Dear friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

As we celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of Lake of the Isles Church, I will be sharing stories that may have been forgotten or overlooked in the written history.  The Lutheran congregation was not formed until 1936, but the foundation was laid a decade earlier.  Today, I would like to continue with the story of the dedication of the church and the Great Depression of 1929.

On the back wall of the cloister there is a plaque dedicated to Hewitt & Brown, the architectural firm that designed Lake of the Isles Church.  For nearly 20 years starting in 1911, Edwin Hewitt and Edwin Brown designed many of the most prestigious and recognizable building in Minnesota; the Minneapolis Telephone Building, the Cathedral of St. Mark’s, Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church, Fort Snelling Chapel, the Metropolitan Bank Building, the Northwestern Life Insurance Building,  the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts, the YWCA and numerous private residences. When the firm was commissioned to do the work on Lake of the Isles Church they were to include two architectural elements, the original cornerstone from the ruins of the Lowry Hill Congregational Church and a portion of the surviving stained-glass window.  The cornerstone can be seen today outside. As for the stained-glass window, it originally hung inside the church where the front of the organ stands today.  When the new organ was installed in 1980, the window was removed and placed in storage. Two decades later when the 21^st side entrance was redone and the elevator added, the pieces were reassembled and placed in the window where the entrance door once stood.

The cost for building Lake of the Isles Church has been reported at various dollar amounts from $100,000 to $250,000. The congregation anticipated the original cost of $100,000, which they did raise to finance the project. However, while the construction progressed, so did the cost, so that there were insufficient funds when the church opened its doors on Easter Sunday, 1929.   The congregation was forced to borrow an additional $100,000 that year, which ultimately, when the stock market fell that year they could not pay. Many of the principal bondholders suffered heavy losses. By 1932, the congregation disbanded and abandoned the church. The church was not the only empty building.  67 homes were also vacant in the neighborhood.

I am sure the rich man dressed in purple in Jesus’ parable could have never imagined seeing his wealth disappear either. There is of course, nothing wrong with being rich.  Father Abraham himself was a very wealthy man.  He had flocks and land.  But as Saint Paul warned the early Christian church, “The love of money is the root of all evil.”  Jesus warned his followers as well.  “You cannot worship God and wealth.”  You must choose one or the other.

The rich man made his choice and dressed dressed in purple and fine linen.  He knew the value of well-constructed clothing and the image that it portrayed.  Purple was the color of nobility.  It was expensive to purchase and difficult to clean.  As for linen, it was impractical, costly and always imported.   In contrast, the poor man had no fine clothes.  We merely read that he was covered with sores.

Moderation didn’t seem to be characteristic of the rich man either. Food and drink were for his gratification alone.  Hi didn’t honor the Jewish practice of fasting or observing the Sabbath.  He ate sumptuously.  And this wasn’t simply a once a week occurrence or restricted to holidays.  The rich man feasted lavishly… every day.  The poor man, in contrast… longed to satisfy his hunger with the morsels that fell from the rich man’s table. The rich man enjoyed the comforts of his home, while the poor man sat on the street tormented by the constant attacks of wild dogs.  According to the parable, the poor man had only one advantage over the rich man.  He had a name Lazarus, Eliezar, which means “God helps us.”

The sharp contrasts continued in death as well.  Lazarus died and was carried away, escorted by the angels to the bosom of Abraham, and the rich man was buried and appeared in the fiery, flames of Hades. Throughout his life only one thing separated Lazarus from the rich man- the gate. The rich man looked at Lazarus through the gate, and he even knew his name, but he never attempted to ease the pain of his neighbor.  He looked at Lazarus and never thought to feed him from his own table.  He never considered clothing him with any more than his sores. He never pondered housing him from the dangers of the night. Surprisingly, even in death, he seemed to think that he could order Lazarus around. “Father Abraham, tell Lazarus to do this and do that.”

