One cannot understand and preach the gospel concretely enough. A real evangelical sermon must be like holding a pretty red apple in front of a child or a glass of cool water in front of a thirsty person and then asking: do you want it? We should be able to talk about matters of our faith in such a way that the hands reach out for it faster than we can fill them.
People should run and not be able to rest when the gospel is talked about, as long ago the sick ran to Christ to be healed when he was going around healing (but Christ, too, healed more than he converted). That is really no stock phrase. Shouldn’t it really be that way wherever the good news of God is spoken of? But it just isn’t that way—we all know that.
At the same time, one shouldn’t content oneself with this state of affairs. Rather, there can be basically just one thing, namely, that one repeatedly asks oneself anew why this is so. And here is one—admittedly only one—of the reasons that we simply hesitate to accept that the gospel is as concrete, as close to life, as it is. We have spiritualized the gospel—that is, we have lightened it up, changed it. Take our gospel of the rich man and poor Lazarus. It has become common practice to see as the whole meaning of the story that the rich should help the poor. That is, it is turned into a story illustrating a moral. But this particular story especially, if one allows oneself to be affected fully by its original meaning, is something very different from that, namely, a very concrete proclamation of the good news itself. Admittedly so concretely, so powerfully worded, that we don’t even take it seriously anymore.
Let us imagine how a crowd of the sick, the poor, the miserable, of poor Lazaruses, gathered around Christ, and then he began to tell the story of the poor, leprous Lazarus whom even the dogs were torturing, at the doorstep of the rich man. And when the story then took a turn with the words: “The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. Lazarus received evil things in his life, but now he is comforted here,” perhaps shouts of joy and hope passed through the crowd. That was the good news; that was the cool water they reached for greedily. That was the love of God itself, which spoke in this way to the poor and suffering. You outcasts, you disadvantaged, you poor and sick, you who are looked down upon shall be consoled. You have much suffering in the world, but in a short while eternal joy and eternal consolation shall come over you. Look at poor Lazarus, at how he is lying scorned before the rich man’s doorstep, and then look at how he receives God’s consolation with Abraham. Blessed are you, you poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are hungry here below, for you shall be filled. Blessed are you who weep here, for you will laugh. Rejoice and leap for joy, for your reward is great in heaven.
Those are the beatitudes in Luke [6:20–23]. Nothing is said here about the poor in spirit [Matt. 5:3], nothing about hunger for righteousness [Matt. 5:6], but blessed are you poor, you hungry, you who are weeping, as we know you in the world. Blessed are you Lazaruses of all the ages, for you shall be consoled in the bosom of Abraham. Blessed are you outcasts and outlaws, you victims of society, you men and women without work, you broken down and ruined, you lonely and abandoned, rape victims and those who suffer injustice, you who suffer in body and soul; blessed are you, for God’s joy will come over you and be over your head forever.
That is the gospel, the good news of the dawning of the new world, the new order, which is God’s world and God’s order. The deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk, and the gospel is preached to the poor [see Luke 7:22]. And before we interrupt ourselves to ask questions here, let us hear the other, the terrible other side. There is the rich man, who dressed in purple and fine linen. About him it says: “The rich man also died and was buried.”
That already sounds very harsh. And now in hell he must suffer the torment of eternal thirst, because he was full and satisfied on earth. He has to see poor Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham and beg that Lazarus quench his thirst only for a moment. But even that can’t be. “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things.” And behind this we hear the words: Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you who dress in purple and live happily in luxury, for you shall suffer eternal thirst [see Luke 6:24–26].
Blessed poor, outcast, leprous Lazarus yesterday and today, for you have a God. Woe to you who live happily in luxury and are respected yesterday and today. That is the most concretely preached good news of God for the poor.
But now we must listen to quite a few shocked objections before we continue.
There are always those in our midst who know better than the New Testament itself what the New Testament may and may not say. What we have just said here is, of course, a rough interpretation of the New Testament intended for rough, common people. It couldn’t be about that. If something in the New Testament really sounds as rough as what we just said, you have to take it and spiritualize it. We call that “sublimating,” that is, refining, elevating, spiritualizing, moralizing. It’s not just simply the physically poor who are blessed and the physically rich who would be damned. But the main thing is always what a person’s attitude is toward his poverty and toward his wealth. The external aspect doesn’t matter at all, but rather the attitude matters: rich in God or poor in God. . . .
