Text: Luke 16:19-31

A chasm has been situated between us
A breach between bodies
A rift resolutely rooted
A fissure fastly fixed
A schism surely set

There is a space between us,
A divisive distance drawing us deeper down
Roads so rutted by heels so rooted
Feet firmly fixed
Minds made immovable

A chasm has been fixed between us

And I find myself asking the question:
How does one measure the distance between heaven and hell?
Is it the length of space between Abraham’s bosom and the fiery lake?
Between a table sumptuously laid and a city gate where mutts take up residence?
Between fine purple linens and sores worn like patches sewn on a life barely holding itself together?

Anesthetizing amenities alienating us from any affinity with the afflicted.
Is it the price we pay for our paralyzing privilege?

A chasm has been fixed between us.

How does one measure this divide?
Is it the number of characters it takes to become unfriended?
Is it the number of votes needed or resolutions passed to prove our righteousness?
Is it the number of hours of silence that accumulate between us when all those unsaid words pile up like notes to a hymn about grace you swear you once knew?
Is it the number of miles between the concrete jungle and the open field adorned by stars you haven’t greeted in years?

A chasm has been fixed between us

How does one measure the distance between heaven and hell?
Is it the centuries worth of seconds unconsciously crammed between a stalled vehicle and shots fired? 
Or the nanoseconds it takes a mind to discern between a book and a deadly weapon? 
How does one measure how much fear has taken up residence between a 13 year old black boy and the trigger of a gun?

Which gun? 
Either one.

A chasm has been fixed between us.

But who owns this distance?
Who bears the burden of this breach?
Who is responsible for this rift?

Luke makes sure we know who Jesus’ audience is a few verses prior:
“The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed Jesus
So he said to them…”

There was a rich man
There was a rich man, wearing rich man clothes
There was a rich man, wearing rich man clothes, eating rich man food
There was a rich man, wearing rich man clothes, eating rich man food, dying a rich man death

Dying a rich man death and pleading a rich man plea:
Comfort, comfort, oh…me.
Me, me, comfort me.
Please won’t someone comfort me!

Earlier in Luke’s gospel, Jesus has a different audience
The afflicted, the beat down, the sick, the oppressed masses
So he said to them…
Blessed are the poor
Blessed are the hungry
Blessed are those who weep

There was a rich man, but
There was also a poor man
There was a poor man, bearing poor man sores,
There was a poor man, bearing poor man sores, pleading for poor man crumbs
Dying a poor man’s blessed death.

Oh that the world would be divided so neatly into rich men and poor men
That way we could all be certain which side of the chasm we were on. 
That way we could all be certain who gets to be blessed.

But I think it is too easy to read this story simply as a cosmic reversal, a finger in the eye of the “lovers of money” audience.  It is too simplistic to walk away resting our hope on some lofty notion that those other people will get what’s coming to them some day; congratulating ourselves for not being rich men.

The chasm between Lazarus and the rich man was fixed by death
But it was a canyon that had been dug slowly by years of erosion
Rivers of injustice slowly carrying away any chance for compassion
Widening the gap that made it easier and easier not to care, not to see, not to feel
The rich man’s privilege allowing him to become numb to the suffering of those around him.
The poor man’s pleas becoming fading echoes, swallowed by the chasm.

The space between us might be eventually fixed by death, but this parable reminds us it’s not too late. 

It is not too late to listen to Moses and the prophets.
It is not too late to bind our hearts and our hands and our feet to Christ
It is not too late to allow ourselves to practice compassion, to let ourselves feel with another, to stand not on the opposite shore but to stand in solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the suffering. 
It is not too late to know what it means to be blessed and to be a blessing.

A chasm has been set between us,
But it has not yet been fixed. 

There is a concept in kabbalistic Judaism known as tzimtzum
It translates as “contraction”
The speculation is that before creation, all was Divine,
Infinitely Divine.  In every direction, nothing but the Divine.
Until the Divine contracted to make room for something else
Something not Divine

Tzimtzum is the space God creates so that something else can exist.
So that something else can choose freely, can grow, can thrive
So that something else can love and be loved in return. 

There is space between us and God
But this space is meant for love.

There is space between us
But this space is meant for love. 

And so my wish for us, my friends, is:
– That we would stop trying to measure the distance between heaven and hell
– That we would recognize the places where our privilege makes us blind to the hells around us
– And that all the spaces between us would not be fixed but would be filled with love