- Sermon - Mickey Anders

Text: Luke 16:19-31

“One billion dollars is no longer enough." So begins the 25th anniversary edition of the Forbes 400, a listing of the richest Americans. The price of admission this year is $1.3 billion!

The youngest member of the Forbes 400 this year is 33-year-old John Arnold, a former Enron trader who now runs hedge fund Centaurus Energy and has amassed a $1.5 billion fortune. The oldest member of the list is potato king John Simplot, who is 98 years old and worth $3.6 billion.

Every year we gaze enviously at the lists of the richest people in world, wondering what it would be like to have that sort of cash. We focus on the gap between us and them and instinctively think they are rich, and we are poor.

But if we looked at a global ranking of all the people in the world, we would see a radically different perspective. At a website called "globalrichlist.com," we can enter our salary and find out where we fall on a global list of the richest people in the world.

I entered a few numbers and found that any salary over $33,700 puts us in the top 5% of the world's population, and a salary over $47,500 puts us in the top 1% of the richest people in the world. Many of us fall there. How does it feel to suddenly be thrown into a grouping with the Forbes list of the richest people?

Of course, anyone who has been to one of the poor countries of the world is vividly aware of this fact. I remember giving a report to my congregation about my mission trip to Zambia in 1980. One of my church members observed about the people in Africa, "They must think everyone in America is rich." And I replied, "Yes, they do, and we are." Even the poorest American is wealthy compared to most of the people in the poor countries of the world.

Realizing that I am in the top 1% of the world's population makes me very uncomfortable when I study a passage from Luke like the one for today.

Luke loves to begin his report of Jesus' stories as he does this one, "There was a rich man…" We sometimes call this man "Dives," but that is not a proper name. "Dives" is the Latin term for "wealth," and this rich man had it. Luke reports, "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day."

We can imagine this man in his gated community, wearing the finest of clothing and eating lavish meals, not occasionally, but every single day. He was clearly in the top 1% of the world's wealthy.

But the story goes on to tell about a poor man named Lazarus who lay at the rich man's gate. He was covered with sores and longed to satisfy his hunger from the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.

The name "Lazarus" means "God helps," and we get the picture a man so poor and so sick that only God could help. There is apparently no one on earth who helped him. He was so helpless and pitiful that the dogs would come and lick his sores. In a few brief lines, Jesus has painted a picture of the superrich and the superpoor.

This part of the story is striking to me in what it does not say as much as in what it does say. It does not say that the rich man was cruel or mean to the poor man. He didn't kick Lazarus when he was down. He didn't file a petition at the city counsel to have him removed from the gate. The rich man apparently has not caused Lazarus to be poor or sick. There is nothing in the text which indicates that the rich man was anything less than moral. We are not told anything about his religious convictions or lack of them. The closest hint of the rich man's moral failure comes in verse 28, where he is eager that his five brothers be warned so that they not come to the same place of torment. But there is no indication of any behaviors that they should be warned against.

Likewise, there is no comment about the worthiness of Lazarus. We have absolutely no indication of the character of this poor man. We are not told that he was kind or loving or gentle. We are certainly not told that he was a believer or a good Jew. In three short verses, we are given all we know about these two men.

In verse 22, we find the fate of both men. "The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried." We notice that the rich man's family and friends attended to his body and gave him a proper burial. But there was no one to attend to the poor man, so the story says that "he was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham."

We learn that the poor man is in a place that we would describe as heaven, and the rich man is in a place that we would describe as hell. Actually, we are only told that the poor man is in the "bosom of Abraham," and the rich man is in Hades. "Hades" is a Greek word for the place of the dead, much like the Hebrew word "Sheol" in the Old Testament. We are not given a full description of either of these places, but we are told that the rich man is being tormented and that he is "in agony in these flames." Whether these are full-blown and accurate descriptions of the places we now call heaven and hell is beside the point of the story.

The deeper issue that bothers me is this: Why did the rich man go to a place of torment? And why did the poor man go to a place of reward?

At this point we want to start adding to the text so that we can give a satisfactory explanation to the fates of these two men. We want to suggest that Lazarus was a devout and godly man who kept his faith in God in spite of terrible illness and disaster, much like Job did. We want to put a post-resurrection model on him and proclaim that he went to heaven because he accepted Jesus as his Savior. We want to add to the poor man's story some great moral character to explain his direct path to heaven.

