I have to say, I was awfully tempted to preach this morning on the Gospel reading we had last week
when Pastor Lee was here. He preached on considering our calling right after Jesus’ strange
parable that seemed to be patting an unscrupulous business manager on the back for his
shrewdness. Some of my more timid colleagues might agree that Pastor Lee dodged a bullet. I was
watching the congregation during this reading and could have sworn that a few faces went a little
pale.
So it was tempting for me to take this one on, but I decided not to. We’re just going to have to be in
suspense about it for the next three years, until it comes around again in the lectionary. If you’re
keeping track, that will be October 12, 2013, so mark your calendars.
This morning’s Gospel reading contains another parable of Jesus. The poignant and kind of
frightening scenario of a rich man suffering in hell has struck fear into more than one heart. I
remember this one being used by one hellfire and brimstone evangelist in the denomination of my
childhood as a very effective altar call tool. That night after the service I was happy that our
parsonage was built onto the back of the church, so I wouldn’t have to worry about being creamed
by a train on the ride home, with unrepented sin in my heart, like the evangelist warned us about. A
one-way ticket to share a toasty little room with the rich man.
But if we take a little closer look at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, we find quite a bit more
depth than that. This past couple of months you’ve heard the name Kenneth Bailey bandied about.
He’s a world expert on the parables, especially as interpreted in the light of Middle Eastern culture. I
credit him for some key insights to help us better understand our parable this morning.
The first thing that needs to be said about the story is that it’s the third in a trilogy of parables told
by Jesus. Each of these has to do with managing the resources entrusted to us by God. First we
have the parable of the prodigal son, who misuses his father’s possessions, then the dishonest
steward, who misuses his master’s possessions, and now the rich man, who misuses his own
possessions. He certainly is serving mammon, and not God, as we’ll see.
Jesus paints a picture here that would have been clear and colorful to his listeners. He starts by
describing a rich man, who wears purple robes and fine linens. The part about linens is probably a
bit of wry humor, as the Greek word actually refers to a kind of expensive undergarment. So Jesus is
saying something like, “He even wore fancy underwear!” I like Jesus.
But this rich man lived high off the hog every day while Lazarus, covered with sores, languished at
the gate. He probably would have been carried to the gate to beg. Jesus says not that he satisfied
his hunger from the crumbs of the rich man’s table, but that he longed to satisfy his hunger that way.
Dogs came and licked his sores, and these dogs probably got the crumbs, not Lazarus.
And Lazarus’ begging spot at the front gate would have put him in range of the rich man’s house so
he could actually hear the feasts that were being held there. It’s bad enough that he’s laying there
sick, hungry, and covered with sores, but at the same time he’s tormented by the sounds of daily
banquets. His physical discomfort has to be awful, but this also has to be emotionally devastating—
laughing, wealthy people coming and going, the sounds of robust conversation, wining and dining,
all just out of reach of a man who needed these things more than any of them. All the while the rich
man had to have been intentionally oblivious to his needs.
And through it all apparently Lazarus doesn’t complain or protest. He endures his torment with
whatever dignity he can muster. So Jesus says that time passes, and Lazarus and the rich man both
die. Lazarus (which I’m sure by no coincidence) means ‘the one whom God helps’) ends up, as the
NRSV puts it, in the presence of Abraham.
Actually the literal phrase is “reclining in Abraham’s bosom.” This was an idiom meaning “reclining at
the dining table at Abraham’s right hand.” This is one instance of the old King James Version
capturing the meaning a bit better than newer translations. A similar phrase is used in John’s Gospel
in the story of the Last Supper, at which John is reclining on Jesus’ bosom at the Passover table. In
any case this is a sign that Lazarus was especially blessed in the afterlife. He who had nothing in
this life has gained everything in the next, sitting with Abraham himself at the feast.
