Heaven and Hell

 

What's on my mind? --- Dives and Lazarus.

Dives, a rich man and Lazarus, a poor beggar.

Opposites... Heaven and Hell...

Opposites with a great big chasm between them.

I think of hikes in the Smokies. I think of looking out over form the top of one mountain to the top of another mountain. I think of the amount of effort it would take to get from the peak on which I stand to the peak on which perhaps someone else is standing and looking my way.

I confess that, in this life there have been times that I have created a chasm between myself and someone else. Even someone I love and care for... yes I can and do create chasms.

I confess that I create chasms between myself and someone that I should show compassion and love. I could feed them. I could listen. I could care. I could love... but I insulate myself from the need they have and create a chasm.

I create a chasm between myself and God when I fall into my own selfishness and believe that I don't need God. I can save myself. I can do better than this life all on my own.

Sometimes it's not a chasm. Sometimes I erect walls and push the other person back and ignore their need to the point that I don't even want to see the pain and torture that the other person is enduring. I erect a wall, so that I don't have to meet that person and confront the need.

Like Dives during his life on this earth, I become so absorbed into myself that I can't see. I can't see the need of my neighbor, I can't see the hunger, the pain, the suffering. I can't see because all I see is myself!

Lord, forgive me! Forgive me as I remember my sin. Forgive me as I pray and confess before you and all people my sin.

On this earth and in this time, all Lazarus wanted was a piece of bread, a crumb from a table. Lazarus plead to Dives for a little attention to his needs. And then...

As Dives was after this life... he plead to Lazarus for a drop of water. But the chasm was in place. One mountain to another. A chasm too deep for help. It was all too late now...

So what do I make of this? I know, here and now, that God comes to me through the Word, through the Water of my baptism, through the Bread and the Wine and the presence of Jesus. It's all here and now. God crossed that great chasm of my sin and his love for me with the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, God's son and God in flesh. Why? To save me from my sin that created the chasm to begin with because God loves me.

God loves you as well. God crosses the chasm in the here and now that we may all come to believe in the here and now. 

We are free to live in the here and now with compassion for one another. To care for one another, to feed one another, to listen to one another, to break the wall down and welcome one another and live for God and one another, crossing chasms and breaking down walls while we are still in the here and now. Why wait? God has set us free to love, here and today.

Every day is a time to love God, serve God and to love and serve one another.

Don't wait! Don't wait! Please, don't wait!

Thanks be to God!