This parable of Jesus – one of these little stories he tells to get people thinking – this is one that can seem superficially straightforward. It’s about prayer! Or maybe, it’s about justice! 

But if you look at it more closely, it starts to get messy fast. 

I want to share three things that I notice about this story, today.

The first thing I notice is that the judge in this story does not represent God.  There are parables of Jesus in which someone DOES stand for God, or at least the story is clearly meant to tell us something about God – like the Lost and Found parables we heard recently. And there are parables that point us to the kingdom of Heaven – to how God’s ways are different from human ways. 

And then are parables of Jesus that are more meant to call our attention to how things work here, in this world. How people treat each other. We’ve had some of those recently too; Luke’s Gospel contains quite a few. 

This parable is pretty clearly about the way things sometimes are in this world, rather than the way God means for things to be. A judge can’t be bothered to grant justice, until he is literally pestered into it.And then Jesus says, Listen, if even a judge like that can be badgered into doing the right thing, do you think you have to convince God to respond to the cries of God’s beloved ones? 

This judge is a contrast with God – not a likeness. I love the description of the judge as having “no fear of God and no respect for anyone.” He’s like the rich man in the Lazarus story that we heard a few weeks ago. He’s an extreme type, almost a caricature. He’s a judge who genuinely does not care about justice. Literally the ONLY way anyone can get through to him is by disrupting his presumably comfortable life. 

So that’s what this woman does. We don’t know her situation. Somebody is taking advantage of her. It’s significant that she’s named as a widow, one of the core categories of social vulnerability in the Bible, along with orphans and immigrants. In a society where men held all property and legal authority, being a widow could mean she had nobody to protect her or advocate for her. She was at real risk of becoming totally destitute. She’s pestering this judge not out of strategy, but out of desperation. It’s the only thing she can do – for herself, perhaps for her children. 

So if the judge isn’t God, where is God in this story?  I think God is the courage and dogged determination that keeps this woman showing up and demanding justice, against all odds. God helps her get up every morning and try again. Nevertheless. And God is the force that makes the judge relent and do the right thing, if only to get some peace and quiet. 

God is in the capacity of people and systems to change, to be transformed. God is the Source of holy persistence, of faithful courage. God is in the nudge that reminds us of our need to turn, to change, to make amends and set things right. Even if sometimes we do it for the wrong reasons. 

The second thing I notice about this story is that this widow is demanding justice FOR HERSELF. Presumably because nobody else cares; there’s no one to stand with her, to join her in her daily visits to the unjust judge. So she shows up and pleads her own case.  Saying – probably SHOUTING: I’ve been treated unfairly! Give me what I need, what I deserve! 

That kind of behavior can be a cultural stretch for those of us who are middle-class white Midwesterners. It can be hard for us to do that for ourselves. It can make us feel uncomfortable or disapproving when we see others doing it. We’re all in on advocating for others, that’s great! But to speak up for YOURSELF… for your own needs… that’s a little unseemly. It’s not part of “Midwest nice.” 

A commentary on this Gospel pointed me to a speech by Frederick Douglass, given in 1857. Douglass escaped from slavery as a young man and became a famous speaker and writer against slavery. He is one of the great voices of our nation’s history. In this speech, he is responding in part to arguments that protests and insurrections on the part of enslaved people in the American South, were “prejudicial to their cause” – in other words, were turning public opinion against the plight of enslaved people. (Those familiar with Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement, a century later, may note some resonances.) 

He talks about so-called white allies who want to take the lead and call the shots in the abolitionist movement, instead of African-American leaders like Douglass: “This class of Abolitionists don’t like [Black] celebrations, they don’t like [Black] conventions, they don’t like [Black] antislavery fairs for the support of [Black] newspapers…They don’t like any demonstrations whatever in which [Black] men take a leading part. They talk of the proud Anglo-Saxon blood as flippantly as those who profess to believe in the natural inferiority of races… I hold it to be no part of gratitude to allow our white friends to do all the work, while we merely hold their coats.”

He continues to an often-quoted passage about the necessity of responding to injustice and bondage with struggle: “The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle… If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning…

“This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Douglass talks about the case of the British government ending slavery in the West Indies. He says it took both William Wilberforce’s moral pleas AND the agitation of the enslaved people – showing the British government that slavery is wrong AND costly AND dangerous. Because knowing something’s wrong might not be enough to lead to change, on its own.

