John W. Wurster

Luke 16:19-31

September 26, 2004

For many of us, the fall means starting up with something new: a new school year, a new football season, a new program year at the church, a new TV season.

Except for the occasional sporting event, like a Red Sox game, or an infrequent peak at the Weather Channel, the television is not on much at our house. Still, I can’t help but notice that the TV schedule includes an increasing of number of shows which, instead of featuring actors playing fictional characters, put in front of the camera "real people" being themselves.

Take 18 people and put them on a desert island and you have the show, "Survivor." Take 18 people and put them with Donald Trump and you have the show, "The Apprentice." Take 14 strangers and put them in a house, "Big Brother." Take 11 couples and send them on a 72,000 mile journey, "The Amazing Race." Take 25 women and two men, "The Bachelor."

Added for this new season are two shows which are essentially identical: "Wife Swap" and "Trading Spouses." The premise for both is that the mothers in two dissimilar families will switch places and the camera will then follow what happens next as the new mother brings a set of assumptions and expectations very different from what the family had previously known. Both shows are expected to be big hits.

You know what this kind of TV is called, right? These are known as "reality shows." While these shows are growing in popularity, the name "reality show" strikes me as ridiculous. There is nothing real about them. The participants are manipulated The situations are contrived and highly edited. The intent of the programs is pure fantasy. Entertaining? Definitely. Profitable? Absolutely. Real? No.

Perhaps there is no greater need in our day than for people who know what is real, who can bear witness to what matters, to what counts. We are subject to a continual bombardment of images and messages of what it means to be happy, successful, beautiful, complete. We see it and hear it everywhere. But is any of that true, real?

As Christians, reality begins for us with Jesus Christ. His life, his teachings, his death, his resurrection are the framework for evaluating truth. The cross is the ultimate reality show, pointing us towards what matters.

There are two characters in the story Jesus tells in today’s lesson from Luke. One has a name, "Lazarus." The other is simply known as "a rich man" I’d bet on the character with a name, though I grant you at the beginning of the story that would seem to be a silly strategy.

Lazarus has a name and sores, but nothing else. He can only beg. He is seemingly overlooked by everyone, except the dogs. Things look much better for the rich man as the story begins. He may not have been given a name, but he has fancy clothes. He has plenty of good food. All the trappings of a comfortable, successful life. But the rich man dies anyway and things change in a hurry for him.

He finds himself in a place called Hades. There he has gone from being comfortable to being tormented in the flame. That’s when he sees Lazarus in the distance, the beggar Lazarus, now side by side with Father Abraham. How could that be? Poor Lazarus who could only beg, who was always overlooked, now in a position of favor? Couldn’t be. The rich man calls on Abraham to have Lazarus ease his distress by bringing him water.

"Can’t happen," Abraham explains to the rich man, "Here’s reality: you received good things during your life and Lazarus didn’t and he was overlooked by people like you. Now after death he receives the good things and you don’t." Suddenly the purple cloth and the fine linen and the sumptuous food that the rich man enjoyed at one time don’t seem to count for much. God apparently has a different way of lining people up, a different way of valuing what matters.

The rich man learns, too late, that reality is different than he thought, different from what he had seen on TV. He pleads with Abraham, "Send somebody back to tell my brothers what really matters. Tell them not to overlook the poor." "There is plenty of information on that," Abraham tells him. "They just have to open the Bible." "Ummm. They won’t get it that way. But they’d believe it if somebody came back from the dead to tell them." "No, I don’t think so," Abraham replies. "If they haven’t figured out what is real now, they’re not going to get it, even if someone rises from the dead."

We don’t hear anything else from the rich man, ever, and Jesus’ story leaves us wondering if someone rising from the dead might indeed make a difference in our understanding of truth. What do you think? Would someone rising from the dead get our attention? Would someone rising from the dead affect our understanding of what counts? Would someone rising from the dead change our perception of what is real?

Reality is that Jesus called the poor blessed and touched those others shunned and healed those others ignored. He would not stop reaching out. He would not stop giving himself. He would not stop loving and forgiving and challenging those who called themselves religious to do the same. But because they would rather dress up in piety than help those in need and because they considered religion to be more about the rules than about the heart and because they saw Jesus as more threat than savior, they killed him, crucified him right alongside the anonymous poor. Jesus died the shameful death of a beggar.

But God raised him up with a love stronger than hate.

Would someone rising from the dead get our attention? Would someone rising from the dead affect our understanding of what counts? Would someone rising from the dead change our perception of what is real?

Millions watch reality TV each day, but what we’re seeing there is not real. Reality is that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening while two millionaires running for President seem to spend more time talking about what they did or did not do three or thirty years ago than about how they want to move our country forward in the days to come. Reality is that families are squeezed by stress upon stress: some worry about their children, some worry about their parents, some are in the position of worrying about their children and their parents at the same time. Reality is that over 1000 US soldiers have died in a seemingly endless war and we have not even been shown a single flag-draped casket. Reality is that a Russian pastor cannot visit us in Ohio because the evil like we saw in our country in September 2001 is still at work, unleashed earlier this month in the school Beslan. Reality is that Peter Mitskevich has been called to face these days by bearing witness to a stronger truth, a greater light, by pointing to the cross.

We have all been called to do the very same thing, to point to the cross. Because someone has been raised from the dead. The one who lived with us, lived for us, and died for us, has also been raised from the dead for us. Have you noticed?

If only the rich man in the story Jesus tells had the chance like we do to read from 1 Timothy: "As for those in the present age who are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, 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."

The life that really is life. The life that is not necessarily easy or comfortable or lucrative, but real, true, eternal. Jesus gave himself so that we might have that life. That reality won’t make it on to TV. But we can see it – if we know where to look.

Thanks be to God!