Scripture
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ” ~ Luke 16:19-31
Meditation
It’s often said that Jesus talks more about money than he does about anything else. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve said it, both in Bible Study and from this pulpit. In fact, Jesus talks about the kingdom, the reign of God more than anything else, though he does talk about money a fair bit. But take the parable of the lost coin. Technically Jesus is talking about money, but is money the point? It is not. The grace of God is the point. God’s earnest and relentless intention for each of us to be found in our lostness is the point. A lost coin is simply how Jesus explains that to us.
But today Jesus is talking about money in this parable. Tell me, does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable? Feel free to yell it out.
Certainly, the vivid description of Lazarus’s poverty—his longing for just a crumb or scrap, the sores on his poor wasting body—all that is deeply uncomfortable to hear. And the description of the rich man, tortured forever by hellfire is also disconcerting and uncomfortable. There’s plenty of discomfort to go around.
But here, I think, is what we really need to focus in on. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, what are the signs that Jesus is doing something new? Where are our clues that, in fact, Jesus’ reign of God project is intended to turn our world upside down? That’s where this story really hits home.
Let’s start at the beginning, verse 19: “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.” The rich will always be with us, so this verse may not initially strike us as unusual. But it contains a hint at something radical that Jesus is doing. Jesus does not tell us the rich man’s name. In his era, everyone knows the rich man’s name. The rich man is a big deal! How could we not know? But Jesus does tell us the poor man’s name: It’s Lazarus, from the Hebrew, meaning, God will help. Not only do we know Lazarus’ name, we hear more about him than we do about the rich man: “And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.”
This is a hint, right from the start, that things are going to be topsy-turvy. We know at the outset that something marvelous and unexpected is about to happen.
The rich man has every opportunity to help Lazarus—his banquet tables are groaning with food every day. But he does not help. And as a rich man, he should. Culturally, there is every expectation that he will, both in that era and in ours. In fact, the wealthy usually had a bench in front of their homes, specifically for the use of the poor who would come and wait for the food or coins that should come their way. These waiting benches have been found in the ruins of Pompeii during excavations there. This was a tradition that was prevalent throughout the Roman Empire. The rich man should help, for two reasons. First, he can afford to help. And second, it was understood in this era that people who were rich were good. To be rich was a sign that God had rewarded you or your family. To be poor was a sign that you had done something wrong—not like, the wrong major in college. More like, you weren’t faithful. You didn’t go to the Temple to make offerings. The rich were expected to be good, and out of that goodness, they were expected to be generous with those who were on the downward slope of life.
This rich man wasn’t good. The rich man didn’t simply neglect to help Lazarus, as if it had slipped his mind. He went out of his way to withhold help. He had daily feasts which means daily leftovers. Lazarus appears never to have left his post by the gate, perhaps sitting on one of those benches, lying down when he was losing the strength to live. The rich man would have had servants, asking him, What shall we do with the leftovers? And, apparently, not once did he say, “Give some to that beggar outside.” Not once.
All of which reveals more of the topsy-turvy world of Jesus’ beloved reign of God.
Both men die, and Lazarus is carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham, one understanding of the afterlife for Jews. The Hebrew scriptures often describe death as “being gathered to your people” or going to the bosom of Abraham—to rest with your ancestors, with the greatest ancestor of them all.
There is not a highly developed theory or understanding of the afterlife in the Hebrew scriptures, or even in contemporary Judaism. A great website, Judaism 101, explains it this way.
Traditional Judaism firmly believes that death is not the end of human existence. However, because Judaism is primarily focused on life here and now rather than on the afterlife, Judaism does not have much dogma about the afterlife, and leaves a great deal of room for personal opinion. [i]
Lazarus is rest and peace, all his pain and suffering behind him. The bosom of Abraham is a place, not just of rest, but of bliss. Like Christians, some Jews have the expectation of a feast in that place of rest and bliss. It is possible that the hungry man Lazarus can now be seen enjoying a table of plenty with Abraham.