And he argues likewise that no one should expect the enslaved peoples of the American South to just wait for others to advocate or fight for them: “In the great struggle now progressing for the freedom and elevation of our people, we should be found at work with all our might, resolved that no man or set of men shall be more abundant in labors… than ourselves.”

Douglass doesn’t mention this Gospel text, but this speech almost feels like a commentary on this parable. When a judge, a government, an institution, a system, is unmoved by knowing what is right, then those who are wronged are called to struggle – moral, physical, or both. To pushing back against their own oppression, and demanding better. 

We all have opportunities for allyship – for listening to those who are crying out for justice today – especially in the lead up to a significant election! – and choosing to stand with them or respond to their calls. This parable might invite us to notice what we feel when we see people and groups speaking up for their needs, naming their demands. If that makes us uncomfortable, if that makes us pull back a little – maybe that reaction is something to sit with, and examine. 

And I think this parable could invite us to wonder whether there’s anyplace where we could dare to speak up for ourselves. Is there someplace you could be more bold advocate for yourself, or for a group to which you belong?cBecause that can feel very frightening. Very counter-cultural, depending on your culture! But it can be important to find your voice and name your needs. 

The third thing I want to notice about this parable is that it may or may not actually be about prayer. Luke, our Gospel writer, says it’s about prayer: “Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” But that’s, like, just his opinion. This is one of the parables that’s only in Luke’s Gospel, so we can’t compare how it’s told or framed elsewhere.

It seems to me that a plain sense reading of the parable and the teaching that follows – without Luke’s gloss – would be something like this: Look, even the worst possible human authority figure will eventually cave and do the right thing if the demands of justice are sufficiently persistent and annoying. So, even when you feel lost and unheard, know that God, who is loving and just, hears you and will help you. 

I don’t think what we should take from this parable is that we have to annoy God into responding to our prayers! But the question about the relationship between prayer and justice does come up pretty often.

I found a short piece written by Abdullah Shihipar of Brown University’s People, Place, and Health Collective. He observes the “exhausting routine” that follows mass shootings and other tragedies: politicians offer “thoughts and prayers,” and frustrated activists and members of the public demand ACTION. 

Shihipar writes, “When people—especially those in power—call for thoughts and prayers without doing anything more, it’s meaningless. But prayer can be more than just a figure of speech; in its best form, it combines reflection with intent to act.”

He talks about how in both Islam and Christianity, prayer must be partnered with action. He tells a story about the Prophet Mohammed meeting a man who was leaving his camel without tying it up. The man explained that he was putting his trust in God. The prophet told him that he should trust God AND tie up his camel. Likewise in our Bible, the letter of James says that if you see someone in need, cold and hungry, and you say to them, “Go in peace; stay warm and well fed,” what good is that? Faith without action is as good as dead. 

Shihipar says that prayer without action is “asking God to take care of something we won’t.” 

So what is the role of prayer, for people of faith, in the face of tragedy or injustice? Shihipar writes, “All humans will falter at times—but that’s why prayer is a starting point, at which we clarify our goals and values and ask for God’s help along the way. And then, in tandem, we try.”

God is in the capacity of people and systems to be transformed; the Source of holy persistence and faithful courage; the One who calls us to repentance and renewal of life. And prayer, in its many forms, is how we open our hearts and our minds and our lives to that Source, that One, the Almighty and Merciful. 

Prayer is a starting point, a pause in which we clarify our goals and values and ask for God’s help along the way. 

And then, in tandem, with God’s help, we try.

SOURCES

Frederick Douglass: 

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress/

Abdullah Shihipar’s piece: 

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/06/only-thoughts-and-prayers-we-should-offer-uvalde/661156/

Read my sermon on today’s Gospel, from 2019, here.

