Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost September 30, 2001 Luke 16: 19-31
Heavenly Father, thank you for replenishing love when we give it away. Amen. Title: “Justice after all”
Jesus tells the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus to illustrate how different God’s values are from those of this world.
In Chapter sixteen verses one to eight, Jesus told the story about the wise steward “making friends for himself” by his wise use of money, behavior to be emulated and imitated. The rich man in this present story illustrates behavior to be avoided. This rich man did not “makes friends” by using his money to help others and so he was not received into their, heavenly, homes. The rich man avoided the poor Lazarus in this world. This avoidance behavior, what you and I would call sins of omission, turns around in the next life. It is he who is avoided.
Actually, two themes are expressed in this parable. The first one verses nineteen to twenty-six, is the reversal of fortune in the afterlife, a common one in Jesus’ teaching and throughout the New Testament. The second is the “hardness of heart” theme, another common one. Here the point is made that even should one return from the dead and tell of eternal justice the “hard of heart” will not be convinced and change. In John there was a Lazarus, a friend of Jesus, who returned from the dead and many remained unmoved. So did Jesus rise from the dead and many remained hardhearted.
In verse nineteen, a rich man dressed in purple…feasted sumptuously every day: This man had it all, living in a style “fit for a king.”
In verse twenty, a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores: Lazarus was both economically poor and in poor health. He had nothing. Of all Jesus’ parables, including example stories, this is the only one where a person is named. Lazarus is a shortened form of Eleazar, which means “God has helped.” Since God alone helped Lazarus he is well named for the story’s purpose. Whether there is an intentional allusion to another well-known story, that of the raising of Lazarus, is unclear, but Christians would make such a connection. One story may well have influenced the other, although we cannot say which.
In verse twenty-one, the scraps that fell from the…table: Bread was used for a napkin. Food, eaten with the hands, was wiped off by wiping the hands with chunks of bread, bread a little thinner than pizza bread, and the bread thrown away. Sitting outside the door Lazarus would wait for it. Though the story never says Lazarus actually ate the scraps, but simply “longed” to do so, beggars do not hang out in places where there is no chance of food or alms.
In verse twenty-two, when the poor man dies he was carried away by angels: This was a euphemistic way of saying that poor people had no one or their families had no money, to give them a decent burial. They would be left where they died until carted away. People would say that angels took care of them.
To the bosom of Abraham: “Bosom” connotes intimacy, like a child lying in a parent’s lap. Here the picture would be of the closeness of the guest to the host at a banquet. Lazarus, deprived of food let alone feasting on earth, now enjoys a heavenly banquet right next to Abraham, a banquet where the rich man is now on the outside looking in. The “tables” are reversed. It is implied that Lazarus, though poor and sore, lived a life pleasing to God, whereas the rich man did not.
In verse twenty-three, In Hades: The Greek word hades, now seen as a state of punishment for sins either of commission or omission.
In verse twenty-four, have mercy on me: In the afterlife it is the rich man who is the beggar; the roles are reversed.
Send Lazarus: Yet, the rich man has not learned his lesson. Lazarus does not exist simply to do his bidding, to wait on him, to meet his needs. He remains arrogant, if unconsciously so, and centered on his own needs and wants, ignoring others. However, he did know Lazarus’ name. There is no apology for ignoring him, only a plea that he be his lackey.
Cool my tongue: Ironically, the tongue that brought him such earthly pleasure in dining sumptuously daily, now is the source of the greatest pain.
In verse twenty-six, a great chasm: Jesus taught elsewhere that those who show mercy will have mercy shown them. The great chasm has been created not by physical distance, they could talk to and see each other, but by the absence of mercy. It is a spiritual distance created more by avoidance behavior than by actual cruelty. It is now time for justice.
In verse twenty-seven, send him to my father’s house: The rich man still thinks of Lazarus as a lesser being than himself, subject to his commands. He has grown a bit, though. He does think of others now, if only family members. Implied, of course, is the defense that “had I known I would have done otherwise.” The man implies that he himself was never warned and so he should warn his brothers lest they end up in the same sorry state. He wants them to know not that eternity is a place of joy but that hell is a place of torment. He knows nothing of the joy of Lazarus, only his own misery.
In verse twenty-nine, they have Moses and the prophets: Miraculous returns from the dead do not convince those “hard of heart.” No evidence is enough for that. If the brothers of the rich man have refused to listen to and be affected by the word of God then they shall end up the same.
In verse thirty, if someone from the dead goes to them then they will repent: The rich man knows from experience that his brothers, like himself, ignored the word of God. That is not enough for them. They need a spectacular miracle as proof. Abraham knows from experience that such is not the case.
In verse thirty-one: The request is denied because it will not work. Miracles do not convince the “hard of heart.”
Sermon
In the story both Lazarus and the rich man retain the personal traits they had on earth now that they are in eternity. On earth Lazarus was a quiet fellow. He accepted his lot in life without complaint. In eternity he remains silent, does not gloat over the rich man, now poor, and does not express resentment when the rich man presumes he is still superior to Lazarus. On the other hand, the rich man has not changed either. He is concerned with his own comfort, now discomfort. He is quite sensitive to even the slightest injustice that might have been done him, implying that no one warned him about hell, had they, he would have lived differently, all the while being insensitive to the injustice the poor were suffering.
