Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost-September 30, 2007

Preached at Providence Lutheran Church, Holland, Ohio

by Pastor Dennis R. King)

"Wake Up to The Word!"

(Luke 16:19-31)

The grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and forever. Amen.

Our text this morning is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. It's a parable that many enjoy listening too for it reveals to us for a moment the mysterious landscape of Heaven and Hell in the world to come. It is a parable that pleases a child's imagination. It particularly pleases the old Adam in us adults to see how this rich man, who had it so "good" in this life, gets what he deserves. And how the poor man finally receives his reward for all the pain he has suffered. But this parable is much more than "a child's tale." It was not invented to reconcile the miserable to their lot. Nor was the thought of the rich man in Hell originated in hatred by those who got the short end of the stick.

The key of this parable is found in the words of Abraham in which he says that a man must hear Moses and the prophets if he is to come to terms with his eternal destiny. Jesus spoke this parable to the Pharisees in hopes that they would identify themselves with the five brothers of the rich man and take the right attitude toward the Word of God. His Words speak to us today too that we too might identify ourselves with one of the five brothers and take the right attitude toward the word of God. This text was and is meant to wake us up.

Once there was a sailor who, while on shipboard, dreamed one night that the day of judgment had come. The role of the ship's crew was called except his own name, and that this crew was all banished. In his dream he asked the reader why his own name was omitted. He was told it was to give him more opportunity for repentance. He woke up a different person and became a witness for the Christian faith. That is the purpose of our text this morning that we may wake up to the Word. The fate of the rich man is not decided by his money but by his relationship to the Word. Here is where the ultimate and real decisions of his life and ours are made in our relationship to God's Word! Are we awake to His Word?

Let us look at the two figures in the parable. "There was a rich man." These words themselves suggest to us that there are things wrong in the life of this man. However, it is not that it is bad and godless to be rich or conversely, that it is a sign of goodness and godliness to be poor. Yet it is a terrible thing if the only and the ultimate statement that can be made about a person is that he was "rich." In writing an obituary for a deceased relative or friend one usually tries to express in a sentence that which is most characteristic of him. For example, "he was a good father, concerned for the welfare of his family." Or "he was a loyal friend." Now just imagine that here is a case where there is nothing that can be said except that he was rich. He feasted every day and he possessed a magnificent wardrobe. Nothing else was impressed on the minds of his fellow men. Obviously he himself had nothing else in his mind either. This was his whole life. So involved was the rich man in his own life he ignored the lives of others including Lazarus. There is still another one the rich man ignored and that was God. Sure, he had gained the whole world. He had at his command estates, carriages, bank accounts, and above all, people. He became callous and anxiety-ridden. He failed to hear or heed the words of others or God. He evaded the one to whom he was answerable for his soul, and the man who reminded him of this responsibility, Lazarus. Lazarus, his neighbor, he ignored and relegated to the back door.

It would be very easy for us to say, "Poor, rich man, rich fool, how blind he was." Then go on to say, "Jesus is not referring to us or to me, after all I am better than that." Now, let me assure you that you and I could not be farther from the meaning of this parable. That is to say in one way or another every one of us is rich and therefore at some point in our lives we too face the question whether we despise our brother, Lazarus, and in our thinking at any rate, ignore him. Perhaps we are rich because we are loved-loved by husband, a wife, our children, our friends. But in our neighborhood there is an older person with a bitter, closed mouth, whom little children run away from. For us that one is a welcome contrast to our own wealth of love, because we think there must be good reason why we are loved. We amount to something. This other person amounts to nothing because they have done nothing with their life. He is getting what he deserves and so we ignore him.

In one way or another, every one of us has this poor Lazarus lying at our door. Every one, even the poorest of us, is in one way or another a rich man. Therefore, we should not be too quick to rob this parable of its point by calling the rich man a scoundrel while concluding we are not like him. Very likely there were times, perhaps in the night hours, when even the best foam-rubber beds could not banish the loneliness. During these times the rich man may have felt that there was something wrong with his life but did nothing or tried to buy peace of mind by giving large sums of money to charitable organizations. There you have the picture of the rich man of this parable. Do you see a little of yourself? If you do, be thankful and repentant, you are waking up to the Word of God.

