I’m going to date myself a bit here, but I remember when it first became popular for Americans who wanted to be hip or to appear enlightened… I remember when such folk started bandy about the word karma. I first heard it sometime in the late 70s or early 80s. Around the time that the New Age movement began to gain some traction; around the time that ideas from Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism were starting to move into a more prominent place in our culture.
For a while then and still somewhat today it was considered enlightened, aware, to toss around a few terms from non-Western religions as a critique of uptight, hind-bound spiritual morality derived in no small part from our Puritan forbearers. Karma was one of those words that got used -- probably overused -- at that time. It is a concept that comes from the religions of India and says that our actions -- good or bad -- are revisiting upon us, in this life or in our next iteration. Basically good deed and works reap good karma, and those with good karma can expect good things to come their way. Bad karma nets bad outcomes.
So, back in this particular day, if you did something wrong -- cutting off another driver say, or taking advantage of someone’s weakness -- someone might say to you, “Oooohhh. Bad Karma, man.” When it seemed like all my friends were very attracted to these new, old ideas from the East, I remember thinking “Gee, bad karma sounds like just another way to describe sin.” So, whenever I would hear someone say something like, “Watch out, man. You don’t wanna do that! That’ll be bad karma” it sounded an awful lot like my grandmother -- borrowing from St. Paul -- would say to me: “The wages of sin is death.” So maybe the concept of karma isn’t such a non-Western, non-Christian idea at all. You don’t have to read the Upanishads or ponder Buddhist koans to understand karma. There’s another ancient, mystical sacred text from the East you can study, from which you can reap great spiritual wisdom and insight. It’s the Bible. If you want to gain an understanding of the spiritual concept of karma, you can read Luke chapter 16, verses 19-31, our gospel for today. If there is such a thing as Christian bad karma, then the rich man in our gospel today is the epitome of it.
This particular parable of Jesus is an interesting one. It is the only parable in which a character is given a name. And that character is named Lazarus. Lazarus’s name is derived from the Hebrew name Eleazar which means “God Helps”. In the case of our Larazus, we might say only God helps, because no one else seems to care a whit about him.
There are other little clues in the parable that help set the scene. There is the meaning of Lazarus’s name, and there is the description of the rich man. He dresses in purple and fine linen -- expensive clothes for the time. The wearing of purple in particular is interesting. Purple dye was very expensive and became associated with the rich and the ruling classes. The Romans even regulated who could wear purple, and how much purple, based on their status and wealth.
The rich man is, as Amos puts it in our first reading, at ease in Zion. He feasts sumptuously every day. We can know he has quite a nice house, because we are told that it was at his gate that the sick and starving Lazarus laid. A gate meant a very nice house with a courtyard and the means -- that gate -- to keep out the riff raff. The rich man never pays Lazarus any notice, and never offers to feed him or take him into his home. Bad karma, man. Bad, bad karma. Because in an instant, both Lazarus and the rich man find themselves ‘on the other side’ and in very different places over there. For there Lazarus lounges in the bosom of Abraham, and the rich man suffers the torments of hell.
The rich man begs for some comfort from Lazarus, and when he can’t get it, he asks that Lazarus be sent to warn his loved ones of their impending bad karma. Now here’s the thing about the rich man that makes you feel he deserves what he gets. Here he is in hell, for not reaching out to Lazarus, for not coming to his aid, but does he get that? Not at all. He still wants Lazarus to wait upon him with a cool drink of water, and he wants Lazarus to be his messenger. Dude, figure it out! Father Abraham tells the rich man that what he asks is impossible because there is a great chasm that separates Lazarus from the rich man in the afterlife. But not only in the afterlife -- that chasm existed in their lives as well.
The same chasm exists today. It is the chasm that separates the rich from the poor, the educated from the uneducated, the powerful from the weak. It separates those in our country with adequate health coverage from those who, like Lazarus, suffer sickness without access to the best health care system in human history. But there is a difference between the two chasms that separate Lazarus and the rich man in this life and in the next. The chasm in the next life is unbridgeable, but the chasm is this life is not. The rich man had all the resources he needed to act with charity. He had the wherewithal to make a real difference in the lives of people like Lazarus. And he cannot claim ignorance as an excuse, because the sick and starving Lazarus lay right at his front door. His opportunity for redemption was laid before him, and somehow, for some reason, he missed it.
Now here’s another New Ageism for you. I’ll bet you’ve heard this one before. “The universe puts people in our lives for a reason.” Well, yeah. There lies Lazarus, there lies a pathway to salvation, an opportunity to share the bounteous grace and loving kindness of God, on his own doorstep. But the rich man didn’t see it, he chose to ignore it. The rich man elected to forgo the good karma and failed to reach across the chasm to help one whom God had given him to care for, delivered right to his doorstep. Friends, don’t make the same mistake. Look around you. Pay attention to what and whom God has strewn in your path. Reach across the chasm when you have the chance. Do good. Be generous and ready to share. Share the bounty and grace that God has given you. You likely won’t have to go far to find an opportunity to do so. You might even find an envelope in your bulletin this morning that just might do the trick.
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Now, I can’t close today without making mention of someone that ‘the universe’ has brought into our common life for a very specific and glorious reason. Some time ago, the Reverend Suzanne Toro came amongst us, and in time, she left us with our blessing and our support to pursue the priesthood. She is with us again today -- as a priest, and for the first time, as presider at the Eucharist. Hereafter she will go from us again, to serve God’s people in many places, firstly at Holy Apostles Church, not too far away. Now on occasions such as this, when you’re the preacher at such a momentous event, you need to say a little something about it, I think. And we, as Suzanne’s sponsoring parish, we need to send her out into the church and the world with some warm words, some good counsel, with our blessing. And what do you know, that ancient, mystical sacred text from the East -- the Bible -- has something to offer. An early shaman of this tradition named Paul wrote something that I think we should borrow, as my grandmother used to do. If you’re going to steal, steal from the best. This may sound familiar to you if you were listening when Charles read this morning’s epistle.
We’ll call our version, the Epistle of Christ & Saint Stephen’s to Suzanne:
As for you, woman of God, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses -- yeah, we were there yesterday, some of us, we saw you do it!
In the presence of God, who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus, we charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time. As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches. If they need some convincing of the uncertainty of riches, they won’t need an ancient mystical text. They can pick up, or rather, download any newspaper.
Rather have them set their hopes on God who richly provides us with 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 good karma for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life. Do that, and you’ll do us proud -- and you will ever abide in our hearts, and have our blessing. + Amen
(c) The Rev. Mark R. Collins
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