Sermon 9/30/07
Rags and Riches - Luke 16:19-31
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Last week I mentioned that forty percent of the stories in the gospels are about wealth, money, possessions, and how we use them in light of the fact of being disciples, followers of Christ. Luke’s gospel in particular is filled with teachings of Jesus that revolve around our riches, and today, back to back with our thinking about the Parable of the Shrewd Manager, we find another similarly-themed parable, The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
Our scene opens soon after Jesus finishes sharing the story of the shrewd manager. Remember that Jesus finished telling the parable by saying that we can’t serve two masters – we have to love one and hate the other, because we can only truly be loyal to one. “You can’t serve God and wealth,” Jesus said. What we didn’t read last week was what happened next. Jesus had been sharing this parable with his disciples, but apparently, the Pharisees overheard him. We’ll hear more about the Pharisees next week, who they were. But for now, you need to know that they were religious leaders in Judaism in Jesus’ time who emphasized upholding the law, the rituals, the traditions of the faith. They made many positive changes to Judaism, like adding qualifications to existing laws like "an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" so that executions took place in fewer situations – they interpreted what was written to try to get at the real meaning of the scriptures. On the other hand, however, their additions to the law through oral code sometimes added many new requirements for people to follow, like around issues of observing Sabbath, for instance. And their learning and education began to set them apart from the rest of the people, making them a sort of aristocracy. (1) But they weren’t evil. They weren’t just bad people. In the scriptures, we usually see Pharisees in arguments with Jesus, and it is easy for us to think of them as villains. But we have to be careful. The Pharisees were in Jesus’ day what most of us are today – educated people of faith, providing leadership in the religious community.
So back to today’s gospel lesson. After Jesus talks about not serving two masters, Luke writes: 14The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed [Jesus]. 15So [Jesus] said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God. 16“The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force.” These are very direct, very harsh words. Jesus says that the Pharisees are basically putting on a good show – they’re acting pious and holy – but God knows their hearts – their real selves. He calls the things that are important to them an abomination, a word Jesus only utters one other time in the gospels, and the it is when he is talking about the destruction that will be experienced in days of persecution. (2) Jesus says that the law and the prophets have been in place already, and now the good news is being proclaimed – God’s kingdom is here. But instead of rejoicing in this news, the Pharisees are metaphorically trying to break into God’s kingdom, forcing there way in to a place that is already open to them.
So Jesus tells another parable, and this is one is for the Pharisees. A rich man dresses in fine clothes and feasts everyday. At the gates of his home lays a beggar, Lazarus, who is afflicted with leprosy. He wants just to eat even scraps from the man’s table. He’s in such bad shape that the dogs lick his sores. Finally, overwhelmed by his poverty and disease, the old man dies and he’s carried away to Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith. The rich man dies too, and finds himself in hell, tormented. He looks up and sees Lazarus with Abraham. He asks for mercy, for just a touch of cool water on his tongue. But Abraham reminds the man that he had everything good in his lifetime already, that the chasm between them can’t be crossed. So the rich man tries to at least secure a warning for his family by sending Lazarus to them, so that they can avoid his fate. But Abraham says they should listen to Moses and the prophets, in whom they have all the convincing to live rightly that they should need.
A simple interpretation of this parable is easy to come by. Jesus said the Pharisees are money-lovers, breaking into the kingdom of God. They have it good in this life, so they are out of luck in the afterlife. The poor may have a hard time now, but they’ll get right into heaven whey they die. Simple. Easy. But something about that interpretation, that easy-read of this parable doesn’t sit well with me. John Wesley, founder of Methodism, said that when you’re trying to figure out the meaning of a particular Bible passage, you need to look at the “whole scope and tenor” of scripture to find the message in the particular text. So, if you’re looking at the Old Testament verse where the scripture has God saying, “Esau I have hated,” but you know that the main, overarching message of the Bible is “God is love,” you know that you have to look at that specific verse in a way that still leaves us with a loving God. We can apply that logic to this text. What I know about God for sure isn’t much – God is too big to know entirely. But I know that God is full of unconditional love and grace toward us and that we can find forgiveness with God, despite our failings. In one of my favorite passages in Romans, Paul says that nothing can separate us from that love of God, and Paul insists that “neither life nor death” can part us from God’s love. If I believe that to do be true – and I do – then how can I read this text and believe that the rich man has been parted from God’s love and is beyond God’s forgiveness? How can I believe that there is no hope for him in this story?
