"The Rich Man and Lazarus" -- Sermon for 6 June 2010

Text: Luke 16:19-31

Last week we began our series on the parables by saying that we are a people who love to tell stories. There are narratives that shape us, that mold us, that define us. Stories are what we share when we get together. They become a part of who it is that we are. They are a part of who we are as a church as well.

Some of you will remember how it is that you greeted the Doepken family when we got to Girdwood…with an old-fashioned “POUNDING.”   A pounding is an old-time way of greeting a new pastor to a church. Parishioners go out of their way to bring a “pound” of something to the pastoral family – a pound of butter, a pound of beans, a pound of meat. At least, that’s the tradition. It was supposed to be staples to help them set up house and feel welcomed. Now it’s often just some food, regardless of the weight of the food. I remember that Mike V. made a phenomenal coconut pound cake—loaded with coconut. I REALLY DON’T like coconut. Coconut is up there with split pea soup with the foods that I dislike the most. But the cake was so good, I had a few pieces anyway. And, altogether, it was a way that let the Doepken family know that you were excited to have us here.


Then there's the story of Ben D. and his famous haircut before our trip to Alabama for a mission trip. We were trying to raise funds at our Chili Cook-Off and Ben offered his long hair as a fundraiser. The bids went out and his dad got first cut. Over $1600 was raised at the total event...and a lot of it was from that haircut.

So, if stories are so important, it’s no wonder that just about a third of what Jesus spoke to us was in stories, parables. They are stories with rich meaning that were spoken to particular persons at particular times and were meant to turn the world upside down for them…to allow a little bit of God’s Holy Kingdom to break on through into the lives of the hearers. There was usually a “twist” and there was always a “point.”

Last week we looked at the Parable of the Sower, one of the parables that is more well-known and is pretty pleasant. We go a little darker here.   This one’s not so easy to swallow and it should be one that gives us pause as we look at our own lives and as we look at the players in this story.

Just last night as I drove home from my meetings in Anchorage, this story came to me again as I turned left onto the New Seward Highway from Northern Lights Boulevard. There was a homeless man on that corner, holding up a sign asking for a handout…and I was glad I was in the other lane. And, when I stopped at the light at Benson, there was (as is often the case) another homeless man with a sign, asking for help…and I was in the other lane. “Don’t make eye contact.” “Try not to feel guilty.” “Someone else will help him.”

But, then…there’s the story.

There once was a rich man. He was QUITE the rich man. He was rich enough to care about the latest fashions, and he had them in purple since that was the most expensive dye. He would waste his day, quite conspicuously, as the consummate consumer. He bought a lot, not just all he needed, but also all that he wanted. He lived on one side of a gate.

And, as we heard, there was a poor man, too, on the other side. His name was Lazarus. In fact, Lazarus and Abraham are the only persons mentioned by name in any of Jesus’ parables. Now Lazarus was QUITE the poor man. He had sores all over his body and couldn’t get anyone to treat them since it made him ritually impure. He loved getting any scraps that fell from the rich man’s table—not the crumbs, mind you, but the pieces of bread that were used to wipe plates and clean hands. That was about the best he could do. He didn’t have any friends…or at least human friends. His friends were the neighborhood dogs who came and licked his sores—which probably doesn’t classify as medical treatment. It sounds like standing on a street corner as cars pass him by would be an improvement over his current lot. He was miserable.

As you know, the poor man died and is “taken up by the angels to the lap of Abraham.” We’ll call it “heaven” for a point of reference that might work for us. And the rich man died, too, but he didn’t go UP…he went DOWN…to the pit of hell.   And, perhaps the hellish part of this hell is that he could look up and see Lazarus sitting up there in heaven kicking back with Abraham. That had to stink.

So, the rich man called out, “Father, Abraham, mercy! Have mercy! Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue. I’m in agony in this fire.”

But Abraham had none of this. He called down: “Remember that in your life you had riches, fine clothes, cable TV, and brand new cars…the whole works…all the good stuff…and Lazarus got the short end of the stick. Well, the roles are reversed now and he couldn’t even get to you if he wanted to because of this huge chasm that’s set between us. So…not gonna’ happen.”

Then the rich man asks if Lazarus could at least go to his father’s house to warn all of his brothers so that they don’t end up like him…down in hell, begging for some water. And, again, Abraham had none of it. “They have Moses and the Prophets to tell them the score. Let them listen to them.”

“But Abraham,” says the rich man, “they’re not listening. Surely, they’d pay attention if someone came back from the dead!”

“Look,” Abraham says, probably at the end of his patience. “I don’t think it would matter who we sent to them, even someone from the dead, if they won’t listen to Moses and the Prophets.   I can’t help you here.”