1. This Sunday’s Texts
   1. Powerful, emotional Old Testament text; demanding, strange Gospel. But I like what I’ve preached about them in the past. Didn’t have something new to say. 
      1. So I found myself looking at the 2 Timothy reading. 
   2. A few weeks ago I admitted: clergy don’t know all Scriptures equally well. 
      1. There are parts we rushed by in our seminary classes
      2. Parts we tend to ignore in favor of other texts, when preaching. 
      3. Moving towards a decade and a half as a preacher – I’m feeling a pull to spent time with the ones I’ve avoided? 
      4. I’m not sure I’ve ever preached on 2 Tim or its siblings at all. So, here we go. 

2. The Pastoral Epistles
   1. Referring to my Harper-Collins Study Bible – not taking it as my authority, but it summarizes well what I have read and learned elsewhere. 
      1. 1 and 2nd letters to Timothy & letter to Titus – have been seen for a long time as a set. 
      2. Called the Pastoral Epistles because of their concern with leadership roles and church order. 
      3. It’s also been recognized for at least a couple of hundred years that although all three begin by introducing the author of the letter as the apostle Paul, they very likely were not really written by Paul. 
         1. Why? Lots of reasons. First, vocabulary and style notably similar across these three, and notably different from the letters we are pretty sure are really Paul’s voice. 
         2. References to aspects of church order that almost certainly didn’t emerge till long after Paul’s death. 
         3. Key theological and social questions handled very differently from Paul’s thinking and writing. 
   2. Who are Timothy and Titus, the supposed recipients of these letters? 
      1. Timothy – first mentioned in Acts 16 – Paul meets him & takes him on as a helper & fellow traveler. 
         1. In Pauline letters, Paul describes him as a beloved child in the Lord, and brother and co-worker in proclaiming the Gospel. 
      2. We know less about Titus but he is likewise a sometimes companion to Paul, mentioned in the letters to the church in Corinth.
      3. It’s clear that these were real people. Not impossible that there could be letters Paul wrote directly to Timothy, or Titus. But… is that what these are? 

3. Pseudepigrapha
   1. There’s a word for letters that pretend to be written by someone they were’t really written by: Pseudepigrapha. A known thing in both the ancient and contemporary worlds. 
   2. I had picked up the idea that in the ancient world, people didn’t really mind this. That their ideas of authorship and history and authenticity were more flexible than ours. 
      1. It is true that in the centuries surrounding the time of Jesus, there was a lot of this kind of thing being written. 
      2. For example: Just last week we heard a reference to Baruch, the scribe of the prophet Jeremiah, who lived about 600 years before the time of Jesus. 
         1. There is a Book of Baruch in the Apocrypha, probably written about a hundred years before Jesus, give or take, and reflecting on the experience of exile. 
         2. Study Bible intro to Baruch: “It was a common practice during the late Second Temple period” – which encompasses both Jesus’ and Paul’s lifetimes – “to compose edifying works that expanded the biblical tradition.” 
         3. So: Edifying fan fiction. Using existing characters – like Baruch, Daniel, Moses –  to tell a new story, or offer a new perspective on an existing story. 
         4. It seems that this was an accepted literary practice; no actual intention to deceive. 
   3. BUT. But, but, but. Writing a short story about how the exile felt to Baruch, five hundred years after his death, is actually pretty different from writing a letter in Paul’s name, maybe ten or twenty years after Paul’s death. 
      1. Bible scholar Bruce Metzger – difference between a literary pseudepigrapha, and a forgery, with intent to deceive and to borrow someone else’s authority. 
      2. And people in the decades of the early church WERE concerned with authorship and authenticity. 
         1. 2 Thess 3:17 – end of one of the true Paul letters: “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the mark in every letter of mine; it is the way I write.”
            1. He doesn’t quite say, “If the letter doesn’t have my handwriting, don’t trust it,” but it seems close! 
            2. Of course letters would have been copied and shared; and Paul seems to have dictated most of his letters, and just written a short message at the end and signed them. That little bit of Paul’s handwriting would not have been much protection against forgery. But the point is: It was a concern.
            3. Likewise the Didache, one of the earliest Christian texts, talks about the need for churches to check out visiting preachers & try to suss out whether they are the real thing or just grifters. 
            4. Early Christians were aware – as we are aware – that there are folks who will try to get in on anything, for their own benefit or to promote their own agendas; and they tried to guard against it. 

