19 "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. ²⁰ And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, ²¹ who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. ²² The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³ In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. ²⁴ He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ ²⁵ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. ²⁶ Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ ²⁷ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— ²⁸ for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ ²⁹ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ ³⁰ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ ³¹ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ "

As I started to look at this scripture lesson, and how difficult it seemed to be to unpack, the first thought that jumped into my head was that there are many times when the journey to knowledge is as great a reward as the knowledge itself. I’m not sure why this showed up, but it did and I was actually trying to take this journey with this passage this past Thursday when I took Austin down for his infusion (and gave Jen a break for the first time in weeks).

Austin was able to pass out, which meant that I was allowed to just sit in the room and think and one of the better ways that I’m able to think about something is by doing something else (it’s like inspiration needs to sneak in a back door or something). Mowing the lawn, playing a game of spider solitaire, and getting the mail are all wonderful avenues for me to let this happen. Not having access to a lawn mower, computer, or mailbox, however, meant that I was forced to try something else.

So I tried reading a few articles out of the denominational magazine, The Church Herald. The one that ended up striking me the most was a piece by the Rev. Louis Lotz, entitled ‘Working Out Our Own Salvation’. In it he described how he read in a newspaper that researchers had determined that citizens of the United States now spend more hours working than peasants who lived in medieval times. I’m not sure how this figure was determined, but Lotz then proceeds to tell an anecdotal story of how he ended up sitting next to a sales guy who had been on the road for the last eight days visiting clients. What struck Lotz was not he was sitting next to someone who was willing to leave his family (and the rest of his life) for such a period of time, but that the man had a sense of pride in that ‘achievement’.

As I read the article, and thought about the workaholic culture that is lived out by so many of us, it came to me that we’re not all that different from rich man that we supposedly had so much trouble relating to. The similarity is not based on the amount of money that is possessed, but a lifestyle that leads us to become increasing separated from God. For the rich man in the passage it was living a decadent sort of lifestyle, focused solely on desires of the self that ended up creating the ‘great chasm’ that Abraham mentions in the passage.

The workaholic culture means that we are constantly ‘on’. Work related calls come to us while we’re out in the middle of nowhere, emails can be retrieved with the ease of point and click on our wirelessly enabled laptops, PDA’s, and phones, and the list of things that ‘need to get done’ never seems to shrink. Remember how we were told that all of these advancements in technology would mean that we were going to spend less time working and more time doing the things that we wanted to do? I mean you may be working at home, but you’re still working.

For example, at the church that I worked at down in Philadelphia, I was given the responsibility of carrying the emergency pager (remember when pagers were considered modern technology?). I had just pulled into the Veteran’s Stadium parking lot with my brother because we were headed to a game (go Phillies), when the pager went off. I didn’t recognize the number, and I thought, so how do I want to do this? I then took my brother’s cell phone, dialed the number that had flashed up and proceeded to have a 10-minute conversation with the treasurer about a bond that was going to be maturing and the various options that were available for reinvesting. I didn’t want to have that conversation. I didn’t need to have that conversation. My head certainly wasn’t into what was being discussed in that conversation (as I sat there in my replica jersey). But because there was the expectation that I was reachable, I had to return the call. It was church business and yet it separated me from what was actually going on all around me, and if I’m not able to be in the moment, then where exactly am I?

I am continually frightened by the number of people who are out shopping with their children (and I mean younger children) who are there in body but not there mentally or emotionally because their talking on the phone or returning a text message. Meanwhile the kids are able to do pretty much whatever they want.

If we do that with our kids (who in opinion poll after opinion poll we are told are priority number 1), is it any wonder that God gets lost in the shuffle of all the things that need to ‘get done’? I’m pretty sure that if it hasn’t happened already it’s only a matter of time before someone responds to a text message while a sermon is being delivered from this pulpit. And why should any preacher be exempt? After all, I know that I saw it happen the other night at the High School Open House as a parent sent a text message during one of the teacher’s presentations. This is the same high school where their kids are not allowed to do the same thing. If it’s so important that you can’t wait 6 ½ minutes until the bell goes off, why would you wait an undetermined amount of time with a preacher (who from what I’ve been told, those preachers have a tendency of being long winded.)?

But before you think that I am referring to just money or work as the perpetual butterflies that draw our attention from what is really important, I’m not. Because in reality the butterfly can be anything: from the mundane to the serious, from the simple to the complex. This world has an endless list of things that put the focus solely on us, and therefore create that separation between God and ourselves. Money, work, success, self-pity, sports, politics, food, technology, our neighbor, fear, religion, sadness (just to mention a few), all of these things can lead us to focus inward, instead of recognizing that we need to reach outward so that God might be able to lift us back into connection with the Almighty, and ultimately the things of the world that are really important.

is so obsessed with himself that he can’t even see the poor man of Lazarus who lies at his gate. He can’t see him. We hear this story and we shake our heads at how selfishly blind the rich man has become.

And yet, how many of us do the same this same thing when we allow our world to become focused around one thing, that one temporal thing that we think will make us feel satisfied and complete? When we do this we go about our lives never really able to be in the moment, never allowing ourselves to understand how God is at work in our lives, which ultimately allows a chasm between the Almighty and ourselves to be opened up. Some might be okay with that state of affairs.

For those of You who are not, the answer is much the same as we talked about last week. If we’re not focused on God then something else will step in to fill the void.

However, if we are focused on God, if we are focused on God and God alone, then we begin to regain the sense of peace, contentment, and direction that we were looking for in the first place. We continually know of people (including ourselves) who just keep running, running after this and that, and are never able to be satisfied. That isn’t who God would have us be.

I hope that this passage this morning acts as a wake up call (or a friendly reminder) of where our focus is meant to be. Put all that other stuff in its place and allow God to become the center of all you do, the center of all you are.

Gracious Lord, those is so much out there in the world that is able to draw our attention away from You. We pray that Your Spirit might be able to move in and through us so that we can find our focus on You and You alone. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.