A Reflection for XVI Pentecost C Proper 21 St. Andrew’s Church, Nags Head, NC
September 29, 2019 Thomas E Wilson, Supply Clergy
Moreover the Dog
The Risen Christ gave us two commandments. The first is “Don’t be afraid”. And the Second is “Feed my sheep, tend my Lambs”. We are not to be afraid for even if we fail; all things are redeemed, even death itself. We are to love our neighbor by work in hope of bringing about a better world.
The Gospel lesson for today about the Rich man and Lazarus the beggar at the gates who longed to eat some crumbs dropped from the Rich Man’s table. In the King James version, it recounts “Moreover the dogs came and licked the sores of the feet of Lazarus.” Lazarus was viewed by the Rich Man as like the garbage on the streets. In this story Jesus turns everything upside down to tell the story from heaven’s viewpoint. When Jesus tells the story, Lazarus has a name and the Rich Man doesn’t. The name Lazarus means in Hebrew, “God is my helper”.
The Pharisees, listening to the story, would have sneered and make the connection to the fact that the one who had the name didn’t look as if he had any help from God. That fit their view of the world that if you were rich, it was because God loved you and if you were poor it is because God wanted you that way because of your sins or the sins of the father. The Rich Man had no name for he thought he didn’t need God’s help and certainly didn’t want to disrupt his lifestyle to care for the poor man at his doorstep. The unnamed Rich man would have to step over Lazarus who had a name but nothing else.
However, names are important, Shakespeare in Othello has the villain Iago have a good speech about names (He often gave good lines to bad people).
Good
name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
The Rich Man has lost his soul by spending his life to gain the full purse that is “trash”, while Lazarus had his purse stolen from him but kept his name.
In 1939 James Street. a former Baptist Preacher, journalist, screen writer and author, wrote a story for the magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, called The Biscuit Eater, about two boys, one white and one black and the dog they shared. The dog as a puppy was a failure as a hunter and one man named him a “no account- egg sucking, biscuit eater”. A biscuit eater is a dog that “wouldn’t hunt anything except his biscuits and wasn’t worth the salt in his feed”. The boys traded some items for the dog and since being called a “biscuit eater” made the dog cower, they searched for a real name; until one of the boys remembered a Preacher reading a text from the Bible; “Moreover, the dog”. They renamed him “Moreover”. They made two movies out of this story; one in 1940 and the other by Disney in 1971.
Street, the ex-Baptist Preacher, I think started this story as a parable, a way of responding to the parable that Jesus was telling in Luke’s Gospel. Parables are made up stories, lies, that point to a deeper truth and call for a response. In Street’s story, the two boys join to help what is viewed as a failure, reaching across race and class lines, to help the outcast dog and work to create a better world.
Working to create a better world is also a theme of the lesson from Jeremiah. The prophet had been a real headache to the last Kings of Judah. Jeremiah keeps telling them that their main job is to take care of the community by ministering to meet the needs of the poor and vulnerable. He thunders against the greed of the Priests of the state supported religion. He warned against a practice of parents sacrificing their own children to gain favor from false Gods. But the Kings are too busy helping the rich to live luxuriously by cheating and exploiting those very same vulnerable people. They were too busy committing their resources to wars of global power plays between the Ammonites, the Egyptians, the Assyrians and the Babylonians. They kept putting their trust in playing off one enemy against another and switching sides when it might be beneficial to them. This plan backfired on them because they kept guessing wrong and always ended up on the losing side. Finally, the Babylonians came out on top and Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC defeated their enemies and made the Kingdom of Judah pay ruinous reparations to Babylon. Judah had to strip the Temple of many of its treasures to meet the ransom.
Nebuchadnezzar killed the King, and his son who succeeded him, for their treachery and put a tame 21year old uncle, Zedekiah, on the throne as a puppet to Babylon. Later, Zedekiah, true to the family tradition, started getting annoyed with Jeremiah who kept harping on the need to care for the poor and stopping the corruption of government, clergy and the rich. Then, Zedekiah, true to the family tradition, enters into a secret pact with Egypt and raises up in revolt against Babylon. Jeremiah warned against this and the ruling clique with Zedekiah’s permission threw Jeremiah in a pit to starve to death, accusing him of being a defeatist. He was rescued and placed in custody in a prison.