There is no help from Jesus in interpreting this any more.   But as we look at it, I don’t think we can take this parable and turn it into some vast understanding of economic theory or the basis of a country’s economic system. But, there really isn’t a whole lot of ambiguity in here. The rich man’s place in hell, at least according to the parable, has been reserved it seems because while he was rich, he allowed Lazarus to go on living in the condition that he was in. He didn’t even seem to notice him. Now, the text doesn’t say he was a horrible rich guy or that he hated puppies or small children or that he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. It says he was rich, , he neglected this poor man, now he’s in hell, and isn’t ironic that the fortunes are reversed.

And, it doesn’t say that this Lazarus is a particularly good guy. You don’t get the sense that he saved kittens from trees or worked at the soup kitchen or spent a great deal of time reading God’s Word to disadvantaged youth. The text says he’s poor. He dies and goes to be with Abraham. And that’s about it.

What I find most interesting here is the fact that the burden, eternally, morally, seems to be on the rich…while in our society we often put that burden on the poor.   We think, “They should get a job.” Or, “They could at least find some clean clothes.” Or, “Honey, stay away from that man.”

This was made clear once again to me the other night. One of the things we do is a family is watch “America’s Got Talent” – not all the time but when we can…and we’re home…and we remember. Which might mean half the time. Anyway, we watched it last Tuesday night and one of the acts was The New Horizons Choir, a group of homeless veterans who have gotten together as a singing group. They were fabulous. No doubt about it. The story is that they were all homeless vets who got cleaned up at a particular halfway house and found they all enjoyed singing. And now that they have their act together…both literally and figuratively…they perform and hope to raise awareness about the homeless problem that faces America’s veterans.   It’s truly a great story and they were an awesome group to listen to.

But something the main spokesman for the group said, stuck with me. He said, something to this effect. “There was a time when you might not have wanted to see us coming. But we’re here to tell you that people can change. And, you don’t have to be afraid of us anymore.”

I watched the performance again last night on YouTube just to see it again.

Let me tell you why this stuck with me. The assumption, in what he was saying, is that it’s the homeless person who needs to change. That, once that homeless person gets their act together, then they can be noticed and listened to and helped and we don’t have to run away in fear.

So often, like our rich man, we don’t even notice those who are homeless or poor or in great need.

Shane Claiborne, who will be here to speak on July 4^th Sunday, has the following quote:

I asked participants who claimed to be ‘strong followers of Jesus’ whether Jesus spent time with the poor. Nearly 80 percent said yes. Later in the survey, I sneaked in another question, I asked this same group of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, and less than 2 percent said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy of the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor. (From Irresistible Revolution)

One of the things we learn from the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus is that our lives in God’s Kingdom, are tightly connected with the lives of the poor in our midst. Even Jesus’ first sermon, which we read from earlier in the service, gets at this. It’s from Luke 4:18-19:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

And then Jesus spent most of his years of ministry with the poor and the oppressed and the captive. He noticed them.   He knew them. He touched them. And he broke their chains that bound them.

This parable tells us that the poor are the brothers and sisters of the wealthy and that, as Kline Snodgrass points out, “the injustice of the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty cannot be tolerated.” We need to open our eyes to the needs and respond, when we don’t even know the poor. Where does it begin?

I got to spend much of the lat four days with clergy from across Alaska. One of them is our Superintendent, Dave Beckett. Here’s how Dave said it began for him:

Last week I attended the Anchorage Assembly as they dealt with the issue of homeless camps. Rev. Michael Burke, pastor of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Anchorage, is a good friend and articulate spokesperson for the homeless. He has the credibility of 20 years of visiting homeless persons around Anchorage. Several of his members do not have a place they call home.

At a recent forum on homelessness the leaders at St. Mary’s taught me that it is very important to be in relationship with the poor, to look them in the eye and speak their name.

Recently I was coming out of Fred Meyer with my lunch in hand, headed back to the office. A man approached me in the parking lot and asked me if I had 20 cents. I had become used to projecting my steel side that protected my wallet and I really did not have 20 cents in change and told him so. I was surprised that he did not follow up with another request. As I was securing my lunch in my motorcycle bags he was admiring my bike. I asked his name. “Bruce,” he said. “Hi Bruce. I’m Dave.” We chatted for a bit and then parted.

Okay, before I pat myself on the back for this response, let’s fast forward to later that night. I’m lying in bed trying to sleep when I heard God speak. “Why didn’t you ask Bruce if he was hungry? You could have given him your lunch.” I pounded the bed! Why didn’t I think of this?

I share this with you because I have much to learn about the poor. I have so many layers of white middle-class privilege that need to be peeled away. Being a Christ follower does not always make me comfortable. But facing up to the ways I have been shaped by my culture can help me see the humanity in another child of God.

So what barriers do you automatically erect in such circumstances? Friends, we really need to be in authentic relationship with all of God’s children. This is especially true for the poor.

Or, as I heard Dave say yesterday, “Once you were baptized you gave up any right to choose who you get to love.”

Friends, The Rich Man and Lazarus may come to us from the First Century, but they don’t stay in a box there. It’s a word for us today. We need to open our eyes to the Lazarus’ at our gates.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.