September 25, 2022
Proper 21C – George Yandell
Jesus tells us another parable today, immediately following last week’s parable about the dishonest steward. This one is about an unnamed rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. In this study of contrasts and reversals, Jesus denounces the abuse of power and privilege by the wealthy at the expense of the poor and marginalized. Whereas the rich man dressed in fine clothes and “feasted sumptuously every day” (v. 19), Lazarus longed to eat even the scraps from the rich man’s table. He lay outside the gate of the rich man’s home and was covered with sores instead of purple linen. The fact that dogs—unclean animals—came to lick his sores added to his wretchedness and outcast status.
But the poor man has one thing that the rich man does not- the dignity of a name. Lazarus is the only person specifically named in any of Luke’s parables. The name itself is a variant of Eleazer, which means ‘God heals’ or ‘God helps’. The rich man is often referred to as Dives, a term derived from Latin for “rich man.” He is unnamed in the parable, however.
When both men die, their situations are reversed. Whereas the poor man “was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham”, the rich man found himself tormented in Hades. Lazarus now resides in comfort, while the rich man is cast out and endures agony. Lazarus once lay alone at the gate, longing for scraps of food;
September 18, 2022
Proper 20 C – George Yandell
Amy-Jill Levine writes [in Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (N. Y.: HarperOne, 2014): “Jesus knew the best teachings come from stories that make us laugh even as they make us uncomfortable. [Parables are] not tools for shaming or inculcating guilt, but for good hard lessons learned with a sense of playfulness.” We tend to domesticate the parables in order to control their meaning. “If the interpretation does not raise for us more questions, if it does not open us up to more conversation, if it creates a neat and tidy picture, we need to go back and read it again”. Parables challenge, provoke, convict, and amuse.
Today’s parable is a doozy. It does all the above- challenges, provokes, convicts and amuses. Over the centuries followers of Jesus have scratched our heads and gone to exhaustive lengths to try to understand, or explain away, what Jesus was (or was not) saying here. One writer suggests that this parable in particular, along with numerous other passages in Scripture, is more fully understood when viewed through the lens of humor. Unfortunately, the humor of Christ is usually overlooked as an aspect of his teachings. Laughter is the sudden perception of incongruity between our ideals and the actuality before us. [Adapted from Elton Trueblood in The Humor of Christ (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1964.]
Jesus deliberately exaggerated to point out our foibles;
September 11, 2022
Proper 19 C – George Yandell
There’s a certain excess in Jesus that I used to find outrageous, but increasingly now find tremendously joyful. He zaps helpless fig trees. He sleeps on the fantail of a boat in a hurricane. He feeds thousands with next to nothing. He praises a shepherd who’d ignore 99 nearsighted, beetle-brained sheep just to go after one that’s lost. He heals. He admonishes. He predicts, he indicts. He commends a poor widow who finds a lost coin and spends whatever others she has left just to celebrate. He makes one wonder whether the gospel’s not only about change, but also about small change.
And this is the son in whom God is proud and to whom God also wants us to listen? This is the one for whom we should seek in our neighbor? This is what happens when the Word becomes flesh? This is the Way, the Truth, the Life? The Christ? Well… Yes.
It’s no wonder the tax collectors and sinners were curious. The prophets were easy to ignore, but not this. They could identify with Jesus if for no other reason than his apparent profligacy, a kind of recklessness that in a way confirmed their own. And it’s no wonder the religious leaders and their minions got even stiffer necks than usual. One audience with him, and all their careful religion – school curriculum was either ready for rewrite or else down the drain.
Is there any conceivable message for us,
September 4, 2022
Proper 18C – George Yandell
I have preached from this Luke passage more than 20 times. Each time I wonder: “Did Jesus really mean his disciples must hate family and life itself or they cannot be his disciples? Did he really mean each disciple must carry her own cross, preparing to die a tortured death, to be obedient?” And in each sermon I’ve tried to offer folks some hope- lessening the severity of what Jesus said, showing other ways to understand what Jesus says. I was wrong to do so.
What Jesus offers the large crowd is not just hatred of fathers and mothers, but an example of what it means to follow God’s ways at a certain time of history. Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it goodbye, you can’t be a Jesus disciple. Hatred here is meant not in a psychological sense. It means disowning, renouncing, rejecting- those who become disciples of Jesus must commit exclusively to entering God’s kingdom with Jesus. (Interesting note- Greek for “large crowd” = ‘’x’oi polloi’- sound familiar? It meant large crowd of common people, not as we hear it today- the hoy polloi, the upper-crust glommed up together.)
Jesus was, I believe, leading the way through horrible times, opening the kingdom then and there to all. Most of those around him were clinging to the patriarchal system when Rome was exploiting the way the Jews had operated for centuries- the son married and took his bride into his father’s household,