Gospel: Luke 16:19-31
The parable in today’s reading from Luke … the only of the four Gospels in which we find it … accomplishes several things. It reflects for instance some traditional Jewish views on how the life led on earth determines what awaits after death.[1] Here it’s used by Jesus to continue calling out and challenging the Pharisees, who appealed to the Scriptures to support their accumulation of wealth, by subtly weaving in other Scriptures that stood in opposition to them.
It presents a new version of a story found in the writings of seven rabbis, including one in which the characters are a rich merchant and a poor teacher and another with a rich and haughty woman and her servile husband.[2] There’s a version with a poor Torah scholar and a rich toll collector.[3] There’s even an ancient Egyptian folktale that found its way to Palestine about two men, one rich and one poor, who died, and while the rich man suffered torment the poor man sat in comfort near the lord of the underworld, dressed in the elegant clothing worn in life by the rich man.[4]
Here though we have a parable from Jesus, the only one of his parables where any of the characters are named. We hear of a rich man, one dressed in the purple clothes symbolizing his status and who feasted continually, separated from Lazarus … by a gate. He could walk out to the edge of his property every day and see for himself this hungry, injured, forgotten man … and he did nothing. The gate separated them not just physically; it separated them socially as well.
Now the rich man couldn’t plead ignorance about what Lazarus was living with and living through just outside his home. “The suffering man at his gate was not an anonymous stranger. The rich man has no plausible deniability.”[5] No; he knew who was just beyond the gate. He knew his name. He knew the identity of the one outside his front door, the one who even the dogs that were considered nothing more than scavengers took pity on as they tried to comfort him by licking his wounds.
The separation of class is reflected in what we learn about how they’re treated at death. The rich man receives a burial, undoubtedly a fine one reflecting his position in society. We see no such note about Lazarus; we see only that he died. But there’s a clue as to the dramatic flip that’s about to occur. Lazarus dies, yes, but he is carried away by angels. Status and comfort are about to be turned on their heads.
As the distance between the two widens from a gate to what the Gospel writer portrays as “a great chasm,” we hear the feasting man in the purple cloth call out to Abraham to send Lazarus to him. He doesn’t ask the patriarch to send just anyone to cool his tongue with water. He asks for the one he recognized, the one he saw leading a tormented life just outside his front door. He asks for the one with the name he knows well. He asks for Lazarus. In life, his status and privilege translated into giving to those of equal status and expecting to get from all others. Now in Hades, “where he was being tormented,” the rich man continues to seek comfort for himself.
As Joel Green writes,
Amazingly, the wealthy man has not been humbled by his new and undoubtedly startling circumstances. Instead, he assumes that Abraham is still his ‘father’ and that Lazarus, who he knows by name but has never helped, is present with Abraham in order to carry out errands on behalf of a wealthy man like himself.[6]
The rich man has learned nothing about what he should have done in life, nor has he recognized the true value of the life of Lazarus … the one living – and dying – just beyond his front gate.
Even today, we see the separation between the rich man and Lazarus in the world around us. From the slim thickness of a gate to the all-too-frequent wide chasms, the rich man continues to feast while Lazarus continues to suffer … continuing to avoid the problems rather than address them.
The rich man is separated from Lazarus by the window of the car he drives up to the traffic light … the window he tries not to look through as Lazarus holds out a sign asking for food, or a job, or a few dollars.
The rich man is separated from Lazarus by the street along which he’s walking … the street he quickly crosses to create a barrier between himself and the homeless Lazarus sleeping on a bench on the far side.
The rich man is separated from Lazarus by his own eyes … eyes that he closes tightly so the darkness shields him from the addiction or abuse from which Lazarus suffers and which drives him into deeper despair and hopelessness.
The rich man is separated from Lazarus by the power buttons he presses to retreat from the reality of seeing and hearing for himself the pain and horror rising from the wars, conflict, discrimination, imprisonment, or forced isolation in the lives of the countless Lazaruses being lived – and destroyed – around the next corner and around the world.
What are we to do? How are we to open the gate and cross the chasm to go to the wounded and suffering Lazarus? It’s a lot to consider; the world throws a lot at us. In my life I’ve been guilty of being the rich man, looking away … not so much because of who I thought I was but rather because the sheer number of problems facing so many were so overwhelming to me that frankly I was afraid to try. I looked at one person and saw in them everyone who was struggling or forgotten. I considered the many I didn’t see instead of focusing on the one I did.
We don’t start counting at number 11; we start at one. In addressing the needs of our neighbors, we start with one. Joseph Fitzmyer says that in this parable Jesus “calls indirectly for ‘generous and gracious help for all victims of poverty, sickness, or any other ill that may come’ upon human beings.”[7] For me, it’s not an indirect call; it’s instead a very in-your-face call. It’s a call to not just learn the names of the Lazaruses in our community, but to learn their stories and discern how we can best help them. It’s a call not to try and do it all, but to do what we can. It’s certainly a constant reminder to me to not be overwhelmed and discouraged by the enormity of the problems and turn away feeling hopeless, but to look at the one in front of me … the one outside my gate … and answer the call to serve.
In this and every season, I pray it’s a reminder for you as well.
I’d like you to turn to page 260 in the Book of Common Prayer and to close this sermon pray together with me the Collect for Social Service:
Heavenly Father, whose blessed Son came not to be served but to serve: Bless all who, following in his steps, give themselves to the service of others; that with wisdom, patience, and courage, they may minister in his Name to the suffering, the friendless, and the needy – for the love of him who laid down his life for us, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
[1] Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III. The Gospel of Luke, p. 456.
[2] Fred B. Craddock. Luke, p. 195.
[3] Joseph A. Fitzmyer. The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV, p. 1127.
[4] Fitzmyer, p. 1126.
[5] Levine and Witherington, p. 455.
[6] Joel B. Green. The Gospel of Luke, p. 608.
[7] Fitzmyer, p. 1129.