Creating a Masterpiece:
The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, Part 1
Luke 16:19-31
Jesus was a master story teller. Throughout his ministry, Jesus used the parable to illustrate the intimate details of the kingdom of God. With each parable Jesus told, he painted vivid pictures in the minds of his listeners that connected his listeners to the story he told and the truth he sought to communicate. That is the purpose of a good story teller, to connect the listener to the story, so that the hearer actually puts him/herself in the story. It is as if the hearer hears about a blind man, and then actually becomes the blind man, or hears a story of a woman who lost a coin in her house, and literally tears the house apart to find the coin, and the listener becomes that woman. Jesus painted pictures with his words because that is what master story tellers do. Jesus painted a vivid masterpiece of words when he told the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31.
Art is good when it is both simple and complex. The longer we look at any work of art the more we see, and so it is with the masterpiece of words painted by the master in this text that is at once so simple, yet so glaringly complex that it is almost too powerful to see as one painting. Yet it is one painting, but the more we look at it the more we see. This parable, so simple in its premise, is too complex to take a glancing look at. We must stand and study it, look at its parts and discern the detail to catch the nuances, and then find ourselves in the story Jesus tells. As we study the parable we find it is actually a work of art that consists of three different scenes and styles. First, Jesus paints a portrait of two contrasting lives that are central to the parable. Then, Jesus weaves into his masterpiece an abstract of the mystery that is death, and finally, Jesus crafts a landscape of the afterlife. Yet the unifying elements that tie the three scenes together are the men, Lazarus and the rich man.
I want us to look at the picture Jesus paints with this parable over the next three weeks, and I want us to see the detail that the brushstrokes of his words convey across the canvass of eternity, and then let his words also color our hearts with the grace that will bear us into eternity. We shall start with the portrait of two contrasting lives.
A good portrait will capture the essence of the individual subject. Looking at a portrait we are supposed to see the person as they are, and that is exactly what we see in this portrait of contrasting lives. We see a typical day in the lives of two different men, one poor (Lazarus), and the other rich (unnamed, but tradition has given the man the name, Dives).
Luke 16:19-21--
Jesus said, "There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed and who lived each day in luxury. [20] At his door lay a diseased beggar named Lazarus. [21] As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.
Jesus, in his portrait of these lives, shows us how these men lived. We look at the rich man and also the beggar. That’s all we see. Jesus doesn’t give a word of comment about the character of either man. He just paints the picture.
Can you see it? A nice, some would say, large home, almost palatial. You enter the compound through a magnificent gate. You look around and see the finest manicured lawns, and entering the home you see the marble adorning the walls. Fine draperies cover the rooms as you glance around, and the oriental rugs don’t escape your notice, either. And right in the center, who could miss that beautiful fountain. You simply stand in awe at the surroundings, and wonder how anyone could make this place home.
Then you catch a glimpse of the host who is receiving you today—you and about 200 others that are being entertained. Of course, he is the best dressed in the place. How do we know? Well, the NKJV tells us he is adorned in purple and fine linen. Purple was the color of royalty, and was the most expensive dye used for coloring fabric in the first century. And the text of the NKJV also tells us he wore fine linen. Just a word—that is a reference to the man’s underwear. He wore linen drawers, and that was a sign of wealth.
A lovely picture indeed, except for the one thing you noticed on your way into the home. There is one thing that detracts from the complete beauty of the surroundings, and you had to step over this thing as you made your way through the magnificent gate. There, outside this palatial estate lies a bundle of dirty rags. As you moved to step over them, the rags stirred just ever so slightly. It was the sick beggar. This sick beggar had guests as well, but unlike the 200 or so that you are with, his visitors were only a couple, and they were there to scavenge the surroundings just like the beggar, and as you walk by you catch a glimpse of these visitors licking the wounds of the poor, sick beggar. These visitors are the wild dogs that roamed the streets of the city. It really does stain the beauty of the whole scene, but you put it out of your mind, for there is a party to attend.
First, let me clarify something. Jesus makes no value judgment about either the rich man or the poor sick beggar. Jesus never says or indicates that wealth is bad. I hope it is not, else Abraham, David, or Solomon are in trouble because they were very wealthy men—some say Solomon was the wealthiest man of his time. Jesus never indicates that the man’s wealth was ill-gotten, or that he was a scoundrel of any sort. The reality is that wealth is inanimate. The only value wealth has is the value attached to it by the person who possess it.
No, no values judgments here. Jesus just paints the picture and leaves it for us to see. We see two men. They are so very close together in a physical sense, yet they are worlds apart. One is sick; the other is well. One is rich; the other is poor. One of the men is clothed in splendor and lives in luxury; the other is alone and hungry, and fights the dogs for his food. It is a tragic portrait.
“There was a certain rich man.” What does that word mean? Rich man stands for power, capacity, ability, and with ability is the consequent ability to serve. “At his door lay a diseased beggar named Lazarus.” Here in this portrait ability meets need, and they are brought close together. Actually, they existed close together, day in and day out. As Jesus paints the picture, the poor man lies at the rich man’s gate. Everyday, the rich man passed Lazarus as he entered the street on his way to the marketplace. He probably had to step over him a few times, for Lazarus was at his gate. It is as if Jesus was saying, the poor man was the rich man’s responsibility. Lazarus lay not at his neighbor’s gate, but at his gate. Every day, the cry for help went out, and every day, the rich man had the opportunity to hear the cry and heed the cry. But the cries fell on deaf ears.
