This Lukan fable has a pretty clear message: Wealth creates an impassable crevasse between humans. Wealth is only one of the many things that can create impassable crevasses between people; so too can race and religion and immigration status, to name a few more. But I have to believe the fable is ultimately meant to inspire us to bridge crevasses before it’s too late. This sermon will take you to the midnight bedroom of Ebenezer Scrooge, to the summit of Mt. Rainier (aka “mama Tahoma”), to a jail cell in Durham NC, and to an Executive Board decision of some uncharacteristically speedy Mennonites. Buckle up and come along for the ride; we need one another more than ever. And please remember: I do not answer questions. I do not answer questions. I do not answer questions. We keep each other safe, beloveds.
Sermon begins at minute marker 5:22
Luke 16.19-31
Resources
- BibleWorm podcast: Episode 633 - The Rich Man and Lazarus, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr
- 'Crevice' and 'Crevasse': A Gap in Meaning, Merriam-Webster.
- Anabaptist Community Bible
- New release: “MC USA and more than two dozen Christian and Jewish denominations and associations sue to protect religious freedoms,” February 11, 2025.
- Isaac Samuel Villegas, Migrant God: A Christian Vision for Immigrant Justice (Eerdmans, 2025), 6-8.
- Front Light podcast, by Mennonite Action, “From ‘quiet in the land’ to suing the US Government, reflections on Mennonite advocacy with Iris de León-Hartshorn,” Season 1, Episode 4 (2025).
- Mennonite Action: “God’s Love Knows No Borders” actions, 2025.
- Know Your Rights with ICE, by WAISN (Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network)
- Rebecca Solnit, A piece for all hard times. Excerpt: “They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.”
- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843.
- Image: Ladder bridging crevasse on Mt. Rainier; G310ScottS, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Hymn 149 - Forgive, Forgive Us, Holy God. Text: Shirley Erena Murray (Aotearoa/New Zealand) Music: Barbara Hamm (USA), © 1996 & © 2016 Hope Publishing Company. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.