Likewise, we are eager to find an explanation for the rich man's destiny in hell. Maybe he got his wealth off the backs of poor men like Lazarus. Perhaps he had oppressed poor Lazarus in the fields, directly causing him to be so poor and sick. Maybe the rich man was so cruel that he went out of his way to kick Lazarus every time he entered the gate and saw him lying there. We want to believe that this rich man was not a good Jew, and was the kind of person who would never believe in Jesus, and therefore, clearly deserved his punishment.

However, all such suggestions are merely speculative. We must look at what the text actually says, not what we want it to say. The only explanation we have comes in verse 25 after the rich man has asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and come cool his tongue. Abraham replies, "Child, remember that during your lifetime you received good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but he is comforted here, and you are in agony."

The rich man is now suffering torment, not for any past sins or spiritual failures, but simply because he was outrageously pampered during his earthly life. Likewise, Lazarus now enjoys all the extravagance of paradise simply because in life he suffered abject poverty. The parable clearly says that what was wrong between the rich man and Lazarus was the inequality of life existing between them.

The Kingdom of God represents the great reversal of the way things are in this world. Luke's gospel opens with Mary's Magnificat, a prayer that celebrates the God of Israel who fills "the hungry with good things" and who sends "the rich away empty" (1:53).

Perhaps Luke's view is best expressed in his version of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus does not say, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" as in Matthew. Rather in Luke's Sermon on the Plain, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh... But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep."

Luke is hard on those of us who are in the world's richest 5% or 1%! His ideal is found in his sequel book - the Acts of the Apostles. "Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need" (Acts 2:43-44).

This parable may be an attack against the popular belief that wealth was an indication of being blessed by God -- of being obedient to God. And that poverty was an indication of punishment from God. Apparently some took this belief a step further and concluded that they had better not interfere with God's punishment of such evil people. The same attitude can be found in some people today who say of people in difficulty, "They made their own bed, let them lay in it."

Clearly, the rich man's sin was one of omission, rather than a sin of commission. Maybe Rich Man had managed to come and go, day after day, without really seeing Lazarus outside his house. 1 John 3:17 says, "If you have the world's goods and see your brother and sister in need, yet close your heart against them, how does God's love abide in you?"

Someone has said, "One of the prime dangers of wealth is that it causes 'blindness'"(John R. Donahur, The Gospel in Parable). The rich man's wealth has so distorted his vision that he is unable to perceive the plight of the beggar at his gate, to identify with his predicament, and to ease his suffering.

As we think about these two characters, it is easy to see how we could help the poor man. We could free Lazarus from hunger by providing food. We could free him from disease by providing doctors and medicine. But how are we to free the rich man from selfish greed and an uncaring attitude?

Luke suggests that we free the rich by providing opportunities for sharing their wealth. In very simple terms, that is Luke's whole message to the rich -- share your wealth. Give some of it away. Don't keep it all for yourself. Greed is concerned with getting. The Gospel is concerned with giving. Just as Lazarus may need food and clothing and shelter for a more satisfying life, so the rich need to be freed from selfish greed for a more satisfying life.

A United Church of Christ pastor named John Jewell tells about a very wealthy and powerful man in his church who discovered something about the meaning of abundance. The man was so wealthy that if he had tithed, it would have doubled the church’s annual income! He didn’t go to church very often, but the pastor ministered to him when he came down with Chrones disease.

When the pastor visited him in the hospital, he found this once stocky, imposing man wasting away. During the visit, he said, "You know John, I'm no different that the panhandlers out on the sidewalks of this hospital. (He had noticed those poor folks in Chicago's Loop!) The only difference is that they can't afford to eat, and I can't eat because I can't digest anything."

Then he asked if the pastor knew where to put $10,000.00 to good use in a "soup kitchen." The man continued to waste away due to his illness, but he took great comfort in knowing that hundreds of people were eating because of his gift. (John Jewell, http://www.lectionarysermons.com/sep2798.html)

Here was a man who listened to the message of Luke and crossed the chasm between the rich and the poor. Luke says that we can too, if we will learn to really see those in need around us and learn to be generous in sharing our wealth.