The other figure in our parable is known as a poor man named Lazarus. We begin to see the difference between these two figures in our text almost immediately. The poor man has a name, Jesus knew him and his name was Lazarus, which means "God is my helper." The fact is that, apart from God, nobody paid any attention to him. It was not poverty that brought the poor man to Heaven. It was the mercy of God. It is true that poor Lazarus did not have to meet many of the temptations that confronted the rich man in his life. But we must not oversimplify the situation. True, he had much time for reflection sitting at the back door, and time for reflection on eternal things too. But could it not be that this very time of reflection would drive him into bitterness and cursing? Let us remember that affliction teaches a man to pray, but it may also teach him to curse. The Bible so often when it speaks of the poor is referring to people who have no merits and no accomplishments to boast about. These people live on the fringe of life. All of us at some time in our lives have been at this end and thus have been utterly poor and helpless. All of us have had experiences in which all our securities have been pulled from under us, perhaps during an illness, a great storm or when we have burdened ourselves with some great cause for guilt. Perhaps we have had the experience of learning that it is precisely in these situations that the blessing and promises of God are nearest. God's promises are near just at the point when we could no longer rely upon things and people. These are the times when we can see so clearly that God's promises count for something; when we have nothing left and can see no way out, we cast it all upon him, utterly and absolutely. We let him take care of us. And He does! Are you awake to his word?

Now looking at both of the figures in our text, we see that they died a physical death. Death is a fact of this world. The death rate remains one death per person meaning that some day each of us will die. Will we be prepared like the rich man or Lazarus?

Lazarus had nothing in life except this one thing that he relied on the mercy of God. This one thing accompanied him across the chasm and it never forsook him. "He was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom." He now rests in the eternal fellowship of his God. He sees God face to face and he breathes His presence and dwells in the shining light of His countenance. The rich man, on the contrary, possessed everything that life had to offer. Every thing offered by this life however was only on loan. It would be demanded back again when he departed forever. Now he sat there in dreadful loneliness, a loneliness that he was so clever to conceal in life, and across the appalling distance, the chasm, he saw Lazarus. An absolute chasm has been fixed and there is no crossing it. The God extolled in the Magnificat has acted: " He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree, he has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent empty away." (Luke 1:52-53)

With this parable Jesus is asking the Pharisees and us whether we will have Him as our "one consolation in life and death." One day this pleading comforting question will cease to be asked. The mercy of God is boundless, but the day of God's judgment will come. Now we still live by the grace of God and the merit of Christ. The sentence is still incomplete. We still have a reprieve, a season of grace.

For us this parable is an urgent call to life, new life awakened by the Word. True life comes from hearing the Gospel as it is uttered through the words of Moses, the prophets and above all Jesus who is telling us this very parable. The fitting response is for us to come to faith and hear His word anew. To fail to hear and repent when the word is proclaimed is to be unconvinced and to miss the life of the Gospel. To fail to repent and respond to the Lazarus at the gate is to choose that alienation from God that is death. Remember like His brother Lazarus, Jesus too laid at the world's back door when He was born in a stable in Bethlehem. To respond in repentance to the word of Jesus is to know Him as risen and to share in His life.

We can not conclude the message of this parable without reflecting upon the culmination of Luke's Gospel in the Emmaus story. (Luke 24:13-35)

The risen Christ is unrecognizable. His appearance is twofold. He interprets Moses and the prophets so that the two disciples and the church might truly hear them. Is there a danger that we (and they) might come to the same fate as the rich man? The words they hear from Moses and the prophets bring sufferings and glory, lowliness and life together. Nevertheless, the disciples do invite the stranger to stay with them and share their table. At the table, suddenly, the guest becomes the host and feeds them! All His “riches” he shares with the two travelers who had no eyes to see. Yet in that sign of his self-giving unto death, the breaking of the bread, they become aware. Jesus is recognized and His name is known. (Could it possibly be that if the rich man had invited Lazarus to eat, he too, might have eaten and gained a new vision and a new Lord?) Are you awake to His Word?