3. 3. 3. It’s possible that some of the stylistic differences between the Pastoral Epistles and the other Pauline letters could be explained by the secretary thing… 
         1. Some folks hold that, as a way to believe this author when he names himself as Paul while also acknowledging the big differences of style. 
         2. But that runs us up against the differences of content, not just vocabulary. 
      4. Neil Elliott book, “Liberating Paul”
         1. Canonical betrayal of Paul: When the Church, over a couple of centuries a long time ago, decided what would be included in the NT, it *betrayed* Paul by including the Pastoral Epistles – because the Pastorals are not just different but diametrically opposed. 
            1. Especially 1 Tim and Titus, there is a lot of emphasis on social order and respectability. Women should be quiet in church. Church leaders should be well regarded in the wider community, and make sure their children behave. Widows who want to be supported by the church should have only been married once, not be gossips, and so on. (Probably pass a drug test…) Older women should avoid getting drunk. Slaves should not talk back to their masters. And oh, by the way, slaves, if your master is a Christian too, that shouldn’t make you think you can talk to them as equals; rather, you should serve them all the more, since by doing so you’re helping a fellow believer! 
         2. Elliott – this is conventional morality, defining Christian living in terms of norms of respectability and proper behavior in the surrounding culture. Sharp contrast with “real” Paul, who favored the “leadership of charismatic women, egalitarian communities, and resistance to Roman coercion.” 
         3. Overall, he says, reading the Pastoral Epistles as if they are actually Paul’s voice turns Paul from an “apostle of freedom” into a “priest of social convention.”
      5. Elliott notes that some people have an understandable feeling that since these letters did become part of the Bible, we should trust the Holy Spirit working through the church and accept their authority. To that, he says: Yes, but: what if they were accepted into the Bible under false pretenses? If we now believe them to be deliberate forgeries… how are we bound to read and regard these texts, as Christians?

4. BUT. If you’re listening very closely indeed, you may have noticed that all that applies to 1 Tim and Titus. 
   1. 2 Tim is at least a little less clear. 
      1. It has a lot of similarities to the other two letters.
      2. It also has significant differences. 
         1. There is less of the social order stuff and, frankly, the misogyny – though there is a passage in chapter 3 about how people have to be careful about false teachers ensnaring “silly women” who are “overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires.” Don’t love that! 
         2. Instead, more focus on advising Timothy – or “Timothy” – to stay strong and keep proclaiming the Gospel, no matter what happens. 
            1. Understanding of the letter that Paul is imprisoned in Rome – his final imprisonment – and that Christians are facing a wave of persecution. 
         3. Is 2 Tim different because it’s a different voice – or just because it’s a different kind of letter? Some scholars think the Pastorals were written together and intended to be read together. 
            1. A little symphony with three movements – second one strikes a different tone, third one reprises themes from the first.  
            2. Scholars of ancient texts would describe 2 Tim as falling into the genre of “testament” – someone offering final advice before their anticipated death. This was a kind of text that people wrote and read. 
   2. Differences between 2 Tim & 1 Tim just in the short passage we have today. Let me point out one. 
      1. “I remind you to fan the flame of the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands.”
         1. 1 Tim 4.14: “Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders.” 
            1. “Council of elders” is one of the bits that sounds like it’s talking about the church in the second century. Not a known form of church organization in Paul’s time. (And this sounds like ordination.) 
            2. OTOH, for Paul to lay hands on Timothy as a way to pass on the Holy Spirit is totally consistent with Acts & Paul’s known letters. 
   3. It is possible that 2 Tim preserves fragments of actual letters of Paul. It’s also possible that this is just a pretty skilled forgery. 
      1. After all, the stakes were fairly high, if this author was motivated by wanting their opinions about how everybody should be acting at church to bear the weight of Paul’s authority.  
      2. The author here – if not Paul – had clearly studied at least some of Paul’s letters, and the book of Acts. Knew Paul’s writing pretty well. 
         1. These letters are petty; Paul could be petty.
         2. These letters have poetic moments; Paul could be poetic.
         3. These letters use some weird sports and military metaphors; Paul sometimes did that too. 
      3. These letters lay it on thick with specific names and details; does that point to their authenticity, or were they, as my study bible puts it, “crafted to lend pathos and concreteness to the Letter’s warnings and exhortations”? 

