Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed 

(Luke 16:26)

Around 1990 we were in a bar in Canterbury and I went to buy some drinks and handed over a Scottish £10 note and made the stupid mistake of saying, “Careful. The ink’s still wet.” He examined it. Turned it over. and peered at it. Called for his manager.There were times I remember when shops I visited in England wouldn’t accept Scottish bank notes. I found myself thinking about money. A few hundred miles north that piece of paper was worth four drinks. Here it wasn’t. Across the Channel it wouldn’t be.

Money is just a number on a spreadsheet. There’s a box on a spreadsheet with a number in it and that number is how many pounds you have at any particular moment. I say ‘just a number’ but if it isn’t big enough to put a roof over your head, to put food on your table or, if you were in the USA, to pay your medical bills then it would be a very worrying number. If it’s a wee bit bigger than that you’ll probably feel comfortable but probably wish it was bigger. But what if the number on your spreadsheet is so big that all those worries are other people’s worries and you’re fully insulated from them?

That’s where we are with Dives and Lazarus. The number on Dives’s spreadsheet is so huge that he can afford the finest clothes and to eat the most sumptuous food every day. He probably can’t conceive what it’s like to be Lazarus whose spreadsheet reads zero. He’s insulated by his wealth from Lazarus’s hunger, his pain, his need. So much so that he walks past him at his gate every day apparently without even offering the scraps from his table. It’s as if he just doesn’t matter.

So Dives and Lazarus die. Lazarus goes to Heaven and Dives goes to Hell. Looking up at Lazarus Dives asks Abraham to send Lazarus to care for him. If you’ve got an irony meter it should break about this point. But Abraham says no because there is a great chasm between him and Lazarus. Why? Because he built it. He built that chasm with every step he took past Lazarus at his gate without giving him a second look, with every moment of pride when he thought himself more important, with every avaricious deed that added to the number on his spreadsheet rather than aiding the man at his gate.

What happens when the number on your spreadsheet grows so huge that you can’t comprehend it? When it gets into the hundreds of billions and still you want it to get bigger? What kind of chasm does it create between you and people with ordinary needs? Suppose you own the largest online store in the world. But you still don’t want to pay decent wages because they’re just your workers, right? Or you’re the richest man on the planet but you think empathy is a weakness; that caring about people like Lazarus is a weakness. There is the chasm.

We are encouraged to admire people like that just as, I imagine, people admired Dives in his fine linens and well-fed waistline. We are encouraged to emulate them and make the number on our spreadsheets bigger as an end in itself. And sometimes we are encouraged to look down on those who are poorer than ourselves. To assume that their poverty or homelessness is down to some weakness in them. Alcohol, drugs maybe. Laziness maybe. I mean, if they just worked harder and they got a better job. If they cut out a few lattes and avocado toasts. They. They. They. That’s how the chasm between Dives and Lazarus got built.

The story Jesus teaches here is one of absolute genius. In Hell Dives calls on Father Abraham. Not God. Why? To Jews Abraham is THE Patriarch. All Jews are supposedly descended from Abraham.That means they are all related. They are all family. The beggar at Dives’s gate, Lazarus, is family. Maybe a distant relative. Maybe 101st cousin 47 times removed, but family. That is the point that Jesus drives home to his listeners by referring to Abraham and it’s the point he drives home to us when we read this passage. The beggar at our gate, whoever they are and whatever their needs are, is our brother, our sister. We are family, the children of one father.

In the light of that truth it doesn’t matter if the number on our spreadsheet is bigger or smaller than someone else’s. What matters is that each of us matters. Each of us has a place in the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Each of us is welcome in the presence of God. Each of us is offered eternal life through the Cross of Jesus Christ. Each of us matters equally to the one father of all humanity regardless of our wealth or status. Lazarus mattered as much as Dives. That Dives couldn’t see that is what built the chasm between them.

Money is a number on a spreadsheet. Real wealth in this world and the next is love. The extent to which we can show those around us, whoever they are, that they matter is true wealth. The extent to which we make this world a brighter place by caring for others is true wealth. The extent to which we can proclaim, in our words and our actions, that everyone is welcome in the love of God. Dives was rich in money but poor in love and love is the currency.

It’s a universal currency. You can spend it in England or Scotland - even in Canterbury. You can spend it with your friends but also on your enemies. You can spend it on the poor, the homeless, the nameless, the forgotten. It’s the currency of Heaven. And when you do spend it - when you dissolve the chasm and show the world that everybody matters - you just get richer

Lord make us rich in love. Make us compassionate. Give us empathy that allows us to see all your children as brothers and sisters, regardless of wealth or status, and spend the love we have freely

Preached at Annan Old Parish Church

Complete Service