Sermon . . . Not

Today was my last day at the parish.  I'm taking this upcoming week off as vacation while I work on the last of the details before we leave town.  Consequently I didn't do any sermon prep this past week and decided I'd just do it on the fly.

Luckily it was an easy gospel lesson:

"Jesus said, 'There was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day.  Outside his gate lay Lazarus, a poor man, who wished for even some scraps from his table and even the dogs would come and lick his sores'."

The parable goes on to say they both died, the rich man being everlastingly tormented for how he treated Lazarus, and Lazarus being delivered to everlasting life.

In my last sermon to the parish I said two things:  Not only are we called to care for the less fortunate among us (as the rich man clearly did not), but we are also called to SEE those who are less fortunate than ourselves.  We may not be able to help a person, we may not be able to get them off the street, we may not be able to house everybody, we may not be able to employ everyone, but we can SEE them.  We can recognize them as people.  We can, as our baptismal covenant says, "Respect the dignity of every human being."

Don't neglect to see those outside our gates.

Service was followed by a potluck brunch with some lovely parting gifts and well-wishes all around.  There were some tears.  There was some laughter.  There was the acknowledgement that we were all taking off on a new adventure.