That was the rich man’s sin. It was not that he committed great atrocities or even done something wrong. His sin was he had done nothing right; indeed, he had done nothing at all. His whole life was about him and how he felt. He made no contribution to life. He was a taker, a user, a consumer. To him Lazarus was just part of the landscape, his begging poverty just part of the status quo, as natural for Lazarus as his own wealth was natural to him. It is clear from his request that his brothers be warned that neither he nor they paid any attention to God’s word. They lived their lives with themselves as the center and their needs as the edge, their universe a rather small and enclosed circle. What a surprise to the rich man when he woke up and found that there is justice after all. There is a heavenly world in which material wealth does not matter, one’s position in human society does not matter, a person is judged on his or her character, actions and attitudes alone, and no amount of bluff and bluster works. True, in this earthly world, the rich man may not have forbidden the scraps from his table to be given to Lazarus or been cruel to him or kick him. But he did ignore him and consider himself superior to him and God does not like that. Wallowing in luxury while a fellow human being wallows in misery, want and pain is really displeasing to God.
We are given in this story a pretty good picture of the consequences of sins of omission. They are grave. Ignoring the needy, hiding from people who might require help, because we are too “busy”, being unmoved by human hurt- such behavior may not be able to be seen by other humans, but God sees it and does not approve of it. This parable provides a good meditation on that line in the “Brief Order For Confession and Forgiveness,” when we ask for forgiveness for what we have done and what “we have failed to do.”
We do not have to be abundantly money-rich in order to succumb to the insensitivity of the rich man in the story. We merely have to be “comfortable,” and most of us are comfortable most of the time. We can block out the needs of others or simply become so used to passing by those less fortunate than we, and it is a matter of good fortune more than personal achievement, or routinely ignore the fact that they are there. We can become so used to the status quo that we presume our good fortune and the ill fortune of others is the way it is supposed to be, they in their place and we in our place, that we do nothing to alleviate human suffering and need. While it is true that we cannot do a whole lot about worldwide hunger and poverty, we can do something about the hunger and poverty right under our noses. We really cannot justify doing nothing just because they problems seem too big for our comparatively meager resources. Unlike the rich man in the story, instead of passing by those in need we can resolve not to let one day pass by, that we do not do something positive, to fill an empty stomach with food or a needy heart with love. In doing so, we fill our own hearts at the same time. What we share and give away on earth will come back to us in eternal currency. On earth, here and now, this will take the same form as it will in eternity, namely, eternal love and joy, no matter what our earthly circumstances may be. Thus, even the economically poor have much to share with others. No one need be “poor” in love, for any love shared is also love returned to the giver. Unlike material goods, love replenishes itself when it is given away. That should not be the only motivation for living and giving, but it surely is the end result.
The great gulf between the rich and poor on earth will be matched by a great abyss between the rich and poor in eternity.
It is for the “rich of the earth” to bridge that gulf now before it is too late.
Pleasure and comfort customs us to the sufferings of others just as personal pain or discomfort sensitizes us to their plight.
In the end, where it counts, justice will prevail and mercy shown on earth will be shown to us at judgment.
Personal visits from those already physically dead would have little effect on those who ignore the word of God.
Reversal of Fortune: This parable is yet another illustration of the “reversal of fortune” theme found in both the Old Testament, especially in Wisdom Literature, and the New Testament. Pain now; gain later. Poor now; rich later. Rich now; poor later. However, this “reversal of fortune” is not automatic. The economically poor Lazarus could have let his misery get the best of him and resent the rich man or all rich people, simply for being rich when he was not. He could have resented the injustice of it all. Had that happened, Lazarus would have been virtually the same as the rich man, indeed “virtually rich,” that is, rich in all other aspects but the economic sense. Rich in condescension towards others, rich in guarding and preserving and prolonging the status quo at all costs, rich in insensitivity to others. One does not have to have the money of a wealthy person to have the traits and attitudes commonly found among that group. Just because a person is economically poor does not automatically make that person “poor in spirit.” Indeed, an economically poor person can be just as “greedy in spirit” as an economically rich person. The reverse is also true. The economically rich man was unacceptable to heaven and by heaven’s standards not because of his money per se but because of his use of it or, more correctly, failure to use it to “make friends in heaven.” Economic wealth does not automatically make a person insensitive to others, greedy, self-centered, etc. It tends to, in most cases, but it does not cause the vices. It only establishes the environment where such vices can grow and grow with impunity, albeit temporary impunity. That said, the economic status of a person does not constitute that person’s real wealth in heaven’s eyes. It is not what we keep but what we give away, especially love, that matters when we come to judgment, cross the divide of time, never to return. “Wealth,” especially in the form of comfort, sets us up for insensitivity to others, a sense that we deserve our comfort and those who do not have it deserve their discomfort. Justice, however, will prevail, if not now, then in eternity.
The Warning Signs: When Abraham says that not even someone returning from the dead will convince a person to change his or her ways before it is too late, he was speaking for God, but also the sacred writer was making a comment about Christ. Christ did return from the dead and yet everyone has not been convinced of the truth of his message. We can only heed the warnings signs God sends us during this life if we are open to them, if we see them for what they really are. Yet, if we are “greedy in spirit,” that attitude blocks hearing the message. “Wealth,” as the term is used here, not only makes us insensitive to the plight of others but also insensitive to the light of God’s word. Even in hell the rich man in the story remained arrogant and thought of Lazarus as someone he could use to do his bidding. Lazarus was to him merely a poor man, at the service of rich people like himself, one to be ordered around, whose only function in life is to serve his needs whenever he called upon him. Part of his torture was to know that people still on earth whom he cared about would end up like him if they did not accept God’s word and, yet, he was powerless to stop it. He learned about powerlessness too late, this “powerful” man when on earth. When we interpret every moment of our earthly lives in the light of eternity we avoid falling into the abyss. Amen.
