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St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
September 28, 2025
Year C, Proper 21: The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31
Beatitude People
If you were here two weeks ago, you may remember that I shared a little bit about Sister June Favata, a Sister of Charity who faithfully served St. Vincent Academy in Newark, New Jersey for decades, and where I taught history back in the 1990’s.
A week and a half ago, I drove up to New Jersey for Sister June’s funeral – something I probably would not have done if Rev. Amelia were not here – so, yet another reason I’m thankful for her presence here with us.
I’m very glad that I went to June’s funeral because it turned out to be one of the most intensely emotional experiences of my life.
Part of it was being in a church full of people whose lives – like mine - had been touched, often in profound ways, by this extraordinary person.
And part of it was seeing people – former students and colleagues – who, in some cases, I hadn’t seen in something like 30 years – although it was a funeral, it was also a joyful reunion.
During the service, several people offered moving and sometimes funny remembrances of June, taking me back all those years to when I taught at St. Vincent’s.
And the priest who gave the homily found the perfect words to describe June.
He called her a “Beatitude Sister.”
I love that.
A “Beatitude Sister.”
The Beatitudes are Jesus’ vision of the downside-up kingdom of God.
And in the downside-up vision of the Beatitudes, Jesus declares that it’s the poor and the hungry and the mournful and the hated who are the blessed ones.
And that priest was right: June really was a “Beatitude Sister” because she spent her life making Jesus’ downside-up vision a reality.
Yes, for her everyone counted, everybody mattered, but June focused her tremendous energy on the poor and the suffering, not because they were better than anybody else but because, well, they were poor and suffering.
I’ll never forget – and will always be thankful for June the “Beatitude Sister.”
Some of you may remember that in the Gospel of Luke, right after Jesus describes all those who are blessed in the kingdom, he continues by warning those who have already been blessed, those who have already received their reward, those currently on top who will be brought low.
Jesus says, “Woe to you who are rich, woe to you who are well fed and laughing, woe to you who are highly respected.”
Woe, woe, woe.
In today’s gospel lesson, we hear these “blessings” and “woes” in parable form – it’s a parable much easier to understand than the parable of the dishonest manager that we heard last week – this parable is definitely much easier to understand, but maybe harder for us to hear.
Just like the “woes,” The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is hard for us to hear because by the standards of history and the world, we are rich.
Oh, we may not feel rich when we look at our supermarket receipt or when we get our BGE bill, but we are rich.
So, let’s take a look at this challenging parable:
The rich man, who goes unnamed, is almost a comical stereotype of a really wealthy person – he’s wearing the best clothes, and he is feasting – he is “feasting sumptuously every day.”
Notice that there is no mention of other people at his feast. Surely there were slaves preparing all this food and laundering the fine clothes, but maybe this rich man is all alone amid his wealth.
Meanwhile, right outside at the rich man’s gate there is a poor man – a desperately poor man who is named Lazarus - Lazarus, sick and hungry, desperately hoping for a just few scraps from the rich man’s table, a few scraps which are never shared.
It’s quite a pathetic scene, with only the dogs tending to Lazarus’ sores.
Well, you just heard the parable, so you know there has been a great reversal of fortune: Lazarus is in heaven, in the “bosom of Abraham,” while the rich man is in agony in hell.
Blessed are you, Lazarus.
Woe to you, rich man.
There are a couple of clues that it’s not just his great wealth that has landed him in hell. This rich man was not a good man.
We might try to excuse his neglect of Lazarus. Maybe the rich man didn’t go out much. Maybe, somehow, he didn’t know that Lazarus was at his gate.
The only problem with that theory is that the rich man knows Lazarus’ name, which might be the most disturbing moment in the parable.
Not only does the rich man know Lazarus’ name, but in the hereafter, he even tries to put him to work, asking Abraham to send Lazarus down to hell with some water to quench his thirst.
But, no, there is no traveling between the land of blessing and the land of woe.
But the rich man, he’s nothing if not persistent, telling Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers, to warn them to change their ways before it’s too late and they end up in the fires of hell, too.
I guess we can give the rich man a little bit of credit for caring about a few other people, caring about his five brothers, at least.
But Abraham says, no, because the brothers, just like the rich man, just like all of us, we already know how we are meant to live – we know the choices that bring life and the choices that bring death – we know the choices that lead to heaven and the choices that lead to hell.
One of my favorite quotes comes from a 14th century mystic named Catherine of Siena.
Catherine wrote:
“All the way to heaven is heaven.”
“All the way to heaven is heaven.”
Heaven is not only something we will experience when we die, not only a gift we will enjoy for all eternity with God, but, if we make the right choices, if we place our trust in Jesus, if we follow the way of Jesus, heaven begins now.
“All the way to heaven is heaven.”
And perhaps it should go without saying that all the way to hell is hell.
Today there are, of course, lots of people like the rich man in today’s parable - accumulating so much, sharing little or nothing with the “Lazaruses” of the world, always wanting more but somehow, way more than enough is still never enough, always hungry, never satisfied, never joyful.
In the words of today’s lesson from First Timothy: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”
A bad way to go through life.
All the way to hell really is hell.
But when we are “Beatitude People” like Sister June, we experience heaven right here and now.
Just one example:
Last Saturday, the Afghan family living in Gilead House 2 invited some of us over to the house for a thank you lunch. I hadn’t been there since we dedicated the house a few months ago, so it was just wonderful to see how they have transformed it into a home, into their home, and so beautiful to experience their warm hospitality expressed through carefully prepared and very delicious food.
I’m pretty sure that’s what heaven is like: an abundant feast shared among people from all over, strangers who have become beloved friends.
“All the way to heaven is heaven.”
Sister June’s life and death and her beautiful funeral have been a powerful reminder for me – a reminder to devote my life to my particular corner of God’s kingdom, to be, with God’s help, a “Beatitude Person,” doing my best to make real Jesus’ downside-up vision of the kingdom of God.
With God’s help, may we all be “Beatitude People,” right here and now, all of us, together, all the way to heaven.
Amen.
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