By contrast, the rich man ends up in Hades—Hell—where he’s being tormented by flames. We may
be inclined to assume that he’s repentant, and his repentance is too late. But if we look closely, this
is only half right. It is too late for repentance, but he’s unrepentant anyway. How can we tell that?
Well, there isn’t even the hint of an apology for his treatment of Lazarus, for starters. He appears to
have no remorse whatsoever.
In fact, not only does the rich man ask for something for himself—that his tongue be moistened to
relieve his anguish—but he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to do it! He apparently still sees Lazarus
as a lower class errand boy who can potentially help him when he never even lifted a finger to help
Lazarus. In Yiddish they call that chutzpah.
It’s like the story of the old woman who sold pretzels on a street corner for a dollar each. Every day a
young man would leave his office building at lunch time, and as he passed the pretzel stand, he
would leave her a dollar, but never take a pretzel. This went on for more than 3 years. The two of
them never spoke. One day, as the young man passed the old woman's stand and left his dollar as
usual, the pretzel lady spoke to him. Without blinking an eye she said: "They're a dollar-fifty now."
That’s chutzpah. Translate it as “audacity.”
So Abraham explains to the rich man the justice played out in the way things have now become. He
says, “During your lifetime you received good things, and now look at you.” “You received good
things”—not “You’ve earned good things because you’re so smart and so industrious and you
pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps.” You see, who we are and what we have is all a gift from
God. And the nature of God’s kingdom is that He uses willing people to be a blessing to others and
bestow His gifts on them. He could make food and clothing appear miraculously out of the ether, but
most often His way is for us to work in concert with him, as the body of Christ, working in the family
business of spreading the kingdom of love. It’s called ‘loving our neighbor.’
So what we do with what we’ve been given is immeasurably important. The rich man spent what was
entrusted to him on himself while a man he could have helped lay languishing. In spite of this
Lazarus didn’t get bitter and go postal. He didn’t even complain. And now he’s being comforted.
What we do with what we’ve been given is supremely important.
So how does the rich man respond to Abraham? He asks him to send Lazarus, the errand boy, to
warn his brothers. Yet another insult. The rich man simply doesn’t get it. He’s lived a life of cruel
neglect and even now in hell fails to see the human dignity of the poor man, even as he’s seated at
Abraham’s right hand.
In this tight parable there’s a cascade of things Jesus is trying to tell us. Here’s a partial list: (1)
There is no opportunity for repentance after death. Through this story Jesus is saying, ‘Call upon
God while God is near!’ Ask Him to empower you to follow His commands! The time of repentance is
now!
(2) Race, color, creed, national origin and wealth don’t matter in God’s economy. The rich man was
a son of Abraham, one of the chosen. But it’s Abraham himself who informs the rich man of the
justice he’d earned for the injustice he’d dealt out. Remember Jesus’ baptism, when John the Baptist
cried out, “Don’t say to yourselves ‘We have Abraham as our father’, for I tell you that God is able
from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” We can never presume upon our earthly status
to earn brownie points with God.
(3) As Jesus emphasized so often, we’re to have compassion upon the poor. We’re not only to have
sympathy, but we’re required to put our compassion into action on their behalf. And if you’re
tempted to hesitate at the social, hands-on aspects of the Gospel, re-read Matthew chapter 25. That
one’s another wake-up call in which Jesus talks about the afterlife.
(4) In this story Jesus makes clear that we’re not to equate wealth with God’s blessing, and poverty
with punishment. We have a man who apparently was blessed in this life earning punishment in the
afterlife because of his unrepentant, selfish decisions. Paul writes of such people in today’s epistle
reading as he writes: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be
rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”
And we have one who would seem to have been cursed in this earthly life, living with patience and
honor, and being rewarded with comfort and kindness in the great heavenly banquet. We’re never
given a good explanation as to why Lazarus suffered, but in his suffering he responded honorably to
what had been given him, and for that he is rewarded. He, too, personifies Paul’s words to Timothy:
“There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.”
