A Great Chasm
A Great Chasm
Luke 16:19-31
September 28, 2025
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael, CA
Jesus said, “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.
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.’ 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. 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.’
He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, Father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 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.’”
When I was in college, I was pursuing an elementary education degree. I had the opportunity to do some informal tutoring at a local elementary school. One of the popular series of books with that class was in a "choose an ending" format are known as "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, where the reader makes choices that determine the plot's direction and ultimate outcome.
In it the reader is the protagonist. The story is written from the "you" perspective, making the reader the main character. At various points in the story, the reader is presented with choices, such as whether to go left or right, or how to respond to a situation. Each choice leads to a different page, resulting in a unique storyline.
Some kids loved these books. But there were a few kids, like a boy named Brian, who really disliked them. “What is the right choice? What is the real ending of the story? What is the answer?” Some of you might empathize with Brian when it comes to stories and invitations to put ourselves into a story or one of Jesus’ parables.
As we read and study parables, we know the stories of Jesus are slippery. Often when we hear a parable, we think we know what it’s going to say or lesson it is supposed to teach us. And then a trapdoor opens, a twist. In one parable, Jesus says it was the Samaritan who acted as a neighbor. That would have been shocking to his Jewish audience.
In today’s story, Luke gives us another perplexing parable. No one is asking Jesus a question. We don’t know the situation that prompts it. Jesus simply takes the microphone and notices people squirming in their seats.
The story: - a rich man ate like a king, died, and went to hell. A hungry man died and went to heaven, resting on the bosom of Abraham. That’s all we know about them: one ate, the other one didn’t eat. And when their lives here were over, their situations were reversed.
Jesus doesn’t tell us why. We are left to ponder the reason. And it’s a story, not a description of facts. Something to think about.
If we know anything about the Gospel of Luke, we could hear this one coming. We heard it right after the angel told Mary that she was pregnant. She bursts into song - God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty (1:52-53). This is God’s reign.
Later Jesus finds his voice. In Luke’s version of Sermon on the Mount, he declares:
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. (6:21) Woe to you whose bellies are full now, for you will be hungry. (6:25)
These are tough words to those who have full plates and a lot of pleasant things. And Jesus does not explain any of this. He doesn’t tell us why. He leaves it for us to chew on. This sounds like God is going to mess with about our priorities, our preferences, and our privileges. So maybe we should expect this story. How do we hear it? With our hearts?
There are some surprises in the story, hidden in the details.
First, the rich man has so much food that some of it falls on the floor. The poor man was so hungry that he would eat whatever fell from the table. We imagine he was starving to death. Perhaps the rich man was so busy eating that he ignored what was going on just outside his gate. Or he didn’t care. Both are disturbinh.
Second detail: he knew the poor man’s name, Lazarus. They were neighbors. We do not know anything more about their relationship. The rich man had a house. Lazarus slept on the street. The rich man’s peas and carrots rolled onto the floor; Lazarus starved in isolation. We don’t know how or why one of them prospered and the other didn’t. And yet, the rich man knew Lazarus’s name – and he still didn’t share what he had.
When he’s burning in the flames of hell, the rich man calls out, “Father Abraham, send Lazarus to cool me off with water.” He knows him, presumes Lazarus will serve him. “Nope,” says Abraham, “it’s too late for that.”
Then the rich man calls out again, “Father Abraham, send Lazarus to warn all my brothers, so they don’t end up like me.” Again, he thinks he can direct both heaven and his poor neighbor to do as he wishes. Abraham says, “No dice. They have a Bible to warn them; let them listen to that.”
And that’s where the story ends. It doesn’t tell us what to think or what to do. We are free to dismiss it as a story. It is not a theological analysis of heaven and hell. This story isn’t so much about our future. Maybe it is about this world. Maybe it is about how we live here and now. It’s a reminder that our lives are connected.
Another detail - the image of a chasm. Only time this word in Greek is used in the Bible.