The rich man was too busy with his own affairs. There was too much to do, too much of life to enjoy to be bothered by a poor, sick beggar by the gate. Don’t misunderstand. Jesus never indicates that the rich man was unkind to Lazarus. After all, he didn’t have him put away from the gate. That would have been simple enough. He allowed Lazarus to eat from his garbage. I wonder if the rich man, noticing Lazarus at the gate, instructed the servants to throw out a little extra for the poor man. I doubt it! More likely, the rich man had servants, and they knew the plight of Lazarus, so they made sure there were enough scraps for him to subsist on when the garbage was put out every day. See, poor people are much more inclined to help poor people because they know the struggles of getting by.
The sin of the rich man was not that he did anything to harm Lazarus. The rich man’s sin was that he left Lazarus alone. Passing Lazarus every day, he never for one moment felt any compassion, any anguish, any pity, or any desire that things should be different. The rich man saw Lazarus and said, “Oh, well,” which is another way of saying any number of other phrases that so often ring throughout our culture. Statements like, “I don’t care,” or “He must deserve it,” or “That’s just the way life is.” The rich man’s attitude was his condemnation. He surveyed the landscape of his surroundings, viewed the injustices and cruelties of the world, and said, “Oh, well.”
But we seem to live in two different worlds, the rich and the poor. A striking example is shared by Brett Blair, a pastor in the Kentucky Annual Conference. Blair shared that some years ago before the death of Mother Theresa, a television special depicted the grim human conditions that were a part of her daily life. It showed all the horror of the slums of Calcutta and her love for these destitute people. The producer interviewed her as she made her rounds in that dreadful place. Throughout the program commercials interrupted the flow of the discussion. Here is the sequence of the topics and commercials: lepers (bikinis for sale); mass starvation (designer jeans); agonizing poverty (fur coats); abandoned babies (ice cream sundaes) the dying (diamond watches).
The irony was so apparent. Two different worlds were on display--the world
of the poor and the world of the affluent. It seems that our very culture here in the United States, and any other place that has a great deal of commercialization to it, is teaching us to live as the Rich Man in the story of Lazarus. We are occasionally presented with the images of the poor man Lazarus at our gate but we are immediately reminded of the next car we ought to buy and the next meal we should eat. We are slowly and methodically told it is O.K. to live our life of luxury while others live their life of poverty. But alas, it is not so! Heaven’s reversal of fortune shall one day awaken us to the fact that we have separated ourselves from the agonies of others. That we did not care about others who suffered.
That leaves two questions to be answered. First, why do we care? Because Jesus cares. Jesus had a special place in his heart and ministry for the poor. Jesus began his earthly ministry by standing in the synagogue of his hometown and proclaiming from the words of Isaiah: Luke 4:18
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim
that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors,…
Jesus surveyed the landscape of his world filled with injustices and cruelties, and he, being moved with compassion, knew things had to change. We, as Christians, look around us, and we see the same injustices and cruelties, and we should be saying, “This is not right,” or “Things need to change,” because we know that God in Christ Jesus is in the change business, and God has called us to participate in the transformation process:
Micah 6:8
No, O people, the Lord has already told you what is good, and this is what he requires: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
But more, Jesus surveyed the landscape of God’s creation, and he saw us, who were dead and dying in sin. He looked out from his palatial home with God the Father, and he did something about the suffering he saw. He came, he confronted, and he gave. And that answers the second question: What do we do?
The integrity of our faith is measured by how we respond to the injustices and inequalities in our world. We respond like Jesus responded. We go to the poor and share the message of grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. It is called evangelism. Coming to a personal, saving knowledge of Jesus Christ begins the transformation process. John Wesley knew the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to transform the culture. He carried the gospel far and wide across England--into the work camps of the coal mines, and the inner cities where poverty was rampant. He preached Jesus to the poor. That is our Methodist heritage. Wherever the gospel has been proclaimed, lives have been transformed, and we must never lose the foundational command of the gospel—go tell! Because Christ came to us, and brought us life.
But then we must confront the injustices. Jesus was never afraid to confront either the religious leaders or the political leaders of his day when an issue of justice was before him. He confronted many of the demons which enslaved so many in that day, and he took authority over them, and in confronting the evil and injustice, won freedom for the hurting soul. We follow after Jesus as we confront the spiritual, social, and political evils in our world that serve to oppress people. We, as Christians, must involve ourselves in the political process, and in the lives of those who are oppressed if we are to see the power of the gospel transform lives. It is more than just addressing poverty, though poverty is a big part of it. It is reaching the lost because we know the lost, and have established relationships with them. We know where they hurt, and we know why they hurt. Just like Jesus, who knew where we hurt, and why we hurt, and moved to do something about the hurt.
Finally, we give, give, give. Jesus left his heavenly throne, laid aside the glory that was his, and came to us. He gave his life on the cross of Calvary that we might be redeemed and reconciled to God. He gave us life, and he has blessed us beyond even our ability to measure. Giving is a response of gratitude for all that Christ has given us. And we give out of the abundance that is ours, just as Jesus does to us almost daily. We give of ourselves, our resources and our time. Christians in western cultures combine for a total income in the $10 trillion dollars per year range. The good news is that Christians give 50% more than the average person. The bad news the average person give 1.7% of his/her income—that makes the Christian average 2.5%.
As we look at the portrait Jesus has painted, do we see ourselves in the picture. Do we see ourselves as the poor man, trampled on by society and treated as if we don’t exist? Or do we see ourselves in the attitude of the rich man, living our lives oblivious to the suffering around us. If we are the poor man, Christ is full of compassion, coming to us to deliver us. If we see ourselves as the rich man, may God have mercy on our souls.