(5) There is life after death, and the kind of life we will have comes from judgment at the hands of a
loving and just God. God isn’t indifferent to evil. That would mean there is no justice. No judgment
means no justice. And Jesus repeatedly and solemnly warns us of this.
Finally, this teaching is woven together with God’s love for his human creation, as shown in what
Jesus has secured for us. After he begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his family about the
wages of sin, the rich man says, “If someone goes to them from the dead, they’ll repent.” And of
course Abraham replies, “Au contraire! If their hearts aren’t open enough to listen to Moses and the
prophets, they won’t be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” If they have no desire to
get right with God and to live right, they won’t seek out the one who, by the victory of his
resurrection, makes this possible and who even picks us up when we stumble.
It’s no accident that the name given the protagonist of this story is the same as the one Jesus raised
from the dead at the village of Bethany. His story is the foretaste of the great Resurrection that
crowned Jesus’ earthly life and death, and gives to all believers the assurance of eternal life. The
thing is, eternal life actually begins at the moment in which we exercise faith in Jesus. And the rest of
our lives here on this earth is a person by person building of the kingdom of God in advance of
heaven. It’s the foundation of the future.
In fact, Paul concludes our epistle reading with these words about people being good stewards of
wealth: “They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing
up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the
life that really is life.” Eternal life, the life that really is life, begins with faith in Jesus. And as we
submit our will to His, in the power of the Holy Spirit we’re transformed to use what God has given us
toward kingdom goals, kingdom thoughts, and kingdom actions. It’s then that we become like
Lazarus, “the one whom God helps.”
Well, we’ve sort of dissected and analyzed the parable of the rich man and Lazarus to give us a
sense of what it said to the people to whom Jesus told this story. But now that we’ve done this, I
encourage you simply to re-read the story yourself as a story, and let it speak to your heart,
because the Lord still, here and now, speaks through his Word.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
when Pastor Lee was here. He preached on considering our calling right after Jesus’ strange
parable that seemed to be patting an unscrupulous business manager on the back for his
shrewdness. Some of my more timid colleagues might agree that Pastor Lee dodged a bullet. I was
watching the congregation during this reading and could have sworn that a few faces went a little
pale.
So it was tempting for me to take this one on, but I decided not to. We’re just going to have to be in
suspense about it for the next three years, until it comes around again in the lectionary. If you’re
keeping track, that will be October 12, 2013, so mark your calendars.
This morning’s Gospel reading contains another parable of Jesus. The poignant and kind of
frightening scenario of a rich man suffering in hell has struck fear into more than one heart. I
remember this one being used by one hellfire and brimstone evangelist in the denomination of my
childhood as a very effective altar call tool. That night after the service I was happy that our
parsonage was built onto the back of the church, so I wouldn’t have to worry about being creamed
by a train on the ride home, with unrepented sin in my heart, like the evangelist warned us about. A
one-way ticket to share a toasty little room with the rich man.
But if we take a little closer look at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, we find quite a bit more
depth than that. This past couple of months you’ve heard the name Kenneth Bailey bandied about.
He’s a world expert on the parables, especially as interpreted in the light of Middle Eastern culture. I
credit him for some key insights to help us better understand our parable this morning.
The first thing that needs to be said about the story is that it’s the third in a trilogy of parables told
by Jesus. Each of these has to do with managing the resources entrusted to us by God. First we
have the parable of the prodigal son, who misuses his father’s possessions, then the dishonest
steward, who misuses his master’s possessions, and now the rich man, who misuses his own
possessions. He certainly is serving mammon, and not God, as we’ll see.
Jesus paints a picture here that would have been clear and colorful to his listeners. He starts by
describing a rich man, who wears purple robes and fine linens. The part about linens is probably a
bit of wry humor, as the Greek word actually refers to a kind of expensive undergarment. So Jesus is
saying something like, “He even wore fancy underwear!” I like Jesus.