So, I can’t read this story and believe that God is not able to forgive the rich man. I can’t believe the moral of the story is to see the rich man finally get his due in hell, while Lazarus gets to say “na-na na-na boo-boo” from heaven. It doesn’t fit with what I think is true about our God who is love. And if that’s not what this parable is about, then we’re at square one again. Why does Jesus tell this story?
Last week I mentioned that when Jesus tells a parable, he’s trying to tell us about what the kingdom of God is like. And in the verse before this passage, I told you what Jesus said to the Pharisees: That they’ve been doing what they do – acting holy just to look good in front of others. He says they’re trying to force their way into the kingdom of God, but really they prize and cherish things which are an abomination to God. How does this parable about the rich man and Lazarus fit in with that?
The rich man is asking Abraham for some special favors. We wants a special messenger sent to his family to warn them – maybe scare them like a spooky ghostly vision – onto the straight and narrow path. But Abraham says, in essence, “you should have known this was coming. You already had all the knowledge, all the teaching, all the understanding you needed to do what was right.” The rich man, even in his death, doesn’t get it. He wants an easy way in – he wants to force his way into the kingdom by having someone make a short cut for his relatives. But what kind of disciples only do what is right because they are scared of what will happen to them if they don’t behave? God loves us and wants our love in return – what kind of love do we offer God if we only seek God out because we’re afraid of what God will do to us otherwise? If someone warned the rich man’s family, scared them into a new way of living, would they really be disciples?
What Abraham says to them is what is meant for us to understand too. Jesus says that we already know what we need to know about being disciples – all we need to know is there – first in the law and the prophets, now in the good news that God’s kingdom is here, now in God come right to earth among us in the person of Jesus, in the movement of the Holy Spirit. We already know what we need to know. But instead, even though we know what we’re supposed to be doing, we have a habit of waiting, putting off our life of discipleship, until some time when we’re more ready, better prepared, better equipped. We put being disciples on a to-do list that never gets done. Perhaps the rich man thought he would have plenty of time to do good deeds, plenty of time to get around to caring for the sick and dying man lying right before him. But he never did get around to it, did he? How often do we act this same way? We know what God asks us to do – that’s the easy part! We see what Jesus means by being a disciple. We might even think it sounds like a good plan – a more fulfilling life than the one we’re living now. But somehow, we never seem to get around to it. Jesus reminds us that we have all we need to know already. And so we must act, and act now. God’s kingdom is here – it isn’t coming later, some day long off into the future. God is here now, and God asks for our discipleship now.
What else does this parable say to us? Jesus said that the things the Pharisees prized were an abomination to God. The rich man in the parable seems to prize his position and status and things. We read that he’s dressed in purple, a color of royalty. His linen clothing was a pricy material. He feasts sumptuously, not just sometimes, but every day. And right outside his gate is a man who is so ill and starved that he is just hoping for crumbs, just hoping to be safe from the dogs that hound him. The rich man wasn’t required to help. Religious law would have made the man with leprosy ritually unclean – no one would be obligated to touch him or talk to him or help him. The rich man might have even given his crumbs and scraps to Lazarus. Technically, the rich man was probably a faithful Jew, doing just what was commanded. But, Jesus says, God knows our hearts. The rich man doesn’t end up where he does in the parable because he’s rich, but because what was most important to him was what was least important to God.
How often do we offer to others only crumbs? Scraps? Leftovers? And how often do we offer to God only what is leftover in our lives, the crumbs and scraps that remain, after we have poured ourselves out in so many other ways? God is so full of love for us, but God is demanding in return – God wants not just part of us, part of what we have, part of what is important to us, but all, everything, all of who we are offered to God in discipleship.
But we know that already, don’t we? Moses and the prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, and the good news about the kingdom of God – everything we know has already pointed us in the right direction, Jesus says. What more do we need to convince us? How long will we wait?
Gracious God, have mercy on us. Amen.
(1) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisee
(2) From the Greek bde/lugma – an abomination.