Samaritan, but in direct commandment: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. When we hear those words each week, we rightly say: Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

The rich man has no name, though the story is sometimes called the parable of Dives and Lazarus. Dives is not a name; it is simply derived from the Latin for “rich man.” In his neglect of Lazarus, Dives has lost his identity, his humanity. He has become an abstraction, a type, a caricature — just another of the self-indulgent, self-absorbed rich. Dives typifies the nature of sin described by Martin Luther as man incurvatus in se, man turned inward upon himself. The parable portrays the end of such a centripetal existence as isolation from others and separation from God, a painful and hopeless semblance of existence.

Friends, both this parable and this sermon are sobering, and I am not at all having a good time. The parable ends with a sense of utter hopelessness for the rich man and even for his five living brothers who he says will not listen to Moses and the Prophets and who Abraham says would not listen to a man risen from the dead. They, too, are already incurvatus in se, curved inward on themselves, black holes of self-absorption.

But, please God, we are not. God has graciously given us this day, this moment to repent if repentance is called for. God has graciously given us this day, this moment to receive this parable if it is spoken to us. God has graciously given us this day, this moment to take to heart the words of St. Paul to his protégé Timothy:

17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life (1 Tim 6:17-19).

The poor are God’s gift to the rich, and the rich are God’s gift to the poor. As the parable of Dives and Lazarus preaches, the poor need the rich for their relief; the rich need the poor for their salvation.

Where do we start? Perhaps with the heart. Is there in my heart a haughty spirit based on my prosperity? When I see the sojourner or the poor do I feel superior, do I feel entitled, do I feel that I have earned — by my own ability and effort — my prosperity while they certainly have squandered their opportunities? Do I think “there but for the grace of God go I” never realizing that my relative wealth may be more God’s testing of me than God’s grace to me? Do I feel secure in my prosperity — in the food in the cupboard and refrigerator, in the unworn clothes in the closet, in the steady job or retirement income, in the IRA and stock portfolio — or do I recognize these as gifts from God in whom alone is my security? Perhaps we start there, with an honest look into our hearts.

And, as we open our hearts, we must also open our hands to do good as opportunities present themselves — and they always present themselves. I cannot remedy homelessness or hunger, nor can the church, nor can the government. But I can, from time to time, relieve, at least for a moment, the hunger of this one person in front of me, the want of that person who asks me for mercy, the plight of this suffering group who appeals to me for aid. That was the example of Mother Teresa who said that not all of us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love. I can do the small thing. You can do the small thing.

A young man struggling in vain with sin came to Elder Paisios in total despair. After listening to the young man, after feeling his pain, Paisios said, “Look, my good fellow, never start your struggle with the things you cannot do, but with the things you can do. Let’s see what you can do, and let’s start from there.”

Small steps, small things done with great love: what can we do to be generous and to share what we have? What can we do to give even a cup of cold water to the thirsty? It is easy to become overwhelmed with the magnitude of poverty and need around us and to turn inward not so much out of selfishness or greed, but out of hopeless and despair. But, Christ planted the cross in the midst of hopelessness and despair. Christ, in his resurrection, gave us a new song to ward off hopelessness and despair: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! And, Christ sends us out into the world to do the work he has given us to do, to love and serve as faithful witnesses: to do the small things with great love, to do the things we can do empowered by his Spirit, to notice and to feed Lazarus.

Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away (BCP 2019, p. 22).

Amen.

It should go without saying — but it does not, so I must say it — that what I publish here is my own thought. I am an Anglican priest in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and I certainly write from that perspective. But, in doing so, unless otherwise noted I am not expressing the views of my parish, my diocese, or my province.

I am old enough to remember the spate of assassinations in the 1960s, perhaps most notably the murders of John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Each revealed a sickness at the heart of American social and political life. But the murder of Charlie Kirk is to me, for many reasons, fundamentally and qualitatively different. It has become the “third rail” of discourse: touch it — speak of it — and risk your own “death.” It has revealed and exacerbated the deep divide in our nation and, most tragically, in the church.

Glen Scrivener shares some helpful insight into the source of — or at least the contributing factors behind — these divisions. He calls them the Six Lies. To adapt a classical Christian phrase, I might call them the social logismoi, the persistent, erroneous thoughts with which we are being assaulted by the evil one. To borrow from St. Ignatius of Loyola, these thoughts are characteristic of spiritual desolation and must therefore be recognized and rejected.

I commend to you Glen Scrivener’s video, which was brought to my attention by a good and faithful fellow priest. It is around seventeen minutes long and is most certainly worth the time. The link follows:

I will call him Kevin though that is not his name. I assure you that he is quite real and that his story, following, is accurate or at least reflects truly what he has told me of his life. It is his story through his eyes.

I think I first met Kevin several months ago in the parking lot of a coffee shop my wife and I frequent. My memory is not what it once was, and it never was much. It could have been longer. I generally wear a clerical collar when out, so I am an “easy mark” — particularly in parking lots, it seems — for those soliciting donations. Frankly, that is one of the reasons I dress as I do; I want the poor to know that they can turn to the church in need. I always keep a few dollars in my shirt pocket wrapped around a “blessing card” from the church.

As Kevin told me once, the little help that people offer is not a remedy for the poor, but it can be a relief. I try to offer a bit of relief in the name of the Lord as the Lord gives me opportunity. It is too little, I know, and that weighs on me.