The most dangerous thing about this criticism is that it contains some truth, but basically it is intended only to provide us with an excuse. It is so terribly easy to back away from all so-called external conditions and focus on the attitude: rich on the outside but being poor in one’s so-called attitude.
It is so terribly easy to say that it is vulgar to understand the gospel as if it were about outward poverty and riches, while it really depends not on that but solely on the inner aspect. Now, I ask you, where in the story of the poor Lazarus does it say anything about his inner life? Who tells us that he was a man who within himself had the right attitude toward his poverty? Just the opposite, he may have been quite a pushy poor man, since he lay down in front of the rich man’s doorstep and did not go away.
Who tells us anything about the soul of the rich man? That is precisely the frightening thing about this story—there is no moralizing here at all, but simply talk of poor and rich and of the promise and the threat given to the one and the other. Here these external conditions are obviously not treated as external conditions but are taken unbelievably seriously. Why did Christ heal the sick and suffering if he didn’t consider such external conditions important? Why is the kingdom of God equated with the deaf hear, the blind see? . . . And where do we get the incredible presumption to spiritualize these things that Christ saw and did very concretely?
We must end this audacious, sanctimonious spiritualization of the gospel. Take it as it is, or hate it honestly!
And there was no lack of this hatred precisely because people took the gospel to be as honest as it was. The hatred comes from two different sides. What does a gospel that was brought to the weaklings, the common people, the poor, and the sick have to do with us? We are men and women, healthy and strong. We disdain the mass of Lazaruses. We disdain the gospel of the poor. It undermines our pride, our race, our strength. We are rich, but with pride. That is certainly honestly said. But it is also said incredibly carelessly and at the same time so full of illusions. It is so easy to disdain the masses of Lazaruses. But if just one of these would really meet you face to face—the unemployed Lazarus, Lazarus the accident victim, Lazarus whose ruin you caused, your own begging child as Lazarus, the helpless and desperate mother, Lazarus who has become a criminal, the godless Lazarus—can you go up to him or her and say: I disdain you, Lazarus. I scoff at the good news that makes you glad? Can you really do that? And if you can’t do that, why then do you act as if it were anything great at all to be able to do that?
But also, couldn’t it possibly already be a mockery in itself to console those who live in suffering and misery with the prospect of a better future in another world? Doesn’t it almost sound as if one is just trying to keep these unfortunates from rebelling here against their fate? As if one is calling them blessed just so they will stay quiet, as they are now, and not bother the others? Isn’t it downright cynical to talk about consolation in heaven because one does not want to give consolation on earth? Is this gospel for the poor not basically the deception and dumbing down of the people?
Does it not show that one does not take the suffering at all seriously but hides cynically behind pious phrases? Oh, countless times it has happened that way—who would deny it?—right up to our present time. And millions have become estranged from the gospel for this reason!
But a look at the Gospels shows us what is different here. Jesus calls the poor blessed, but he does heal them, too, already here. Yes, the kingdom of God is at hand, for the blind see and the lame walk. He takes suffering so seriously that in a moment he must destroy it. Where Christ is, the power of the demons must be broken. That is why he heals, and that is why he says to his disciples: If you believe in me, you will do greater works than I.
The kingdom of God is still just beginning to appear. The acts of healing are like heat lightning, like flashes of lightning from the new world. But now the good news becomes all the more powerful. Blessed are you who weep, for you will laugh; blessed are you who are hungry, for you will be filled. No cynical consolation, but the one great hope: the new world, the good news, the merciful God, Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, the poor and the outcasts with God—yes, indeed, this may sound terribly naive and concrete. But if it were really true? If it is true? Is it still naive then? Is it still unspiritual then? Don’t we then especially have to open our ears and hear, and hear again, about the unheard-of event that Lazarus—yesterday and today—is carried by angels to be in the bosom of Abraham? And that the well-satisfied man, the full man, who lives happily in luxury, the rich man must suffer eternal thirst? Up until now we have spoken of these two as if they actually had nothing to do with each other. That is obviously not the case. Lazarus lies in front of the rich man’s doorstep, and it is the poverty of Lazarus that makes the rich man rich, just as the wealth of the other man makes Lazarus poor.
