“The Hollow Life”
Luke 16:19-31
A famous rich person said the following at a college commencement:
“A couple of years ago I found out what ‘you can’t take it with you’ means.
I found out while I was lying in the ditch at the side of a country road, covered in mud and blood…
…I had a MasterCard in my wallet, but when you’re lying in a ditch with broken glass in your hair, no one accepts MasterCard.
In the months that followed, I got a painful but extremely valuable look at life.
We come in naked and broke.
Warren Buffett? Going out broke.
Bill Gates? Going out broke.
Tom Hanks? Going out broke.
Me? Broke. Not a crying dime.
Should you give away what you have?
Of course you should.
I want you to consider making your lives one long gift to others, and why not?”
That is powerful.
Let’s all make our lives one long gift to others.
Why not?
It truly is the only way to happiness.
It is the only way to really be following Jesus.
Are we doing this?
Are we on our way to doing this?
Do we want to do this?
Jesus is very clear about what to do with our possessions and money.
If our possessions rule us, that’s where our treasure is…
…that’s where our heart is.
As Jesus says, “You cannot serve both God and money.”
This is a hard teaching, though, isn’t it?
Even if we are not wealthy, oftentimes, our pursuit of wealth takes first place over our concern for other people and for God.
But if we put our trust in God first, we will be freed to give what we don’t need away in order to help others.
Trusting in God is the only cure for greed and selfishness.
Jesus’ parable for this morning is apt to make a lot of us uncomfortable…
…and if it doesn’t make us uncomfortable…
…we are either just like Lazarus laying outside of a rich man’s gate or we have hardened our heart to such a degree that we don’t care at all.
Not long ago I was standing with some people having a conversation.
I don’t remember many of the details, but I do remember that the subject of the “haves” and the “have nots” came up.
One of the people standing in the group is in charge of one of the largest companies in the entire world.
He makes millions.
In any event, someone—maybe it was me—I honestly can’t remember—said something to the effect that there is a huge divide between the super-rich and everyone else.
The mega-executive’s exact words were “as it should be, as it should be.”
This is how it is in Jesus’ parable for this morning…
…or at least this is how it is between Lazarus and the rich man.
There is no comparing their situations in life.
The only thing they have in common is that they are human beings.
They both came into this world naked and broke and that is the way both will leave.
In the meantime, the rich man lives in luxury every day.
He dresses himself in the most expensive cloths possible.
He lives in a mansion.
He probably throws away more food in a week than Lazarus has seen in his lifetime.
He takes for granted his supposed superiority over Lazarus.
Lazarus is so poor, needy and hungry that he dreams of eating what falls from the rich man’s table.
This gives us just a glimpse of how vast the gap is between these two guys, and also what little sacrifice the rich man would have to make in order to help Lazarus out just a little.
Also, the rich man doesn’t have to go very far in order to find Lazarus, he lies right in front of his eyes day after day.
But not once does it even dawn on the rich man to speak to Lazarus directly, as if he were a fellow human being.
The rich man lives with the assumption that Lazarus is beneath him; he’s just a mooch—covered in sores-- sprawled out on the ground just outside the rich man’s gated home.
And Jesus clearly holds the rich man, with all his resources, all his extras, all his money accountable for the horribly deplorable situation that Lazarus is in.
Lazarus is so poor and so starved and so weak that he can’t even stand up and go beg somewhere else.
He just lays on the ground…
…and the dogs are waiting for him to die so they can have a meal themselves, as they come and lick his sores.
The Jewish Scriptures are filled with commands to care for the helplessly poor, but the rich man ignores all of them—even though, more than likely, he was thought of as a “good religious Jew” by the leaders, especially by those who tend to suck up to the super rich.
How many of us tend to “suck up” to the wealthy and look down on the destitute?
It’s sort of built into our culture a bit, isn ’t it?
The so-called “beautiful people” are celebrated…
…the poor are shunned.
People walk or drive past them shaking their heads in disgust.
In Jesus’ world, as in our world, there are huge chasms between the rich and the poor that are almost impossible to cross.
This past week I met a homeless woman in a wheelchair who has only one leg.
She tries to make money by selling note cards which she decorates herself.
She was a sweet person, and we talked for quite a while.
She lives with a man who she probably doesn’t know very well.
And I have no idea what their relationship is like.
Between tears she told me that she’s so worn out and life has become such a burden that she is tempted just to give up completely.
She told me how difficult it is for women in her kind of situation.
She said that they have only two options.
They can either live on the streets or find a man who they can shack up with and who will most likely end up beating them up and abusing them.
Can any of us see ourselves in a similar position as the “rich man” in Jesus’ parable.
I can.
Like him, I am able to wear decent clothing; I never go hungry.
I don’t sleep out on the streets.
Outside of my community there are ever growing numbers of homeless and hungry people.
And like the rich man in Jesus’ parable I have Moses and the prophets who tell me that I have a responsibility for those who are hungry, naked, thirsty, sick and on the margins.
And better yet, I even have a Person Who has risen from the dead, and is urging me to repent and give my life in serving and loving others.
During his lifetime, the rich man in Jesus’ story probably rationalized his refusal to speak to Lazarus, let alone to help him with justifications such as:
“He brought this upon himself.”
“He must have done something to deserve this.”
“He hasn’t earned the right to be helped.”
But contrast this way of thinking with the way Jesus thought and lived.
Instead of making statements to justify not helping someone in need Jesus asked those in need:
“What do you want?”
“Do you want to be healed?”
“How can we feed them?”
Jesus never turned anyone who asked Him for help away.
And instead of trying to avoid those who were in need, Jesus went looking for them.
We are told that when Lazarus died “the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.”
The phrase used here refers to a position of reclining next to someone else at a banquet.
We are told that “the rich man also died and was buried.
In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.”
And even in hell, the rich man seems to continue to assume that Lazarus is somehow “beneath him.”
Why do I say this?
Because he continues not to speak to Lazarus directly.
Instead, he gives instructions through Abraham to “send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool” his tongue.
An interesting twist in this parable is that although Abraham said that “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead…”
…God goes ahead anyway and raises Jesus from the dead, proving God’s relentless and loving pursuit of us no matter what.
God leaves no stone unturned in His desire to save us.
This story is powerful.
We all have the opportunity, the privilege to change.
And right now, we all still stand on this side of death.
There is time for transformation for us all!!!
God is continuing to reach out to all of us in love.
God stands to meet us at the gate and bridge the gap that separates us from one another and from God.
And when we meet God at that gate, God calls us to cross over to the other side to meet the Lazarus’ of this world…
…to get to know the people who are trying to live off what they can salvage of the scraps that fall from the tables of those who have much more than they need.
When God brings us in touch with—face to face--with those who suffer like Lazarus, God begins to change our hearts.
When we become united in the bonds of love with those on the margins, engage in meaningful conversations with those who suffer we may just start to trace some of their suffering to the evil systems that allow us to have comfort at the cost of their misery.
And this opens up our worldview, which continues to transform our hardness into tenderness, our judgments into loving kindness, our greed and arrogance into humble repentance.
And perhaps, with our worldviews opening up and our hearts melting the chasm might open up a bit and a drop of cool water may fall upon our parched and thirsty tongues.
We live in a lost and broken world.
Things are not “as they should be.”
There is a great chasm between the have and have-nots.
And we all came into this world naked and broke.
We will all leave this world naked and broke.
Why not consider making our short time lived on this earth a long gift to others?
In Jesus’ name and for His sake.
Amen.
