For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
#6 We Believe!
What does it mean when we have proximity without fellowship? Through Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, we get a glimpse. This parable reveals two men sharing the same address—one living in luxury while the other suffers at his gate—yet separated by an unbridgeable social gulf that continues even after death.
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about the parable and how the rich man's sin wasn't wealth but indifference to human suffering. Rather than being "Washington-minded and locally neglectful," Wright urges us to start by interrogating our own hearts. Listen in for the full conversation.
Read For Faith, the companion devotional.
If we want to know what the contrast is between all these wonderful ideas and something specifically located in the politics of Jesus, then we have to read the stories as they are laid out. And while many things sometimes are open to vast sort of fields of interpretation, in this story, the 16th chapter of Luke, Jesus is crystal clear. This conversation is between the ones who have an awful lot and the ones who have not much at all.
Melissa:Welcome to For People with Bishop Rob Wright. I'm your host Melissa Rau. You can find a link to this week's For Faith and a link to subscribe in the episode's description. Bishop and I have been having a conversation through which he has framed his devotions recently over the theme We Believe as we make our way through Luke. Good morning, Bishop.
Bishop Wright:Good morning.
Melissa:You you titled this week's devotion We Share. We believe in sharing.
Bishop Wright:Yeah.
Melissa:And it's based on Luke chapter 16, verses 19 to 31. And a rich man and a poor man die. Want to share more about your quote elaborate story.
Bishop Wright:One of my favorite stories that Jesus tells, you know, uh, you know, we had to get rid of Jesus, I'll I often like to say, because he told these piercing, penetrating stories that you could not hide from. Right? There's what's the old adage? There is no wall uh high enough to keep poetry out, right? And so Jesus tells this poetic story. Two men basically had the same address. The poor man lived at the gate of the rich man, right? They had uh proximity but no fellowship, right? And uh so you know we could say that number one, we ought to examine uh our situations for that proximity to people with no fellowship. And Jesus is always calling us into fellowship, not just sort of these quasi-polite configurations of relationships, but to know and to be known, right, is where our humanity sort of flourishes and we get to see the humanity of others. So that could be a whole sermon itself. But what you gotta love about this story is that there's an amazing twist, and Jesus he knows all the triggers and he just, you know, he just sort of clicks them right off. Uh so the rich man dined sumptuously while the poor man, you know, uh laid at the gates and ate crumbs and uh uh needed health care and didn't have any resources for that. The only medicine he had for his sores was the dog's saliva. I mean, you know, you he just paints these vivid, vivid stories, but the great equalizer is that they both die. Right? And then off we go into this whole other sort of adventure with Jesus about life and about listening to God, uh, and about um a judgment day. I think we have to say that.
Melissa:Who's judgment though, Bishop?
Bishop Wright:Yeah, easy. In this story, it's God's, right? So the the rich man is not scorned for his abundance, right? And the poor man is not scorned for his lack of resources, right? But God seems in this story, Jesus tells this story, God seems to have some ideas about some things, about how we should live. Uh, and the rich man, he brings his arrogance into the afterlife, right? He still thinks uh that the uh that the poor man is his subordinate, uh his errand boy, valet, and can be told to go and do, right? So the rich man dies and goes to Hades, right? Uh, but the poor man uh he is taken up by Father Abraham and the angels, right? Uh and uh, you know, we we're this this wonderful sort of trip to life, fantastic, where they have connection and relationship in the afterlife. They're able to have a dialogue in the afterlife. And we learn and begin to get an idea that somehow indifference to others is an affront to God, right? So that's a big deal. Um, you know, uh both uh live close enough together and there was plenty enough to share, but it never got shared. I mean, one wonders did the rich man have to actually step over the poor man to get into his front door?
Melissa:Okay, so I'm listening to all that you're putting down, and I agree 100% with it. And I think there are lots of folks who will judge, and this goes this ties directly to worthiness and not so much about worthiness in God's eyes, but worthiness in other people's eyes. I suspect there are a lot of people who let's call them rich men and women who share a heck of a whole heck of a lot, maybe with one another and not so much with the people who could really use it. So we're not talking about it's kind of more the equity versus equality thing. And how do we help people understand that sharing is sharing is sharing, period, full stop?
Bishop Wright:Well, I mean, we can say sharing is sharing is sharing, and I I happen to believe that you know, part of an aligned life with God is sharing and sharing and sharing, right? But but here's the problem with Christianity, right? Jesus. So we can think all we want to think about, lots of different things, and we can domesticate ideas however we want to domesticate them. We can wrangle them to affirm us, right? But then you have the problem of a 2,000-year-old Jew who told a story in a particular way. And so, in this particular way, sharing and sharing and sharing is not what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is talking about the sharing. What's implicit in this story is you neglected to share with the most needy in your midst. And so, and so I think that's what we have to do. We have to be careful, as one person said to me not long ago, uh as we were sort of talking about so what do we do now, you know, with the complexity and velocity of our American uh life together, 249 years of being a nation on our way to being 250 years, what is the church's contribution to all that? And he said, Rob, read the gospel slow. And so, if we want to know what the contrast is between all these wonderful ideas and something specifically located in the politics of Jesus, then we have to read the stories as they are laid out. And while many things sometimes are open to vast sort of fields of interpretation, in this story, the 16th chapter of Luke, Jesus is crystal clear. This conversation is between the ones who have an awful lot and the ones who have not much at all.
Melissa:Okay, and so do you mind if I talk about hot topic? I know you don't, I don't even know why I asked.
Bishop Wright:I thought that's what we do together.