It doesn’t say what the rich man nor what the poor man had done or even should have done, but the only common event that affects them equally is their death. That is the unusual light in which both of these men are shown here; they both must die, and another life awaits both of them. And this fact binds them closer together than any moral law that a rich man should help a poor man. They basically already belong together in the common fate that awaits both of them. In death the rich man is no longer rich, and the poor man no longer poor. There they are one and the same. And after death something new begins, over which all the powers of the world of death can have no more control. But this is obviously what the rich man did not see, that his whole world is a world of death and must pass away and is subject to God, that for that reason Lazarus has something to do with him, because they both must die and will live in another world, because they are brothers in death and in judgment. He did not see that behind him and behind Lazarus there stand infinities, eternities—here silent, invisible, hidden under his purple garments and the naked body of Lazarus—but that they are there and are waiting and become reality. And the conversation between the thirsting rich man and Abraham leaves no doubt as to the seriousness of what is meant here by eternity.
But now, in principle, there will also be no more revelation of this eternity in the world, as the rich man requests for his brothers, other than what is given in Moses and the prophets; today we would say: given in the preaching of the church. In their world of death, they have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. The words about God’s eternal commandment [see Matt. 5:17–19] and about the weakness and the suffering of the human being who must die [see Ps. 39:5]; about God’s mercy to the humble and judgment on the strong [see Luke 1:46–55]; the words about the cross of Christ for the salvation of the poor and lost, of the curse on the satisfied and the righteous—let them hear these and remember that they all live with Lazarus in the same world of death; and if they do not hear them, they will also not hear, even if someone were to rise from the dead.
Even at this most visible conquest of their world of death, they will not be afraid and not become wise. They will refuse to accept it. They will not know that the Lazarus before their door is an eternal Lazarus, and they will pass by the eternity that meets them in Lazarus.
And now, the last questions: Who is Lazarus? Who is the rich man? And finally, what should the rich man do?
Who is Lazarus? You know it yourself: Your poorer brother or sister who cannot cope with life’s outward or its spiritual aspects, often foolish, often impudent, often pushy, often godless, but yet endlessly needy and—whether knowing it or not—suffering, who craves the crumbs from under your table. You may think with a little self-pity that you yourself are Lazarus. God alone knows if you are. But always keep asking if you are not perhaps after all the rich man. Who is Lazarus? Always the other one, the crucified Christ himself, who meets you in the form of a thousand people you would look down upon. Yes, he is the eternal Lazarus himself.
And now we must ask again: Who is Lazarus? And here at the end, in all humility, the last possibility must be considered, at the limits of all human and divine possibilities: We are all Lazarus before God. The rich man, too, is Lazarus. He is the poor leper before God. And only when we know that we are all Lazarus, because we all live through the mercy of God, do we see Lazarus in our neighbor.
Who is the rich man? Our story does not answer this question. Certainly we are not rich. We are not full and satisfied. We do not live happily in luxury. Really not? Do you mean that seriously? Even when you meet Lazarus? Or does he not meet you? Are we really not the rich man?
Another story gives us an answer to this question: the story of the rich young man, who was very devout and very righteous, but was sad when he was told to leave his possessions, and went away [see Matt. 19:16–22]. That is the rich man. What about us?
And now: What should the rich man do? The answer to this question can be found in the story of the Good Samaritan [Luke 10:25–37]. In our story there is only this: The rich man should see that death is standing behind him and Lazarus, and that behind Lazarus God himself, Christ is standing with the eternal good news. We should see—see poor Lazarus in his full frightening misery and behind him Christ, who invited him to his table and calls him blessed. Let us see you, poor Lazarus, let us see you, Christ, in poor Lazarus. Oh, that we might be able to see. Amen.
***Sermon from The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer edited by Isabel Best copyright © 2012 Fortress Press admin. Augsburg Fortress. No further reproduction allowed without the written permission of Augsburg Fortress.***
