Richer Than Ever¹

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. God of great gifts, you have said blessed are the poor, and we become confused, for we know we are not poor. Help us to understand your Word, so that we might store up treasures in heaven. Use this time for your purposes. Speak Lord, your servants are listening. If these words are not Your Word, may they be forgotten and come to naught. But if they be Thy Word, may they adhere to our hearts, forever transforming us from glory into glory, into the creatures you would have us be, Thou who art our Rock and Redeemer, Amen.

Open your ears and your hearts to hear the Word of the Lord. Luke 16.19-31. Yes, this too is The Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God.

The sermon is going to be shorter today, and we’re ahead on time this morning. So I want to ask your advice on something. Stop me in the narthex on your way out if you’ve got a helpful idea.

You see, I’ve got this fictitious cousin. Recently single, moved into town just a short time ago. And he’s doing well apparently. He invented something that turns out to be indispensable to computers, especially laptops, and you know how that goes. Lives in East Cobb in a house I will never be able to afford. Drives a Jag, the 12, because apparently the 6 just won’t do, the whole package. But I’m beginning to think he may have a hang up about clothes. I just started to notice that I have never seen him wear the same outfit twice, and whenever I talk to him, the conversation sooner or later turns to wardrobe. Not necessarily always his. He’ll say, “I like that tie, where’d you get that.” Or he’ll say, “I found this great new catalog last week, you want me to get you on the mailing list.” It isn’t that he can’t afford it; his credit cards aren’t maxed out by any means. Its just weird stuff going on. It takes him an hour to get dressed for a tennis match. I’ve seen things in his closet that have gone unpacked for 6 weeks, sometimes longer. And I saw the delivery boxes for about half a dozen pair of cowboy boots. He doesn’t even wear cowboy boots. I guess it started bothering me last weekend, when he called on Saturday to have me come over to help him repair and replace the rod in his closet that had broken from the weight of the load of clothes he had on it. I know it’s harmless. He doesn’t do drugs, holds down a good job, pays his alimony on time, is respectable, but it feels like it’s almost kind of an addiction. So much of his energy and attention is on that.

So I have two questions. The first is, my cousin, does he really have a problem? And the second is, what should I say to him about it? Not that we’ve ever argued about it, I can barely even mention it, he won’t let me. Soon as I bring up the subject with, “You wear cowboy boots,” or the like, he switches the subject so fast it makes my head spin, and so subtly that I don’t even notice.

When Jesus wanted to discuss a difficult issue with people, he had an interesting strategy. He told a story. See, people can listen to a story without getting offended. If you need to miss the point of a story, you can do that, easily. I can attest. Actually, Melissa can give witness to how I miss the point of most every story. If you want to think that the story isn’t for you, you can do that too. All the while a story can contain powerful images and can convey deep truths if you are really willing and at a place to hear it.

This story for example. The people who were listening to it had a problem without even knowing it. In fact, the people with the problem didn’t think it was a problem at all, they thought it was an asset. It’s like people who think that being thin is beautiful. So they become so beautiful that it endangers their health.

These people were successful. And they believed that being successful was a sign that God was blessing them and that they were living right, that they were living the abundant life promised to those with whom God finds favor. Verse 14, the way the story starts, I didn’t read you that part. “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. And so he said to them,” and then he told the story.

Not the most popular story he ever told. This is not the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son. It doesn’t get read much, surely not preached about very often, I wonder why.