5. How do we read and receive this text? 
   1. It comes to us as Scripture, for better or worse – though we’re free to find it more or less spiritually helpful. 
      1. I feel bound to at least ask, with a text like this: Is there a word or a witness here for me, for us, today? Accepting that sometimes the answer might be No. 
   2. When I first read this passage, this line seized my attention: “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”
   3. Is this small-s spirit or capital-S Spirit? I’m not sure it matters. I think the understanding of the early church was that in baptism, the Holy Spirit activates something that keeps working inside us, especially if we tend to it – fan its flames, as this author advises. 
   4. Let’s take these gifts of the Spirit in order. First comes Power – dunamis in Greek, the root of our words dynamite and dynamic. It can mean magical or holy power, but more commonly it means ability, strength, capacity to do stuff. 
      1. I sometimes talk about agency – our ability to act. Having a sense of agency is important; feeling helpless eats away at our souls. 
      2. That’s one reason even small actions in the face of big problems do matter.  We need to feel our ability to push our lives and world closer to our hopes and intentions. And sometimes small steps give us courage to take bigger steps. 
      3. Our text here says that’s one of the things the spirit does in us: gives us power. Strengthens our capacity to act. 

5. 5. Love. The Greek of the New Testament has several words for love; the word here is Agape. Agape is the word used for God’s love for humanity, and the ideal for the kind of love Christians should have towards one another and our neighbors: an unselfish love that always seeks the good of the other. 
      1. So that’s another thing the Holy Spirit kindles in us: our capacity to love and bear with one another.
   6. And then there’s the last word, self-discipline. I spent a long time on this word!
      1. It’s part of the distinctive vocabulary of the Pastoral Epistles – used in all three, and not really elsewhere. 
      2. It’s been translated lots of different ways: sobriety, self-control, moderation, sound-mindedness. 
      3. Since it isn’t used elsewhere in the New Testament, we can’t look at it in other contexts to help understand it.
      4. I looked and looked for more information about this word – and finally I hit Greek ethics, that whole big body of ancient literature about what it means to be a good person and what our purpose in life should be. 
      5. It turns out the root of this word – sophron – was a pretty core idea in Greek ethics. Jewish scholars in the first century were studying that stuff, so I think it’s probably what this text has in mind. 
      6. Sophron is related to a word I talk about a lot: Sozo, meaning rescued, saved, restored. Sophron combines that word with a word for mind or understanding. So, “sound mind” really is maybe the simplest translation – “sound” as in “safe and sound.” 
      7. There are literal entire books about the concept of sophron in Greek ethics. But from what I could find easily, it refers to being a person who knows what the right thing to do is – and is able to do it, without inner struggle. 
         1. It’s a state of harmony, of being in alignment within yourself and with the world, of being attuned to truth, in a way that leads towards right action. 
      8. The word here in our text is a becoming-word. It’s sophron plus a suffix that indicates being called towards something. So: the spirit within us draws us towards that kind of clarity and alignment and capacity to know and do what is good and right. 
   7. Next Sunday, God willing, we’re doing a baptism at our 10AM service. The family is new to the church, seeking a faith home. We’ll bless baby S and name her as Christ’s own forever. 
      1. It’s the Church’s understanding that the Holy Spirit does something within a person at baptism. And maybe the author of 2 Tim here – whoever he may be – has given us a way to think about those gifts of the Spirit within us. 
      2. The gift of power – the capacity to act in the world, to make a difference. I want that for S, and for all of us.
      3. The gift of love – the capacity to connect, to share, to give and receive care, to build community. I want that for S, and for all of us.
      4. And the gift of sophron – of something deep inside that shapes us, over a lifetime, towards knowing and choosing the good. I want that for S, and for all of us. 
      5. May we fan the flames of the gifts that are within us by the grace of the Holy Spirit, friends. Amen. 

