Sermon shared during visit to Zion Lutheran Church in Beulah, ND on September 28, 2028.
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Sisters and brothers, friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen.
First of all, thank you for welcoming me into your community again this weekend. I’m not sure how many times I’ve been able to worship with you since I began serving as your bishop. I think this is the third or fourth time. I’m grateful for the journey we’ve been on together. And, really, grateful for what God is doing today and will continue to do through you in this sacred part of God’s creation.
Second, I offer greetings of abundant joy from your sisters and brothers across the 158 congregations of the western North Dakota Synod, the nearly 9,000 congregations whom we are connected to in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and 149 Lutheran denominations who call us into relationship with 77 million other Lutheran Christians around the world in the Lutheran World Federation.
Those relationships – within our congregation and local community, across our denomination, and around the world enable us to serve as the hands, feet, voices, and financial resources of Jesus that bring forth healing and life on every continent on Earth.
You and I need to be reminded of that truth once in a while. Because one prayer offered in this sanctuary, one dollar given as an offering to this congregation’s mission, one stitch sown in the creation of a quilt – brings abundant blessings to God’s children in ways far greater than anything we can imagine on our own.
It’s also probably okay to offer a confession right near the beginning of this sermon. Often, in the past, whenever this gospel reading showed up, I’d either intentionally skip it and preach on a different text, or I’d pass it off to another preacher.
Wait a minute, maybe that’s why Jeff and Pastor Kathi invited me to preach today. Don’t worry, that’s not true. This was actually one of the only Sundays available on my calendar yet this year when the invitation first arrived several months ago. And as I told Jeff, he had me when he said that this Sunday was Salsa Sunday!
If you’ve been paying attention in worship over the past few weeks, hopefully, you’ve noticed a few themes that have connected each week together as we continue our journey through this somewhat challenging – and amazingly grace-filled – middle section of Luke’s gospel.
Recent themes have included things like abundant generosity and grace of God; themes of joy that we are invited to live out each day; themes of wealth given to us as a gift by God that is entrusted to our care; themes that are all centered on relationship.
Relationship with each other as children of God.
Relationship with God through our savior Jesus.
Of all the scripture readings there are about money and wealth and ethics that we find in holy scripture, I think today’s reading and the one we received last week are among the most challenging.
I’m going to take a crack at this one today, but I don’t think I am in any way unpacking everything that Jesus says to us in this text. I’m not sure a thousand sermons could begin to do that.
And I’m very grateful for Pastor Kathi’s sermon last weekend about grace and just how alien grace can sound and be for those of us who try to follow this Jesus.
At the heart of today’s gospel, and one of the primary things that hear from Jesus throughout the gospels is this – care for the poor and condemnation of inappropriate use of wealth.
If you read the gospel according to Saint Luke from chapter 1, verse 1 to chapter 24, verse 53, these themes – care for the poor and our use of the wealth that God has entrusted to our care are pretty central.
A couple things ring in my ear every time I hear this particular parable; one, it’s likely that I’m not nearly as rich as the guy Jesus is talking about; and, two, I’m always trying to pay attention to the little guy, the poor. I’d never step over someone suffering on the street like Lazarus. Ha!
Well…if I’m being honest with myself and to you today, both aren’t necessarily true in my life – there are times when I misuse my wealth and other times when caring for the poor is not really all that important to me.
Heck, Wendy and I just got back to North Dakota on Friday morning after spending a few days celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary in Las Vegas. You can fill in the blanks there. And I’ll continue to lean on God’s unconditional grace.
The chaos of Las Vegas aside, let’s bring this a little closer to home.
The annual median household income for Burleigh County, where I live, in 2023 was $84,948.
The annual median household income for Mercer County, again in 2023, was $79,405.
Without digging too deeply into those numbers and what they may or may not mean, it’s a safe assumption that you and I are among the wealthiest people in the world. I would even argue that, like it or not, you and I are the ones dressed in purple and fine linens like the rich man in today’s gospel.
But, here’s the thing.
By knowing that truth, hopefully we can seek to live out our faith believing and focusing our attention on the inequality that still plagues God’s good creation in 2025. Inequality that is not only harmful to those who are poor, but also to those of us who are rich. And maybe we can see once again that God is calling us to live differently.
For most of my adult life, one central truth about the gospel has been at the forefront of my faith journey. That truth is this…I do not believe that you and I can have a healthy relationship with anyone or anything else, if we don’t have a healthy relationship with God.
That’s the heart of the gospel.
If God is not first in our lives, we will constantly live our lives like the rich man in today’s gospel – focused only on acquiring more and more wealth, so we can live lavish lifestyles and simply ignore those around us who have little or nothing.
Theologian Lisa Davison offers a wonderful reflection on this gospel reading, “How you and I spend money is directly connected to what we believe about God. Whatever wealth we have is a trust from God, not a sign of God’s favor. When we allow material riches to dominate our lives, our relationship with God is directly affected. Greed and selfishness are the exact opposite of God’s character, and therefore they lead us away from the path set before us in the commandments and life of Jesus.” Davison concludes her thought by saying, “People should not feel guilty for being able to meet the needs of their families; money is not sinful. Our attitude toward our resources and the way we utilize them is the true measure of our faith.” [Lisa W. Davison, www.sundaysandseasons.com]
I said earlier that one of the central points of Luke’s gospel is care for the poor and condemnation for inappropriate use of wealth. But those broad themes are not the most important point of the gospels, are they?
You and I must never forget the center of the gospel – the good news of the savior of the world Jesus the Christ!
Our hope does not lie in our actions. Our hope lies in the actions God has done, is doing, and will continue to do until the end of time for us through the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus isn’t designed to call us into acts of charity necessarily. This parable reminds us that life in God’s kingdom is different from the life we experience here on earth. And the fact in all of this, is that those who follow Jesus already live in a different reality.
When I was serving as a parish pastor, I would begin the offering time in worship the same way each week. I would say something like this. “Our tithes and offerings today and every day are the God given given of our hands, feet, voices, and financial resources that enable God’s work to happen through us.”
What I hoped to convey whenever I said that is that anything we do as children of God – at home or work; in our families or among our friends; through our church or the local American Legion post – all of it is possible because God is already at work through you.
I am grateful for that unending and eternal truth. Because that indeed is good news!
Sisters and brothers in Christ of Zion Lutheran Church – it is good to be with you on Salsa Sunday!
I am grateful for the ways that God is using your hands to bless your neighbors near and far, in every corner of the world.
I am grateful for the ways God is using your feet to care for your neighbors in ways that would be impossible to do without Christ Jesus at your side.
I am grateful for the ways God is using your voices to bring forth change in our communities, our state, and our nation that heal our neighbors who have never heard about Jesus before.
And I am grateful for the ways that God is using your financial resources, gifts from God entrusted to your care, that enable the gospel to be proclaimed and shared through everything that we do and say together as part of Christ’s church.
May God continue to abundantly bless you and keep you, people of God at Zion. As you keep God first in your life, I believe you will continue serving the God of all creation and time with the God given gifts of your hands, feet, voices, and financial resources in all that you say and do. Every day. In every way!
Thanks be to God! Amen.
Bishop Craig Schweitzer 
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