It’s a simple story, only two characters. Well, three if you count Abraham. The first is a rich man. “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.” The first character, immediately you know three things about him. He was rich. He was dressed to the nines all the time. And he feasted sumptuously, every day. I’m not too bothered by that. I mean, I like clothes. I like to dress well. But having to dress in the finest, every single day, doesn’t that seem obsessive? Can’t he ever just go out in jeans and a sweater? Can his friends ever come over and find him hanging out in shorts and a t-shirt? Just like, I like to eat well. But he feasted sumptuously every day. A modern translation goes at the Greek a little better. See, it’s a passive verb. He was fed the finest food every day. What’s wrong with that? If he can afford it, it’s his money, he’s not hurting anybody. We’re not talking Tony Soprano here, who kills and cheats and steals his way to fame and fortune here, no. It just means that if he was fed the best everyday that his staff never had a day off. Which means that his staff never got to observe the Sabbath, the core of a faithful religious Jew of that day was not available to this man’s servants. But, that’s secondary; he had to eat didn’t he. If he can afford the best, he should have the best. And he earned it, well, it doesn’t say that, but it doesn’t say that he stole it. And generally if people are successful, well, they deserve it. They work harder, smarter. Of course.

Lazarus, on the other hand, the second character, he’s sick. “And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores.” He’s unable to work. And he gets carried every day to the rich mans door. Again, the Greek is passive, not that he went there, but that he got taken there. Sick and covered with sores, nevertheless, he has people who care about his willing to do that everyday. The plan is to take him to the only man in the village perhaps with the resources to help. The plan does not work.

The only other thing we know about Lazarus is that the dogs would come to lick his sores. The first reaction is that is a little over-gratuitous in grossness. Okay, he’s sick. Do you have to share the part about him being covered with sores? Okay, you do. But do we need to know the detail about the dogs. Where did the dogs come from? Dogs were not kept as pets, they were given work. They either tended sheep, or guarded entrances. These dogs most likely would have been the guard dogs of the rich person. But clearly they don’t see Lazarus as a threat. Medical knowledge has advanced a little bit over the past 2 millennia. One of the things they noticed then was that while they didn’t know about anti-biotics, they noticed that people with infections, sores, would get better when licked by dogs. They didn’t know then what we know now. Dog saliva is sterile, so dog saliva was valued as a medical benefit. Maybe the point of this is to show that while the rich man wouldn’t help, even his dogs would.

One more thing about the dogs. Because there was medical benefit, and those who were clean were able to receive blessings, temple related blessings; being licked by the dogs carries a sense of righteousness to it. The one being licked is seen as one who is brought back to righteousness, or who has righteousness. There is a stigma of righteousness being attached here, not where society would place it, on the one who deserves the finest, but on the one being licked by the dogs.

The only other thing we know about Lazarus is that he is hungry. He longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table, but nothing ever fell. Maybe they went first to the dogs. After all, you’ve got dogs, you better treat them well. Good dogs are an investment, you know. You understand.

And then the story becomes a pearly gates story. Pearly gates story are as old as dirt. You hear about one a week. “George Bush, George Strait, and George Lucas all died on the same day. They go in front of St. Peter at the gate.” Well, right away you know that it’s going to be an attempt at something funny, and you know that it will reveal something about the true nature of the characters. This is a Pearly Gate story. What’s this story going to teach? That the rich man had it easy, and Lazarus had it tough, and in the next life their roles will be reversed. Is that the point? If so, then every person in this room better get nervous, because by any world standard, every one of us is going to have hell to pay.