But this rich man lived high off the hog every day while Lazarus, covered with sores, languished at
the gate. He probably would have been carried to the gate to beg. Jesus says not that he satisfied
his hunger from the crumbs of the rich man’s table, but that he longed to satisfy his hunger that way.
Dogs came and licked his sores, and these dogs probably got the crumbs, not Lazarus.
And Lazarus’ begging spot at the front gate would have put him in range of the rich man’s house so
he could actually hear the feasts that were being held there. It’s bad enough that he’s laying there
sick, hungry, and covered with sores, but at the same time he’s tormented by the sounds of daily
banquets. His physical discomfort has to be awful, but this also has to be emotionally devastating—
laughing, wealthy people coming and going, the sounds of robust conversation, wining and dining,
all just out of reach of a man who needed these things more than any of them. All the while the rich
man had to have been intentionally oblivious to his needs.
And through it all apparently Lazarus doesn’t complain or protest. He endures his torment with
whatever dignity he can muster. So Jesus says that time passes, and Lazarus and the rich man both
die. Lazarus (which I’m sure by no coincidence) means ‘the one whom God helps’) ends up, as the
NRSV puts it, in the presence of Abraham.
Actually the literal phrase is “reclining in Abraham’s bosom.” This was an idiom meaning “reclining at
the dining table at Abraham’s right hand.” This is one instance of the old King James Version
capturing the meaning a bit better than newer translations. A similar phrase is used in John’s Gospel
in the story of the Last Supper, at which John is reclining on Jesus’ bosom at the Passover table. In
any case this is a sign that Lazarus was especially blessed in the afterlife. He who had nothing in
this life has gained everything in the next, sitting with Abraham himself at the feast.
By contrast, the rich man ends up in Hades—Hell—where he’s being tormented by flames. We may
be inclined to assume that he’s repentant, and his repentance is too late. But if we look closely, this
is only half right. It is too late for repentance, but he’s unrepentant anyway. How can we tell that?
Well, there isn’t even the hint of an apology for his treatment of Lazarus, for starters. He appears to
have no remorse whatsoever.
In fact, not only does the rich man ask for something for himself—that his tongue be moistened to
relieve his anguish—but he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to do it! He apparently still sees Lazarus
as a lower class errand boy who can potentially help him when he never even lifted a finger to help
Lazarus. In Yiddish they call that chutzpah.
It’s like the story of the old woman who sold pretzels on a street corner for a dollar each. Every day a
young man would leave his office building at lunch time, and as he passed the pretzel stand, he
would leave her a dollar, but never take a pretzel. This went on for more than 3 years. The two of
them never spoke. One day, as the young man passed the old woman's stand and left his dollar as
usual, the pretzel lady spoke to him. Without blinking an eye she said: "They're a dollar-fifty now."
That’s chutzpah. Translate it as “audacity.”
So Abraham explains to the rich man the justice played out in the way things have now become. He
says, “During your lifetime you received good things, and now look at you.” “You received good
things”—not “You’ve earned good things because you’re so smart and so industrious and you
pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps.” You see, who we are and what we have is all a gift from
God. And the nature of God’s kingdom is that He uses willing people to be a blessing to others and
bestow His gifts on them. He could make food and clothing appear miraculously out of the ether, but
most often His way is for us to work in concert with him, as the body of Christ, working in the family
business of spreading the kingdom of love. It’s called ‘loving our neighbor.’
So what we do with what we’ve been given is immeasurably important. The rich man spent what was
entrusted to him on himself while a man he could have helped lay languishing. In spite of this
Lazarus didn’t get bitter and go postal. He didn’t even complain. And now he’s being comforted.
What we do with what we’ve been given is supremely important.
So how does the rich man respond to Abraham? He asks him to send Lazarus, the errand boy, to
warn his brothers. Yet another insult. The rich man simply doesn’t get it. He’s lived a life of cruel
neglect and even now in hell fails to see the human dignity of the poor man, even as he’s seated at
Abraham’s right hand.
