Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine
linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor
man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell
from the rich man’s table.”
Which of these two men would you say was blessed by God? Be
honest. You’d say the rich man. He could count his blessings. Actually, he
probably couldn’t – he would run out of fingers on both hands and toes on both
feet, but at least he had blessings to count. Good things. Lots of stuff. And
the poor beggar, whose name was Lazarus, he had nothing. Blessed by God?
Hardly! We might suspect he was cursed by God, that he did something to deserve
this lot in life. And there we would be very wrong.
Of these two men, which would you rather be? Again, be
honest. It would be the one with the nice suits, the expensive cars, the
servants, the Mediterranean vacations, the fine food and wine. Who, in his or
her right mind, would want to be the one who had to be carried because he
couldn’t walk, who had to beg because he couldn’t work, whose body was covered
with painful sores and whose only physicians were the dogs who licked his
sores? Who wants to be the one who could only look through the window at the
rich man’s table and longed to be a dog at his feet, lapping up the table
scraps?
As He does with many parables, Jesus paints this one in
black and white. There is a man who is filthy rich who has a filthy beggar
lying at his gate. We know the name of the poor man: Lazarus. It’s also the
name of one of Jesus’ best friends, the brother of Mary and Martha whom Jesus
raised from the dead. We don’t know the name of the rich man. Nor apparently does
Jesus, or perhaps he’s forgotten him with the words, “Depart from me, I never
knew you.”
Both men died. Death is the great equalizer. Rich and poor
die alike. The rich die more comfortably perhaps, but rich and poor die alike.
And then comes the big surprise. The great reversal of fortunes. In death
everything gets turned upside down. The rich man loses everything; the poor man
gains everything. The rich man becomes the beggar; the beggar becomes the rich
man. The one who was blessed is cursed; the one who was cursed is blessed. Go
figure.
Lazarus, who was carried every day of his miserable life to
the gate of the rich man, is now carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham,
a Jewish euphemism for what we usually call “heaven” or what Jesus called Paradise.
Let’s agree not to speculate too much about this and just let the parable speak
for itself. Lazarus is in a good place, comforted, whole, happy, hanging with
Abraham.
The rich man is in Hades, a bad place, a place of torment. Now
who’s on the outside looking in? Where Lazarus used to sit outside and look at
the rich man’s dinner scraps, now the rich man is outside paradise and he can
see Lazarus hanging with Abraham. But, still, some things never change, so the
rich man, who was used to ordering servants around all his life, now tries to
order Lazarus to please fetch him a drink because it’s damn hot down here. At
the very least, just dip the end of his finger in some water to cool my tongue.
Lazarus used to long for the crumbs; the rich man now longs for a cooling
finger.
And the hell of it all is that there is chasm, this huge gap
the size of the Grand Canyon, that prevents that cooling finger from ever
reaching the rich man’s burning tongue. The distance between the rich man’s
table and Lazarus was considerably shorter, just a few feet.
I once heard a wise guy say money can’t buy happiness, but
it can make your misery more comfortable. I wonder about that. I mean, if you
were to ask the rich man and Lazarus in their lives who was happy, I’m sure the
rich man was quite happy in his purple Steve Harvey suit, custom Tony Llama
ostrich boots, sipping his Pappy Van Winkle, dining on his Salt Bae steaks. And
I seriously doubt that Lazarus was happy, believer though he was, and we know
he was a believer by where he ended up, since Abraham is the father of those
who believe.
But when money fails, and it always ultimately fails, when
you drop dead and all your hard-earned money gets fought over by your deadbeat
kids, the happiness that money brings dies with it. And then what? The rich man
in his unbelief winds up an eternal beggar, worse off than Lazarus. And the
poor man in his faith has the comforts of Abraham.
Of course, there are no atheists in Hades. And suddenly, the
rich man, maybe for the first time in his life, takes an interest in someone
else and is interested in evangelism of all things. He has five brothers.
They’re rich too, most likely. He doesn’t want them to wind up the same way.
“Please send Lazarus to warn them.” Now he wants to bring Lazarus back from the
dead because that will make an impression but would be a major bummer for
Lazarus. Can you imagine being recalled from the bosom of Abraham? Ironically,
Jesus actually did raise a man named Lazarus from the dead, and it didn’t do
any good. They plotted to kill Lazarus too because he was making a big name for
Jesus.
“They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” They
have the Word written and preached. It’s there for them in church, waiting to
be heard. That’s all they need to avoid the fate of the rich man. That’s all
the rich man needed, and he had it all his wealthy life. Who knows? Perhaps the
rich was there every Sabbath in the synagogue sitting in his place of honor as
one of the pillars of he congregation. Perhaps he heard the Word every Sabbath
because that’s where everyone else was and no one was doing business. Sadly, he
is the weedy soil in Jesus’ parable of the four-fold soil, where the seed of
the Word is planted but never takes root because the riches and cares of this
world choke it out with busy calendars and commitments and concerns. Jesus said
it’s easier to pull a camel through the eye of a needle than to squeeze a rich
man into the kingdom. This rich man would agree.
Even if someone should rise from the dead (ie Lazarus), they
still would not be convinced if they reject the Word, Moses and the Prophets.
Resurrections are impressive, but even the greatest miracle won’t produce even
mustard-seed sized faith without the Word. Faith comes by hearing the Word of
Christ – the word of forgiveness in Jesus’ name, the word delivered in Baptism
and Supper. The Word that declares a sinner justified before God solely for
Jesus’ sake.
There’s one final thing that gets me in this parable. In his
life, I bet everyone knew who the rich man was. We know them, too – at least by
name: the Bill Gates’, Mark Zuckerbergs, the Jerry Jonses of the world. But, in
the parable, he is unnamed. Some Bible translations call him Dives, which is
Latin for “rich man,” but that’s not a name – that’s a description. He has everything
except a name. Contrast that with the poor, the homeless, the helpless. We see
them at street corners and in front of stores, holding signs and rattling cups
of change. To us, they are nameless; frankly, they are barely people. In the
parable, it’s the poor man, Lazarus, who is given a name. He has nothing else –
no possessions, no help, no crumbs – but the Lord saw fit to name him. Why is that?
It’s not that God doesn’t love the rich man – Jesus death was for him, too. Why
is Lazarus named?
It’s so that you see yourself as Lazarus. Helpless and
hopeless in our poverty, sick unto death, longing for the crumbs that fall from
God’s table. God, through Christ, names you as His own, gives you His Son’s
name in Baptism – Christian – and washes you with Baptismal riches so that you,
too, inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. He feeds You from His table on His own Son’s
Body and Blood. He applies the soothing balm of forgiveness on your wounded
heart, mind, and conscience. And, on your last day, like both the Lazarus of
the parable and Lazarus, the friend of Jesus and brother to Mary and Martha – I
don’t think it is an accident that Jesus names this parable character with the
name of the man whom He raised – on your last day, you, too, shall be welcomed
to the bosom of Abraham. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the
kingdom of God.”
In the name of Jesus,
Amen
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