So I don’t believe that is the message of the story. Granted, I have a vested interest, as do you, in not believing that is the message of the story. But I don’t see that. I also don’t think this story is about the next life as it is about the true life, here and now. When George W. Bush, George Strait, and George Lucas all go in front of St. Peter, that story reveals an underneath the surface true nature of their character and lives now. So what do we see at the Pearly Gate. Lazarus dies. Doesn’t have a funeral, can’t afford one. The rich man dies, and is buried. Doesn’t take much creativity to imagine what kind of casket, how many flowers, the size and sound of the hired choir, and the number of dignitaries and important people in the pew at the funeral. And now the rich man sees Lazarus. And here we come to the first great surprise in the story. I thought the rich man hadn’t noticed Lazarus, the needy one, at his gate, every day. I thought he had just been preoccupied with his work, his clothes, his food, his dogs, and he just hadn’t been aware of Lazarus. But when he sees Lazarus, he not only recognizes him, he calls him by name. Maybe the rich man had not been so unaware or as oblivious as he would like us to believe, or would like for himself to believe. Now the second great surprise. Having both seen Lazarus, and the truth, now the rich man must recognize his errors and apologize to Lazarus and beg for forgiveness. But no, he ignores Lazarus, and addresses the man in charge, Abraham. The rich man is accustomed to dealing with important people. The people with power and importance, they are the people who matter, right? “Abraham, I’m hurting. This isn’t what I’m used to. When beggars suffer, it doesn’t matter. There’s always some justifiable reason it happens to them. But when people like me…well this is terrible. Something needs to be done about it right now. Send Lazarus down here to meet my needs.” After all, having his needs met is what it’s all about, isn’t it? \\ Isn’t that an inalienable right? Isn’t meeting our needs what we’re supposed to do? Doesn’t God bless us with riches and resources and success in order that we can meet our needs? Or is Jesus telling this story to try to open up an entirely different truth to us.

Abraham responds, observing the obvious. “Remember in your life time, you received good things, and likewise Lazarus all types of evil things.” Well yeah, we already knew that. And then he exposes a surprise truth, but one we already recognize as true as soon as we hear it. “Between you and us, a great chasm has been fixed.” Don’t we know it? It is a Grand Canyon Chasm between the two, but who put it there. Who created the chasm? Did God dig out that chasm as a form of punishment in the afterlife? Maybe. People preach that, and get large followings and big mega-churches doing so. I would say, however, the rich man put the chasm there. He spent a lifetime allowing a chasm to slowly erode between him and Lazarus. And by the end, the Grand Canyon.

Riches can do that. Riches can powerfully connect people. Or they can create a great chasm between people, you know it. When we saw the tragedy of 9.11, Americans wanted to respond to people’s loss and grief, and we wanted to do more than stand together and sing America the Beautiful. So we sent money. Millions and millions of dollars to say in a strong and powerful way beyond words, “Your grief matters to us. We are with you in this.”

Same thing with the Tsunami. Millions and millions of dollars have been sent, uniting the givers and the grievers, making connections.

One of the things I am most proud of in NPC is that we give a tithe on our income, on our intake. We take time to serve in certain places, including the Norcross Co-op and Clifton night shelter. We bring kids over here from Rainbow Village yearly to have a pizza party and go Christmas shopping. Those things are great. But they aren’t everything. Our money binds us in loving friendship together, enhances relationships between us and them, as with the victims of 9.11, and the Tsunami.

But so often money creates a chasm between people. Do you need illustrations? Have you ever read a will and seen what happens? Don’t you already know that it’s true? Money can create an enormous gulf between people. And perhaps Jesus is telling this story to illustrate a hard core truth. God blesses people with riches in the hopes that riches will connect us with each other, not with any hopes at all that riches will just meet our needs.

But I see another truth, perhaps an even greater one. Of all that the rich man possesses, he is missing one thing; and that one thing is something Lazarus enjoys. A name. The rich man is never given a name. And of all the characters in all of Jesus’ stories, this poor man, Lazarus, is given a name. Not the Good Samaritan, not the Prodigal Son or Prodigal Father, not the wise servant with the ten talents, Lazarus. Perhaps Jesus is trying to help us see the light. All the riches in the world won’t make a name for you, won’t make you into a person, won’t even make you a better person. On the other hand, God knowing you by name, being on a personal basis with Father Abraham, the metaphor for faith, makes you the richest person in creation. So who wants to be a millionaire?

So that’s the story. And the best part about it is that it’s just a story. It’s not in your face, its not preaching at you, it’s just a story. We don’t have to get defensive about it. If we need for the story to not be about us, then it’s not about us, listen carefully, this is not about us. It’s just a story. Amen.