In this tight parable there’s a cascade of things Jesus is trying to tell us. Here’s a partial list: (1)
There is no opportunity for repentance after death. Through this story Jesus is saying, ‘Call upon
God while God is near!’ Ask Him to empower you to follow His commands! The time of repentance is
now!
(2) Race, color, creed, national origin and wealth don’t matter in God’s economy. The rich man was
a son of Abraham, one of the chosen. But it’s Abraham himself who informs the rich man of the
justice he’d earned for the injustice he’d dealt out. Remember Jesus’ baptism, when John the Baptist
cried out, “Don’t say to yourselves ‘We have Abraham as our father’, for I tell you that God is able
from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” We can never presume upon our earthly status
to earn brownie points with God.
(3) As Jesus emphasized so often, we’re to have compassion upon the poor. We’re not only to have
sympathy, but we’re required to put our compassion into action on their behalf. And if you’re
tempted to hesitate at the social, hands-on aspects of the Gospel, re-read Matthew chapter 25. That
one’s another wake-up call in which Jesus talks about the afterlife.
(4) In this story Jesus makes clear that we’re not to equate wealth with God’s blessing, and poverty
with punishment. We have a man who apparently was blessed in this life earning punishment in the
afterlife because of his unrepentant, selfish decisions. Paul writes of such people in today’s epistle
reading as he writes: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be
rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”
And we have one who would seem to have been cursed in this earthly life, living with patience and
honor, and being rewarded with comfort and kindness in the great heavenly banquet. We’re never
given a good explanation as to why Lazarus suffered, but in his suffering he responded honorably to
what had been given him, and for that he is rewarded. He, too, personifies Paul’s words to Timothy:
“There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.”
(5) There is life after death, and the kind of life we will have comes from judgment at the hands of a
loving and just God. God isn’t indifferent to evil. That would mean there is no justice. No judgment
means no justice. And Jesus repeatedly and solemnly warns us of this.
Finally, this teaching is woven together with God’s love for his human creation, as shown in what
Jesus has secured for us. After he begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his family about the
wages of sin, the rich man says, “If someone goes to them from the dead, they’ll repent.” And of
course Abraham replies, “Au contraire! If their hearts aren’t open enough to listen to Moses and the
prophets, they won’t be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” If they have no desire to
get right with God and to live right, they won’t seek out the one who, by the victory of his
resurrection, makes this possible and who even picks us up when we stumble.
It’s no accident that the name given the protagonist of this story is the same as the one Jesus raised
from the dead at the village of Bethany. His story is the foretaste of the great Resurrection that
crowned Jesus’ earthly life and death, and gives to all believers the assurance of eternal life. The
thing is, eternal life actually begins at the moment in which we exercise faith in Jesus. And the rest of
our lives here on this earth is a person by person building of the kingdom of God in advance of
heaven. It’s the foundation of the future.
In fact, Paul concludes our epistle reading with these words about people being good stewards of
wealth: “They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing
up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the
life that really is life.” Eternal life, the life that really is life, begins with faith in Jesus. And as we
submit our will to His, in the power of the Holy Spirit we’re transformed to use what God has given us
toward kingdom goals, kingdom thoughts, and kingdom actions. It’s then that we become like
Lazarus, “the one whom God helps.”
Well, we’ve sort of dissected and analyzed the parable of the rich man and Lazarus to give us a
sense of what it said to the people to whom Jesus told this story. But now that we’ve done this, I
encourage you simply to re-read the story yourself as a story, and let it speak to your heart,
because the Lord still, here and now, speaks through his Word.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
September 26, 2010
The Rev. Dan Tuton
The Rev. Dan Tuton
Upstairs/Downstairs
(Luke 16:19-31)
(Luke 16:19-31)
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