Melissa:Yeah, about uh a little more than two weeks ago. We had a pretty uh significant thing, Rock Our Nation, with the murder of Charlie Kirk. And I'm also thinking about sharing. And I think we're really good at sharing our opinions and then not really putting our opinions into action. And I'm curious what you think Jesus might have said about that very thing, about grandstanding or virtue signaling without action.
Bishop Wright:Well, I mean, again, it it doesn't even really have to be what I think about what Jesus said. I mean, what Jesus said is pretty, pretty clear. Uh I mean, you know, Jesus was really worried, concerned about um religiosity for the public square. I mean, and he said as much. Um He he called people like me out, um, people who sort of are professional Christians or professional believers in his time, professional sort of pious Jews. He he called them out, and he seemed to always say that the best expressions of alignment with God are how you live with the poor and downtrodden, um, that you make the words of your faith real, um, that you know, no great um sort of uh trumpet blare is necessary, just the living out uh of all of this uh with a seriousness, a soberness, and with a good humor. So, you know, we have to say uh over this channel that uh political violence of every kind and of every sort is abhorrent. It's abhorrent, I think, for our republic, and it's abhorrent, I think, in the sight of God. Uh, you know, a man was murdered uh in front of his wife and children, and uh and we have to condemn that. You know, if we can't all condemn that, then I think we've got real problems. Uh we all must condemn the fact that Mr. Kirk was uh was assassinated uh for his for his words, ostensibly for his words. And we've got to say that uh one of the defining characteristics of this nation, as far as I can tell, has been the defense of free speech. Uh it doesn't say that we have to love what everybody says, but we have said, as a matter of uh of our way to be a government and our way to be a nation, that uh uh free speech uh is sacrosancing. And so uh should we debate? Yes. Uh should we disagree? Yes. Uh you know, all of that. But when uh when bullets are the response to words that we don't like, uh we've got a mortal problem. So I want to say, I want to say that. Um going forward, you know, I think that what would have been more interesting for me, uh, and I appreciated that Mr. Kirk wanted to engage people who thought differently than he did, but what would have been more interesting for me uh were he to live would see would be to see him have conversations um with people who wanted to talk about the merits of the gospel and how the gospel contrasted what we would call Christian nationalism. Um, you know, I I cannot judge uh Mr. Kirk. Uh I only can listen to what he said uh and uh and think about how those words uh align um through the eyes of grace and mercy. But what I uh lament, I suppose, is that oftentimes sentences were rendered uh, you know, with a little sort of Jesus and Christianity sprinkled over them, which seem to me to be perpendicular to the gospel. And so what I worried about was that people would were sort of embracing uh what we might call a sign, a sound bite spirituality. Uh you know, it's it's sort of a religiosity, it's just a thin veneer of Christianity, you know, over really sort of political goals and aims. And so, you know, and that's not specific to Mr. Kirk, although I think he did participate, you know, in that version of it. And it's a very popular version nowadays, is that we think somehow that Jesus is uh is American, uh an English speaker, anti-immigrant, pro-gun, anti-trans, and anti-gay. Um, and that uh and that that uh somehow Jesus would appreciate very much um you know a mercilessness uh in our exertion of power. And and and this is why these stories are so important. Uh I'm one person, you're another person, Mr. Kirk is another person. Everybody's sort of got their interpretation. What helps us uh is that if we can all remain sort of open uh and approach the gospel, what did Jesus actually say? And and then try to bring our politics in line with the politics displayed in the Bible. This I think is critical. Critical. And uh um and this is the the kind of work that I think we've got to do with each other. Um uh and so we don't see this happening nearly enough, but this is actually the work is to let Jesus's politics have sway over our own political proclivities.
Melissa:Okay, so there's an I and there's a we.
Bishop Wright:Yeah.
Melissa:How do we hold those two things in tension and where do we begin?
Bishop Wright:Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, it's a great question. I mean, you know, I and I worry sometimes that we're so, at least in America, we're so Washington-minded that we're sort of locally neglectful. Right? So, so I think we start with us, right? And so I I think that we have to interrogate our own hearts. Um, we have to ask ourselves, you know, or we have to ask Jesus. I mean, I believe in prayer still, you know. I believe, Lord, help me see uh those things which I dare not see or refuse to see, uh, so that I can be in alignment with you and be a better witness for you, right? Uh in the Episcopal Church, in our service of ordination, we talk about all those things that'll make me a more able minister of the gospel, right? And so what we know is that Jesus is neither Republican nor Democrat, right? And that we know that in the kingdom of heaven there's not a democratic section or Republican section. And neither, by the way, is there an American section or a Venezuelan section, et cetera, et cetera. So, I mean, to one degree, uh all of this energy that we're expending uh over and against one another is totally futile. Totally futile. And, you know, this story, just to bring it back to the story, this story in Luke 16, the rich man and the poor man, it it surfaces this the futility of gaining things at the you know at the peril of losing one's soul. Right? And so I think that I think that that's that's one of the things that the gospel can help us to do is to sort of think about things that are eternal and and not sort of devalue those things for things temporal. And so I'm sure the rich man in this story, and we don't have to castigate him or condemn him, but I'm sure he probably got up in the morning, he probably worked hard, he probably went to school and did all the things, he probably did all the training, he probably did some philanthropy, he probably did all of that. I mean, I don't think we have to condemn him, but it may be, it may be in the story that um while he was so focused on that, so diligent in those sorts of things, that he missed the opportunity to be a blessing at his front door.
Melissa:Well said. Bishop, thank you, and thank you, listeners, for listening to For People. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright or by visiting www.forpeople.digital. Please subscribe, leave a review, and we'll be back with you next week.