The rich man is someplace the author of Luke refers to as Hades, the equivalent of Sheol, the Jewish land of the dead. While in life, the rich man enjoyed the creature comforts wealth could afford, including daily feasting. Now he is in a place of fiery torment. Again, Judaism 101 has this to say:
The average person descends to a place of punishment and/or purification… sometimes [called] She'ol or by other names. According to one mystical view, every sin we commit creates an angel of destruction (a demon), and after we die we are punished by the very demons that we created. Some views see [this] as one of severe punishment, a bit like the Christian Hell of fire and brimstone. Other sources merely see it as a time when we can see the actions of our lives objectively, see the harm that we have done and the opportunities we missed, and experience remorse for our actions. The period of time in [Sheol] does not exceed 12 months, and then [one] ascends to take [their] place [in the world to come].
This is a full reversal. Lazarus suffered in life, and now the rich man suffers in death. The rich man lived in a kind of earthly bliss, and now Lazarus experiences bliss in death. There is even a startling reversal in how they get there—remember, Lazarus is carried by angels, suggesting that he is taken bodily to be with Abraham. The rich man is simply “buried,” with no further elaboration. In our world—even in our cemetery—we are accustomed to the rich having marvelous monuments over their graves in death. And we are aware of something called a potter’s field, or a common grave, a place where the poorest, including those who have no one to claim their bodies, are deposited when they are dead. Lazarus and the rich man reverse these commonplace situations completely.
The next part, the conversations between the rich man and Abraham, is the highlight of the story. Even though they are in different realms, the rich man can see where Lazarus is with Abraham, and he calls for help. He asks that Lazarus be sent to dip his finger in water and drop it on his tongue. He asks Abraham to send Lazarus to make him feel better. Needless to say, Abraham refuses. He refuses while offering the kind of explanation you offer to a child in time out. “Now remember, what you did was very wrong, and no, I’m not going to send Larry to keep you company, since he was the one you hit. Yes, he gets to stay in the cafeteria and eat a cookie. No, you don’t get that. Remember the rules? You are in time-out.”
Abraham says something chilling, though. “Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed.” You can’t get there from here, Abraham says. Even if I wanted to send Lazarus, and even if he wanted to go. It’s simply not possible.
In life, there does seem to be a great chasm separating the rich and the very poor. We Americans like to imagine that class doesn’t exist, but all the evidence suggests that it does, one reason being, it’s so very difficult to move from one level to another. In 2005 the New York Times did an entire summer’s reporting on all the ways social class affects us—everything from health, to education, to immigration, even to religion and marriage—all these things, to a great extent, are predetermined by which social stratum we’re born into. The great American dream of upward nobility tell us it’s possible to move upward. The research suggests that that is a rare phenomenon. Isabel Wilkerson, in her book on class in America, called “Caste,” writes,
“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power — which groups have it and which do not. It is about resources — which groups are seen as worthy of them and which are not, who gets to acquire and control them and who does not. It is about respect, authority and assumptions of competence — who is accorded these and who is not.”
This is why this parable hits so hard. Jesus is suggesting that there is something more powerful than the power that keeps the hierarchies in place, and that is God’s justice and love.
Maybe our parable finally gets to that moment of self-reflection and remorse, because the next thing the rich man asks does suggest that he gets it. He understands what he did (or failed to do), and he wants to protect others—his brothers—from the same fate as he. Again, though, he still seems to think Lazarus is his to send on errands. And once again, Abraham tells him, no. Your brothers have the law and the prophets spelling all this out clearly. They should listen to them.
But the rich man persists—if you sent someone back from the dead, then surely…
Lately I’m noticing all the ways in which Jesus slips himself into parables. Because, of course, he is the one who returned from the dead. Let those with ears to hear listen. But, Abraham says, some just don’t have ears or hearts or whatever it takes.
The kingdom of God is at hand, Jesus says. And, as his mother Mary foretold in her song of joy, the kingdom is a place and time where God brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; when the hungry are filled with good things and the rich are sent away empty. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. This is uncomfortable stuff, but it is also the beginning of the destruction of those chasms that separate us from one another. This is startling imagery, but it is the work of a Creator who lifts up the least and the lost, while bringing us all closer together as one body. And yes, this is good news, because the chasms that separate us were never a part of God’s plan.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Olam Ha-Ba: “The Afterlife,” Judaism 101, https://www.jewfaq.org/afterlife.