Mind the Gap

Someone actually won the $400 million Powerball. What would you do if you suddenly had that much money? How would your life change if all of a sudden you were very, very rich? Would you keep working? Would you be able to provide for aging parents, or have a college fund for your children? Would you buy a house, a car, a sailboat? Would you invest it into very safe stocks, leaving it to build and build, creating an inheritance for your family? Would you somehow share with strangers? 

Read Paul’s words about rich people in 1 Timothy 6:6-19 and Jesus’ parable about a rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. 

It is hard for most of us to read this Scripture and not feel a little guilty, to not feel a little condemned or convicted. If you’re reading this at a computer, chances are you are more like the rich man and a little less like Lazarus. How many times do we choose not to meet the eyes of someone suffering on the street or in the hospital bed? How many times do we choose to simply keep to ourselves instead of reaching out to someone on our doorstep? How many times do we choose inaction instead of faithful, transformative action? 

This is a story of gaps, a gap between rich and poor, between comfort and agony, between visible and invisible, between full and hungry, between burial and being carried away by angels, between privileged and marginalized; gaps in this world, and gaps in the next world. Where are the gaps in your lives? What are you doing to overcome the gaps in this life, not the next? Are you able to see the invisible suffering going on right here in Topeka, right here at Trinity? 

As Abraham alludes to in the Luke story, Jesus’ resurrection did not convince everyone then or now of the truth of God’s words. Yet because of the resurrection, we are empowered, we are bound together, we are called to work to mind that gap – to cross that chasm between east Topeka and southwest Topeka, to work on closing the gulf with ministries like Topeka JUMP. 

Maybe in the end we are most like the rich man’s brothers, hearing these words of warning from Moses, the prophets, and the witness of Jesus Christ. How will you respond? Will you open up your feast? Will you see the poor through the eyes of Jesus and Abraham? As Paul writes to Timothy: “Tell the rich people to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.” May we all work to mind the gap and to gain life that is truly life. 

Grace and peace, 
Pastor Kate