The Name You Know

Proper 21C
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Several years ago, when I was a brand new priest serving on the staff of the bishop of the Diocese of California, I was asked to be the spiritual director for a weekend retreat. The retreat, an extension of well-established prison ministry, was designed for women whose husbands or sons were incarcerated. This is not a population with whom I had much prior experience, but I’m a Spanish speaker and so were the women invited to the retreat.

Female, not fluent in English, lacking the protection and support of their partners. Many of the retreat-goers were also undocumented, parenting without partners, and working at the most vulnerable of underpaid jobs. The stories they told in small group settings were simply harrowing. Stories of harassment, exploitation, long bus rides to the prisons and going without food or health care. You think you’ve never met Lazarus at your doorstep? I assure you, she’s just outside of your field of vision, working the graveyard shift as a janitor in whatever downtown office building you last visited.

Her name is Luz, her name is Marisela, her name is Asusena. Her incarcerated husband is Miguel, he is Felipe, he is Lazaro. I was thinking of each of these people last week as I was pondering the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Who evidently had no use for the poor man at his gate until he found himself on the wrong side of a great posthumous chasm wherein some enjoy the favor of the Father of Faith, and some burn for eternity.

The parable as recounted in Luke’s Gospel is likely not a parable of Jesus. We know this from a variety of textual clues, among them the fact that Jesus didn’t really preach a posthumous chasm. If anything, Jesus understood heaven to be among us already, bursting forth with every moment of conversion and act of compassion. But in this parable, likely borrowed from an Egyptian allegorical formula, two mutually exclusive worlds are connected only by death. Hades, the place of torment, contrasts with the comforting bosom of Abraham. The rich and poor man, who evidently had little contact in life despite their proximity, have become eternally estranged.

The tormented rich man who had never before spoken to Lazarus—perhaps had never even noticed him suffering at his gate—now could only communicate his desperate plea to Lazarus through Abraham. Who reminded him that the word he needed to hear had already been told to him and his five brothers. “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them,” said Father Abraham.’

We should too. In fact, that’s why we’re here today and every Sunday, no?. That’s why our neighbors Temple Beth Israel and St. Mary’s Cathedral gather and listen to similar texts every week. You know these words—

• From Amos, “Alas for those who are at ease in Zion, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.”
• From the Psalms, “The God of Jacob gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.”
• And from the Epistle, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.”

You know these words. Even if this is your first time in church, you know the deep vocabulary of our Judeo-Christian tradition that holds us accountable to each other across gender and race and class. The words that call us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

But there is one more word from today’s readings that we need to hear deeply. It is the name: Lazarus. He is the human actor in Luke’s parable who gets a name, which is unexpected because he is the one who would normally be nameless. Literary convention would give names to the powerful, the rich, and the male protagonists. In this parable, however, the rich man is a nameless caricature, and the poor man is a named character. In fact, I wonder if that’s not the reason Luke included this parable in his Gospel. Listen up, people of God: when a woman or a poor person gets a name in the Bible, it’s time to pay attention. Something profoundly countercultural is about to happen.

So I’m going to say her name again. Luz, wife of Lazaro. She works as a domestic servant, she has been abused and exploited, she wept as she spoke of being raped by her employer. She was profoundly ashamed because of it.

And me—inexperienced retreat director that I was—I was so very angry! My job was to assure her of God’s unconditional love, and all I wanted to do was kill the man who hurt her. But our calling as Christians is to soothe the sores, not to multiply the violence. So I sucked it up and reminded she who had done no wrong that God did indeed forgive her.

And then came the Saturday night feast, the high point of the retreat. A volunteer team had been cooking and preparing the parish hall all day. The food and table settings were sumptuous, the live mariachi music was captivating, and each unsuspecting woman entered the dinner venue through an extravagant bower of flowers while the band played a love song to her. To her! To the woman who was invisible in almost every other aspect of her life. I had the privileged position of watching each woman’s astonished face as she entered, shyness giving way to unfiltered joy. It was as if I were witnessing Lazarus at the bosom of Abraham, or the prodigal being embraced by his father, or Jesus in the arms of his mother.

People of God, the Kingdom is not a promise or threat awaiting us across a great chasm of death, it is here with us every day. We usher it in with a mariachi band and a bower of flowers, we manifest it in care and compassion and forgiveness, we make it real when we notice each other and know each other’s names. Poor and rich, hurting and healed, loved and lonely. God knows us by name, and gives us the ministry of noticing and knowing each other.

There’s one more odd thing I remembered about that retreat. It was hosted in San Jose, California, which is where I will be shortly be serving as Priest in Charge of  another Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. Which is to say, there are many ways to serve that city. I know the way to San Jose… and you know that I had to say it!

But for me, there is only one way out of Portland, and it is through the way of grief. I will miss this city, this cathedral, and each you more than you can imagine. I will miss you by name: I will miss Deb, I will miss Bill, I will miss Elizabeth, I will miss all of you many Toms and Lees and Mikes and Barbaras! I will miss you who are vulnerable, I will miss you who are strong. I will miss you who are sore, and you who bind up the sores. I will miss you who are hungry, and you who cook for and serve each other. I will miss the privilege of knowing you and ministering alongside you.

If there were one gift I could leave to Trinity, it would be the encouragement to know each other by name. It’s not easy, I know. I began my service to your cathedral three years ago in abject terror at the sheer number of you. And there are more of you now than there were then! But behind each nametag  is a human being with a story of love and loss and death and resurrection. There is a human being who has known both sumptuous feasts and open sores, a human being who will laugh and cry with you, and teach you how to live a life of hope and dignity.

Trinitarians, I bid you to notice and know each other’s names. Not out of nametag anxiety, but rather out of wonder at the mystery of the human person. Because you who are drawn to this place bear a word of Good News that Trinity needs. There is so much more that I myself would like to be able to give you. But I go in peace this day, knowing that each of you are exactly the gift that God intended to give to this community.