Throughout this parable chasms are the one constant. From beginning to end the parable is full of divisions and separations. Remember the gate at the beginning? On one side of the gate lies Lazarus, dressed in sores, hungry, and unable to get up and walk. On the other side the rich man, dressed in fine linen and purple, sits at his table and feasts every day. The chasm at the end Lazarus sits comforted in the bosom of Abraham. On the other side the rich man stands tormented in the flames of Hades.
In many ways, the gate and the chasm are the same thing. The chasm that separates Lazarus and the rich man in the next world is a manifestation of the gate that separated them in this world. The rich man carried it with him into the next world. It was a part of him. The gate that separates and divides us in this world is not a condition of circumstances or categories: rich or poor, black or white, gay or straight, Muslim or Christian, or any other category you might add to this list. That gate is a condition of the human heart.
That means we must each examine our own heart to find the gates that separate us from ourselves, our neighbors, our enemies, those we love, and ultimately God. What are those gates for you? For me? For our church? In our country? What closed gates do we live with? Fear, anger, greed, pride, prejudice, loneliness, sorrow, addiction, busyness, indifference, apathy, hurt, resentment, envy, cynicism. There are a lot of possibilities for the gates within us. We all have them. That’s not how we are intended to live.
We belong to God and one another. Every time we pause and reflect on the ways the Holy One is in us, Holy Love, Every time we love our neighbor as ourselves, every time we love our enemies, every time we see and treat one another as created in the image and likeness of God, gates are opened and chasms are filled.
A closed gate kept the rich man inside his house. Did he ever imagine what life was like outside the gate?
Gates can lock things in and lock things out. Is there another way to see the gate? What are the gates, the barriers, that are in our hearts?
Our OWOS retreat leader in October, Ian Cummins, tells a beautiful story. He was on a retreat at Ghost Ranch feeling unsettled, not very engaged in life or ministry. And then something shifted. He writes about this shift:
Here is an image. Picture an average backyard with a fence around it. It was as if, having spent my whole life inside that backyard, I suddenly discovered a gate, and walked out into a beautiful open field. A field that appeared to go on forever. A field that had always been there, but I had never noticed. A field that felt…different. Where I felt different.
Because in that field, I knew that everything is fine. Everything. I knew that everything is whole despite all the apparent brokenness of our world. And that everything is connected despite all the apparent separateness. I knew I felt peaceful. Joyful. Kind of giddy, actually. Like really alive. And present. And my usual energy of striving, controlling, and managing my life (along with the underlying stress and worry) were gone.
Maybe you’ve felt something similar. I suspect most of us have had moments, maybe when we’re watching a sunset or standing by a mountain lake, when everything else falls away and we feel a wave of deep contentment, or overwhelming wonder. …
But what if those moments are actually glimpses into the truly real world. A world that we usually can’t see because we are so consumed with our own agenda and worry. But a world that is always right here, waiting for us to walk through the gate.
…Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the events and demands of the backyard, I completely forget about the gate. Sometimes I remember it, but for the life of me, can’t find it. Sometimes I can’t find it, but life is still better because at least I know it’s there. I know the truth is: the gate is always open.
An invitation to an open gate. We can choose to be open to new ways of seeing, loving ourselves and our neighbors. Christ’s love, mercy, grace, and presence make it possible for us to open our gates and insure they do not become chasms.
This parable opens us to a variety of truths. Addressing physical hunger is matters. We do this as a congregation. Next week we will have a speaker about new realities in addressing hunger and food insecurity in Marin.
And it is an invitation to open gates in our hearts and be generous. To open our gates, and to live and love as neighbors. How do we do that? There is no single answer. Like the stories of Jesus, there is more than one path and more than one right answer. Yet we keep at it. We persist. We encourage each other to live in the love of God where eternal life is in the here and now. Amen.
Resources
Rev. Bill Carter, “The Neighbor Whose Food Fell On the Floor,” 9.24.22 https://billcartersermons.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-neighbor-whose-food-fell-on-floor.html
Ian Cummins, “Through the Gate,” on Substack July 2024 https://www.iancummins.org/p/through-the-gate?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web