Texts: Psalm 36; Luke 16: 19-30

“They’re really dreadful,” I commented to the man standing next to me. “Yeah, you know, they play at the Stone Pony.” For the uninitiated, that’s the music club where Springsteen got his start. “Are you going to get a CD?” he asked and then I realized that he really hadn’t heard what I said. The racket -- and, it was a racket -- was so loud that you couldn’t hear yourself think. So, there I was: trying to find someone to talk to who could at least pretend to belong to something approximating my generation and it was bombing out. It was a really good thing that I had agreed to participate in the Cardboard City because I believed it was important that we bring attention to the problem of the lack of affordable housing because few other issues would have, could have, gotten me to give up a night that otherwise would have been dedicated to reading a good book.

Well, as I tell people, I can sleep through anything and I did. In the morning when everyone else was bleary eyed, I only suffered from a backache. Maybe because I didn’t have to chaperone teenagers -- thank God for that -- I was able to sleep without worrying about what was going on in the boxes down the way. I was, as I learned later, the oldest participant there by at least 15 years. The crowning moment came when some super bright exec type looked at me incredulously, declaring, “You don’t look old enough to be my mother.” Thanks a lot, I thought.

So… what’s a one night stand as a homeless person got to do with this morning’s Gospel? Actually it was not just some symbolic attempt to experience what it means to be homeless; it was what the rich man asked as he now suffered as had Lazarus before him. We only did this for a night, a night that was absolutely beautiful, warm though a little buggy, but still only for a night. It didn’t rain or snow. How many of us wonder when we see that weather about people who have no warm place to go, to sleep. How many of us ask ourselves how in a country so rich there is still such a gap between people that can result in homelessness. In a country, in a state such as ours, should we even need an organization like Family Promise? It seems like we do.

What does it take for our society to respond to the needs of others? It should not take our own private moments in hell -- and I don’t mean the hell of an afterlife. There must be some deep flaw embedded in our very humanness that results in our not being responsive in some aspect of human need. Perhaps it’s the need to distance ourselves from the tragedies that befall others because we’re so afraid they will befall us as well.

Our need to separate ourselves from others in that way is not just about the larger social issues such as homelessness, poverty, and the like. It really affects us in the very way we relate to other human beings. Each one of us, including me, likes to think of ourselves as individuals, apart from others even while we acknowledge our common humanity. We all like to think of ourselves as special in some way. I think this is the crux of it. None of us likes to realize that but for one small event, we are no different than so many who have fallen through the cracks of our veneer of civilization.

We don’t like to realize that our civilization is a veneer that covers deeper, more primal emotions. A few days ago a woman with a borderline intelligence was put to death by the state because some judge saw her as the head of the serpent in a plot to kill her husband and stepson. The crime was heinous, no question about it, but the two men she ostensibly hired to carry out her scheme sit in prison, not on death row. Her sentence was a reminder to women: don’t murder your husbands. The language used by the judge in the case set her apart from others: head of the serpent he called her. That’s what we do; we set ourselves apart from others. And that’s what the parable is all about: not recognizing our common humanity.

In the morning, volunteers brought juice, coffee, and more bagels than we ever needed. People, mostly kids, packed up their boxes, some decorated with quotes about the homeless, poverty, and the need to create a new reality here in Monmouth County. We adults mostly moaned about our backs but also engaged in community building to address the larger issues of homelessness in Monmouth County, one of the wealthiest counties in the second wealthiest state in the nation. Guess what state has the highest median income: New Hampshire. But in every state with high income, there is a terrible disparity; they are also the states with the lowest income. New Jersey may have towns like Middletown, Rumson, Little Silver, but it also has Camden and Newark, realities of the failure of our society.

Like the rich man and Lazarus, we need a new reality. The question for us becomes how much we are willing to give up of our old reality to get it. What does it take to have a society where no one is homeless or hungry? A total shift in priorities, but that’s no easy answer because not enough of us are willing to give up what we might have so others will not have to do without. The question for society becomes how far into hell are we willing to descend before appreciating the changes we need to make.

Let us pray: You, O God who has told us how to live justly and kindly with others, help us not to forget the lessons of a night, or of an encounter, but help us to work for a society where all have a decent place to live. Amen.