Kevin began frequenting the coffee shop himself, often dozing at a corner table. I have never seen him “bother” anyone or ask anyone but me for money or other help. He has always been polite and even apologetic when asking me. Over time we began to talk and I learned some of his story. I know more than I will tell here; he is only a bit younger than me, so his life has been long and complicated. In Cliff Notes version, Kevin is divorced and estranged from both his wife and his one adult daughter. He has one living sibling, but there was a rift in their relationship when their mother died — squabbling over such inheritance as there was. Kevin is now alone in the world. I do not assume that he is innocent in the breakdown of these relationships; I have no basis for judging that, nor any need to do so. The simple facts remain.

Kevin worked with his hands and his back, not for a retirement plan but just to live day-to-day. He is now physically unable to work, and he has no income. He also has no home. Each day he travels a route of a few shops or restaurants where he can sit for awhile: not too long in any one place lest he be evicted. He is generally at the coffee shop in the late afternoon, perhaps because he knows my wife and I will be there that time of day. Not infrequently I give him a ride to his next stop, a burger shop in town where he can eat cheaply, and I make sure he has enough money for his daily bread. He prefers this particular eatery because it is relatively cheap and because it is within walking distance of the woods where he sleeps on some plastic sheeting on the ground. He has neither tent nor sleeping bag. I have offered but he tells me the police will just haul it all off. I make no judgment; the police are just doing their job, though that part of their job may partake of the powers and principalities against which wage spiritual warfare. Kevin gets up each morning and walks to a nearby convenience store where he can clean up a bit and use the restroom. And so his days go.

When my wife and I went to the coffee shop today I was glad to see Kevin there. We had not been out for coffee in a few days, and I was concerned about him. He was dozing so I decided to wait a bit before checking on him. We had just been seated when I saw the shop manager approach Kevin. After a brief conversation, he stood up and started for the door. I joined him and we walked out together. For the first time, he had been asked to leave this shop. I understand the business reasons. Kevin probably does, too, but he was clearly hurt by the incident. I know that he has money for food tonight, but I don’t know where he will go tomorrow afternoon or where I will meet him again. I suppose I will seek him out at his “favorite” restaurant.

When I returned to the coffee shop, I spoke with the manager, not to castigate her in any way, but to tell her Kevin’s story and to comfort her. She was shaken by the incident, not because Kevin was rude or threatening, but because it is hard for a compassionate person to treat another person as less than a person. Poverty took a toll not just on Kevin in that moment, but on that caring young lady as well. It is damnable from top to bottom. I suspect she will sleep no better tonight than will Kevin.

Homelessness and poverty seem intractable.

I have sought help for Kevin from some in our scruffy city who are in the “poverty” business, those who work with non-profits and with the city. Kevin is one of those for whom the “cracks” seem particularly designed, and he falls right between them all. I have offered to take him to one of our local shelters, but he fears them more than sleeping outside. From my conversations with those who know, he is right to do so. I have no idea what Kevin will do as winter approaches.

Why am I telling you this story? In part, simply to humanize the poor and homeless. It is easy to generalize them as a group; it is another thing entirely when you know a name and a story. I have known some of the poor in our city: Tarzan and Jane — yes, those were the names they went by — Tumbleweed, who was proud of being the last hobo, and several others several years ago when St. Demetrios church and the good people there let me help with the soup kitchen they ran in their church in inner-city Knoxville. The homeless in Knoxville differ from the housed not in temperament but in means: there are jerks and “saints” in both groups and all of them are image bearers or God. Now I know Kevin and his story. So do you.

I tell this story also to ask you, in your mercy, to pray. Pray for Kevin. With the city and its various agencies, little seems possible. With God, all things are possible. I have though often of late of the film “Man of God” on the life of St. Nektarios of Aegina. When faced with a situation everyone bewailed as impossible he said simply, “We shall see.” And he prayed. What will become of Kevin? We shall see.

Pray for me, also, please. God has a “wicked” sense of humor. This Sunday I am scheduled to preach on Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

As two or three gathered in the St. Mary Magdalene Chapel this morning for the Daily Office, I offered this prayer among others:

2. For The Universal Church
Gracious Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen.

It is a good and holy prayer penned by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I, and I can offer it from the heart. But, it is equally important — and arguably more important — for me to offer it for the heart, specifically, for my heart. It is difficult to see how the prayer might be answered for the Church until it is answered for me. And so, before praying it for the Church, perhaps I should offer it for myself:

Gracious Father, I pray for my heart. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where I am corrupt, purify me; where I am in error, direct me; where in anything I am amiss, reform me. Where I am right, strengthen me; where I am in want, provide for me; where I am divided, reunite me; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen.

I need truth, yes, but truth with peace. It is possible to be thoroughly right and thoroughly lost. What does it profit a man to gain the argument but to lose his soul?

Where I am corrupt — and where am I not? — create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right Spirit within me.

In error — me? Grant me the humility of Orthodoxy, the wisdom humbly to remain within the folds of truth as discerned by the Church, and not to regard my own divergent opinion as special revelation.

And so goes the prayer through the last petition: Where I am divided, reunite me. And, I am divided. I attempt to serve too many masters. I do not love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind. And, as for my neighbors, I often love them with all my convenience, but no more. So, may the Lord gather up the scattered and squandered pieces of my heart and reunite them in him.

It is said that all politics is local. Perhaps all prayer is, too, at least primarily so. Only then can it rightly move outward.