A few sources… 

John Stott, though he ultimately believes 2 Tim at least is Pauline, has some helpful blog posts working through the pseudepigrapha idea: 

https://johnstott.org/bible_studies/20-nov-2019/

https://johnstott.org/bible_studies/16-may-2022/

Excerpt of Neil Elliott’s book:

http://www.kingscollege.net/gbrodie/Elliott%20Pauline%20pseudepigraphy.PDF

Regarding sophron, I read lots of stuff. This is dense but fascinating –

https://www.its-her-factory.com/2013/03/ancient-greek-neoliberal-harmony-pt-1-sophrosyne-as-proportion/

Okay. When we hear this story, I think there’s something in the story that can really distract us and make it hard for us to hear what Jesus means us to hear. 

The thing that is distracting is the idea that the rich man is sent to a place of suffering after he dies. That because of how he acted when he was alive, now he’s somewhere surrounded by flames, desperately thirsty, and without any help or relief. 

I understand why that’s a distracting idea. It’s an upsetting idea!

Some of you might have grown up in churches that talked a lot about how our beliefs and actions in life might mean we go to Heaven – or Hell – when we die. (You may have noticed that’s NOT stuff we talk about a lot here…)

The places where the rich man and Lazarus end up when they die, in the story, are not Heaven and Hell. Those ideas really come along later, though there are similarities. 

Instead Jesus is using an idea about the afterlife, about the place people go when they die, that was common at the time.

People thought the afterlife was like a countryside. And some parts of it were really lovely and lush and comfortable – like the valleys of Abraham, where Lazarus is. And some parts of it were terrible and dry and scorched – like where the rich man is. 

And maybe there’s a literal chasm – like, a great big split in the ground – between those two places. 

Listen, this is important: Jesus is using this idea to help him tell a story, to make a point. He is not trying to tell people what actually happens after we die.

There are a couple of other places where he seems to try to gesture in that direction – when he says things like, Even if you die, you live; and In my Father’s house are many mansions. 

But it seems like it’s one of the things that’s pretty hard to explain. 

And he’s not trying to explain it, here.

He’s just telling a story. 

And notice that the characters in the story are extreme characters.

The rich man is very rich – he’s like a stereotype of the worst kind of rich person: he has a feast of fancy food every day, and he literally steps over this poor man at his gate, when he goes out shopping for more fine linen clothing. 

And the poor man is very poor – lying in the street with no one to feed or help him. 

Maybe we could imagine this happening in real life, unfortunately – but these aren’t real-life characters. 

This is a story told to make a point. 

So what is the point? 

The point of this story, I think, is about knowing better. 

The last part of the story is the important part; the rest is just setting things up for this conversation between Abraham and the rich man. 

And the point of that conversation is that the rich man – and his brothers! – had every reason to know how they should act towards the poor at their doorstep. 

Look, the rich man even knows Lazarus’s name; it’s not like he’s just never noticed him. 

The point of this story is not that the rich man should have been kind to Lazarus TO AVOID PUNISHMENT IN THE AFTERLIFE.

That is not the reason he should have been kind!

God does not want us to do kind and right and just things because we are afraid. That was the church’s idea, I think. 

Fear is not a healthy heart-reason to do good things. 

Not what God wants from us or for us. 

The point is that the rich man should have been kind to Lazarus because it was the right thing to do.

It was what all the teachings and traditions of his faith told him.

Moses and the prophets, the sacred texts of the Old Testament, the Scriptures of Jesus’ people, are super clear about the responsibility to care for the poor and the sick, to share our resources and respond with kindness to those in need. 

And he should have helped Lazarus because it was a human need right in front of him that he could have easily met.

I think what we should carry away from this story is just a reminder that we know how we should act in this world, how we should treat people … and we don’t always do it.

When we have a chance to be kind, we should be kind. 

Now, sometimes we’re the ones who need kindness, right? Sometimes we’re the ones who need that helping hand. 

Sometimes it flip flops on a daily basis whether we need the kindness, or are in a position to offer kindness.

But when there’s a need right in front of us, a chance to just make somebody’s life a little better or easier – we should TAKE IT. 

Not because we’re afraid of eternal torment, but because that’s the kind of people God asks us to be. 

There’s one more thing I want us to notice about this story…

We have two characters: a very rich person and a very poor person.

Remember a few weeks ago when we talked about who people think is important… 

Who would most people think is more important, of those two people? …

But which one does Jesus give a name, in the story? … 

About the vales of Abraham… https://publicorthodoxy.org/2018/10/11/the-vale-of-abraham/