Meanwhile the Babylonians marched back, beat back the Egyptians and surrounded the city and laid a crippling siege. Jeremiah as an act of prophecy does the buying of property as described in the lesson for today. He buys the property as a sign of the hope for the future, a future in which he hopes that the people will finally learn to care for their neighbor.
For us in the Outer Banks, it would be a little like a category 5 Hurricane hitting Hatteras Island and heading straight for Nags Head and St. Andrew’s. Then a good person emptying out their entire life savings, paying cash for the full price of this church, (the latest Treasurer’s report lists the assets as over 3 million, dollars) and gives the money to the vestry, so the people who survive the storm will be able to start again to do ministry of doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God.
In 587 BC, the Babylonians, destroy Jerusalem’s city walls and level the city. When Zedekiah and his family try to escape; they are captured. Zedekiah’s sons are killed before his eyes and since that is the last image he will see, he is blinded, put in a cage and carried back to Babylon. The Kingdom ends, its demise caused by its perfidy and greed.
But, the message of Jeremiah continues to live in the promise of hope. That promise will sustain the inhabitants who are taken to Babylon to live in captivity for forty years. God ministers to them, even in Babylon, and a new generation will begin again. Generation to generation the message of responsibility for the welfare of our neighbors is repeated as in the lesson from 1st Timothy for today warning against greed which distracts us from caring for our neighbor.
The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus has been looked at in many ways. I have heard this story as a means of proving the Divine Economy of heaven and hell with a horrifying description of the architecture of hell and pleasant one of heaven. I don’t think that was Jesus’ purpose of telling this story, as in the same way the previous Parables we looked at about the Dishonest Manager and the Lost Sheep and Coin are lessons on how to run a successful business ethics program.
If I were to put into a couple sentences about what I think the point is of this Parable. It would be the purpose of my life is to be part of a community which loves God and neighbor. The Rich Man asks for Lazarus the dead man to come back from the dead and change the rich man’s brothers’ habits of greed. But he is told “No”, the job of the dead is to rest, while the job of the living is not greed but to love and make the world a better place. That message hasn’t changed for thousands of years.
Let me tell you the first time I personally encountered the ministry of St. Andrew’s Church working to help. Over 16 years ago, I was called to become the Rector at All Saints, before the Interim left and before I met people other than the search committee and Vestry, I had toured the empty church building complex, but I was really interested not only in the architecture but the emotional and spiritual “mise en scene” or gestalt. The Sunday after we unpacked, Pat and I snuck into the Sunday service dressed as civilians to see what it felt like to be strangers and to get a better feel of the service before they put on their best manners for the new Rector. I was nervous; what had I gotten in to?
As I went up to receive communion there was a lovely older lay lady who served at the altar. She gave me the cup to drink alleging that it was the blood of Christ shed for me; as if she thought that was true. She was giving me an outward and visible sign of Christ’s love; medicine for my soul’s strength for the journey ahead, a balm to heal and forgive the past, and a taste to celebrate living with joy in the present.
Later I was to find out she was not a member of All Saints; Ruthie Rigor was a member of St. Andrew’s, but she had been helping out the fledgling church by volunteering to be a Minister of the Eucharist. She was doing some Stewardship, which is about living, using the gifts we have in time, treasure and talents, as if the point of life was about making the world a better place. There were plenty other lay Eucharistic Ministers at the church, but this was a gift she was giving across the barriers of church membership. Later I was to find that there were many other ways she reached out to the larger community. She was never going to leave St. Andrew’s for All Saints, she loved St. Andrew’s and, out of that love for the God she knew at St. Andrew’s she was a good Steward in St. Andrew’s and in the community. She was constantly busy doing all sorts of work without calling attention to herself. There is a British slang word for that, “a dogsbody”. I was touched by the sacrifice this old woman was making to drive up from time to time to give herself for a church of which she was not a member. She died as a devoted member of St. Andrew’s and she left a legacy to continue her ministry of making the world a better place. She is a person worthy of remembering her name, a jewel of her soul.
Moreover the Dog
She raised the cup for
him to drink,
saying words not as a ritual
read,
but as if she meant what
she said,
to taste the truth,
ponder and think.
She was, as they say
across the pond,
a “dogsbody”, always pouring
full
energy out to love to
push and pull
to bring in healing,
faith spawned.
She reminded me of the dog
Moreover,
coming for healing of
Lazarus’ soles,
and continues until tending
our souls,
her stewardship gift was
being a lover.
Words said then are gone
with wind
yet still within his
heart entwined.
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