Theology for
Ministry Conference
Fair Hills Resort,
Detroit Lakes, MN
September 20, 2016
Luke 16:19-31
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.
Persons
pondering this parable have noticed that the rich man starts showing signs of
being human only after he is dead.
In life, the rich man dwells aloof in regal splendor,
described here with such an economy of words.
Dressed-to-the-nines, it’s as if the rich man has taken up residence at
the Old Country Buffet, each and every day.
In life, so it seems, the rich man has no awareness of
the beggar who is always there, lying at his gate, a man so famished that he
even craved crumbs from the sweepings in the rich man’s dining room.
It is no surprise that the rich man likely had no direct
dealings with the beggar who certainly must have been unclean--both
hygienically and religiously--his only companions the feral mutts that roamed
the neighborhood.
One of the wondrous things that wealth can purchase,
after all, is distance from beggars
and other assorted riff raff….protection from their blank stares, their plaintive
hands, their distasteful odor.
Only in death,
does the rich man notice the beggar, lolling in the embrace of Father
Abraham….and even more surprisingly only in death do we learn that the
rich man actually did know the beggar’s name after all: Lazarus,
which means “God helps.”
But there is more.
Only in death,
does the rich man display concern for anyone other than himself. He remembers the survivors listed in his
funeral bulletin, the five siblings he had left behind him. The rich man expresses urgent concern—not
once, but twice—that they avoid the woeful fate that has befallen him.
How
ironic, that the rich man starts evidencing signs of his shared humanity with
others, only after his heart has
taken its final beat.
Perhaps this is simply an instance of what Benjamin
Franklin described when he said: Life's
tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.[1]
Is that what’s going on here in this parable—was the
rich man simply “old too soon”—no, actually, “dead too soon and wise too
late?”
Maybe—or maybe not!
Look with me more closely at this parable.
Yes, the rich man, tormented in Hades, does finally notice and name Lazarus—but to what end?
The rich man, far from acknowledging Lazarus as his equal, perhaps even
his better, still regards Lazarus as someone beneath him….a lackey, an errand
boy, whom the rich man requests Father Abraham to send forth—three times, no
less!—to do the rich man’s bidding.
Even in death, the rich man still doesn’t truly
recognize, doesn’t genuinely acknowledge Lazarus as a fellow child of Abraham.
And yes, the rich man, in his dire straits does
finally remember his siblings who are still in their earthly pilgrimage—but
what does he think they need the most?
By asking Abraham to dispatch Lazarus back from the
grave into the world to “warn” his surviving siblings, lest they “come into
this place of torment”—the only conclusion I can draw is that the rich man
wants to have Lazarus return from his grave to scare the hell out of them
before it’s too late.
It’s as if the rich man envisions Lazarus, perhaps
clad in heavy clanking chains, like the ghost of Jacob Marley in Charles
Dickens’s A Christmas Carol—a spook
from the other side, sent to frighten the rich man’s siblings into doing the
right thing before they, too, go down to the grave.
In other words, for the rich man in Hades, the only
thing that seems to count is raw, naked, self-interest. Salvation is about saving one’s own skin at
any cost.
And in this regard the rich man is still light years
away from the Kingdom of God. Father
Abraham is correct: there is indeed a chasma mega—a mega-chasm between Hades
and the Kingdom of God.
Perhaps you have heard the old story about Saint
Teresa [of Avila who] once dreamed she saw a woman running, carrying a flaming
torch in one hand, and a pail of water in the other. When Teresa asked the woman where she was
going, she answered, “I am going to quench the fires of hell and burn down the
mansions of heaven so that people will love God for God’s own sake, not because
they fear punishment or seek reward.”[2]
This kernel of truth in St Teresa’s vision shines
through in the final verse of our parable, where Father Abraham seeks to
redirect the rich man’s too-late concern for his siblings: “If they do not listen to Moses and the
prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the
dead."
In other words:
the five surviving siblings of the rich man don’t need to experience an
apparition from the other side of death.
They already have something far better—indeed they have always had safely within their grasp—all
that they need to live the life God always imagined for them, in this world and
in the world to come. In short: they have God’s own precious Word, right in
their laps.
My dear friends, the conclusion of this parable draws us
to what we most need to hear: God has zero,
absolutely zero interest in scaring anyone through the Pearly Gates. What
God does care about—passionately!--is drawing us, wheedling and wooing us into
the only life worth living, in the Word that God graciously lavishes upon all
who have ears to hear.
“They
have Moses and the prophets,” as Father Abraham puts
it. Which is to say: they have more than enough.
The five siblings have God’s own Word, right before
their eyes, in their ears.
They’ve heard about God’s amazing, gracious creation
of the earth, all its inhabitants and everything that exists.
They have the astounding saga of God’s liberation of
his treasured people Israel.
They have been regaled by the tales of how God
continually provided for his chosen people, with manna from heaven, water from
the rock, a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night, leading, always
leading Israel from slavery into freedom, from the gloomy hall of death into
the glorious sunshine of the Promised Land, “the clothes on [their backs] not
worn out, and the sandals on [their] feet not worn out…” (Deut. 29:5)
The rich man’s five siblings already have “Moses and
the prophets,” God’s cascading promises, opening up that wide, broad place
where peace and justice dwell, where the lion lies down with the lamb, where
they’ll never be abandoned in their beggarliness.
The rich man’s sole survivors already have all the juicy
stuff, plopped down right in their laps.
They’ve gotten the message straight from God:
Do
not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When
you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not
overwhelm you;
when
you walk through fire—did you catch that?—when
you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you. (Isaiah 43)
The rich man was indeed “dead too soon and wise too
late,” because here he had always had all he ever needed, with Lazarus at the
gate and “Moses and the prophets” right under his nose, always beckoning, enticing
him into God’s own abundant, unending life.
There’s no magic formula here. God has made it plain as the nose on your
face:
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to
let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when
you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then
your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your
vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your
rearguard.
Then
you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say,
Here I am.” (Isaiah 58:6-9a)
The five surviving siblings of the rich man already
had anything their hearts could desire.
They had “Moses and the prophets…”
….and in fact, you and I have even more: because we have the rest of the story, the Gospels
and the epistles and everything else….
And just to leave no stone unturned, this Word has
taken on flesh and bone and lived among us.
We have Someone—Jesus!--who did in fact die, descend to the dead and
then return from the grave, not to scare the bejeebers out of us but always,
always, always to meet us with the sweetest of greetings: “Shalom!
Peace be with you! Now and
forever.”
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