I rather suspect that that is the uncomfortable truth of this morning’s gospel. The rich man didn’t do anything wrong.  He had not acted cruelly to inflict pain or injury upon Lazarus.  No, his human failing was simply … that he didn’t do anything at all.  He allowed the poor man to become a part of his day-to-day landscape, without seeing him or caring for him.  My friends, the warning is clear.  If you long to be held within the loving caress of the bosom of Abraham, you must learn to see the needs of the people beyond your own gate and respond to them now.  Or else, most assuredly, there will one day be a far greater divide between you and the Lazaruses of this world.

You and I, we may wish to say that in comparison to the truly rich of the world, we are poor, but I’m afraid, in contrast to the majority of the people in this world, we are indeed quite wealthy.  We are tempted daily through television, radio, newspapers and magazines, and perhaps our own voices, to see the world through the eyes of the rich man.  Jesus offers us three warnings.

Beware of the world’s notion that “You deserve it.”  Frankly, this notion is neither helpful nor Christian.  Oh, certainly, God created humanity and said that it was good.  We are reminded in the gospel that Jesus himself entered into the world that “we should have life, and have it abundantly.”  But such a personal philosophy betrays God’s very purpose for humanity in the scope of all creation.  You and I have been given a holy call and mission.  We are to tend to the care and nurture of all creation.  The rich man looked into the mirror every morning and whispered, “You deserve it.”  He cared only for himself and did not tend to the needs of the world.  Do you?

Secondly, we live in a world in which we have grown to accept the notion, “When I want sire it, I should have it.”  Beware. Such a conviction is not of God; it is of this world.  I have known many who are convinced that even God should answer their prayers here and now.  The Rich Man pleaded with Abraham, to which he answered, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.” My friends, consider your choice for now and all eternity. Choose wisely.

Finally, never trust that money will give you lasting security. We may all give lip service to the notion that  money has no real lasting power, but we don’t always act that way.  We know that money can buy a house, but it cannot buy a home.  We know that money can buy a bed, but it cannot buy sleep.  Money can buy a clock, but it cannot buy time.  Money can buy a book, but it cannot buy knowledge.  Money can buy medicine, but cannot buy health.  Money can buy relationships, but cannot it buy love.  Of course, we all know its true, and confess that, but that doesn’t stop us in our endless pursuit of things and placing our hope in money.  In fact, we can easily be convinced that we could be even happier with just a little bit more wealth. The power of money is always fleeting.  It disappears, and you can’t take it with you, though some do try.

In his commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke  “Jesus and the New Age” Lutheran  theologian Frederick Danker writes, “In 1923, a group of the world’s most successful men met at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago.  Assembled there were:  the president of the largest steel corporation in America; the greatest wheat speculator; a man who was to be president of the New York Stock Exchange; a member of the President’s cabinet; the canniest investor on Wall Street; a future director of the World Bank for International Settlements; and the head of the world’s largest monopoly.  A few years later, this was their fate:  Charles Schwab died in debt; Arthur Cutten died abroad in obscurity; Richard Whitney did time in Sing Sing prison and was blotted out of Who’s Who; Albert Fall was pardoned from prison in order than he could die at home; Jesse Livermore, Leon Fraser and Ivar Kreuger, the match king, all died by suicide.  ….  All of these people learned how to make money; but none of them learned how to live.  The bulls became lambs, and Schwab’s bleating in 1930 was the most pitiful of all:  “I’m afraid; every man is afraid.  I don’t know, we don’t know, whether the values we have are going to be real next month or not.”  At the peak of these men’s lives, they were at the top of the world. They knew how to make a living, but they didn’t know how to live.

Now you may be wondering?  So Pastor, where is the good news in this parable? Where is the life-giving word and the promise that Jesus will accept me just as I am.  I’m afraid that that’s not the message this morning.  Abraham’s final words boldly remind us of this as well, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

The good news, my friends, instead is this, you do have eyes to see and ears to hear, and hands to touch, and heal and give, and the gate is open for you to do the work of God’s kingdom.  The Holy Spirit is moving through our midst, even now.  Consider again the story of Lake of the Isle Church. If God could turn the empty, burned out shell of Lowry Hill Congregational Church into a living church with Christ as a cornerstone, what can he do with your life- which is even more precious in his sight?

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.