The Unsettling Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man
The Unsettling Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man Sermon for Sept. 29, 2019
The Rev. Jay Bartow, Guest Preacher at
St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Monterey, CA
Texts: 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31
When I was working on the dissertation project for my Doctor of Ministry Degree I did a lot of reading about literature and the different kinds of stories that make up literature. We humans are story tellers, and listening to stories is as old as our Homo Sapiens family. In fact, Yuval Noah Harari in his amazing book, Sapiens, says that the ability to tell stories is what enabled our branch of the evolutionary tree to prevail over against other branches like the Neanderthals and Denisovan man. The weaving of stories can draw large groups of people together and unite them in a way that simple speech like, Food there! Or, Danger there! which apes and other animals can vocalize, cannot.. And large unified groups have a selective advantage over small groups or clans. Story telling is what enabled us to prevail.
Parables are special kinds of stories. We know of them from the Bible, but there are parables from other sources of literature as well. Jesus was a master teller of parables, and that aspect of him alone ranks him as a literary genius of the highest order. Very few people can weave a parable, because a parable is a story that is subversive. Parables turn conventional wisdom on its head. They pull the carpet out from under us.
We see that time and again in Jesus’ parables, and the story of Lazarus and the rich man is a case in point.
The story rings true to human experience, as most of Jesus’ parables do. There are rich persons dressed in fine clothing who feast sumptuously every day. The number of high end restaurants on our Monterey Peninsula alone is amazing and they never seem short of customers. There are poor people and hungry people on the streets outside those restaurants hoping for a handout or hand up. And often those folks have a loyal dog at their side, which I suppose is a comfort in a world offering little comfort to them.
Jesus says that the poor man and the rich man die, which also rings very true to our experience, though we don’t like to talk about our mortality. Jesus tells us the truth here: we all die, rich and poor alike. Then what?
Lazarus, the poor man, dies and is carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom. Abraham, the Father of three monotheistic faiths, was right with God and in God’s presence as he departed this earth. The tide has turned for Lazarus; he is in a blessed place, a place of comfort and safety, unlike his situation while still on earth.
The rich man dies and is buried and finds himself in Hades where he is in torment. He looks to the blessed condition of Lazarus with Abraham and pleads for Abraham to send Lazarus with just a bit of water to cool his tongue. Many of us think of the Black Spiritual that tells this story, Dip your finger in the water, come and cool my tongue because I am tormented in the flame. But the chasm separating the rich man from Lazarus cannot be bridged. The tables have turned. The rich man begs Abraham to send a messenger to his family to warn them so that they not join him in torment. Abraham replies, They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.
The rich man says, No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. Abraham replies, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
How is this parable subversive? The conventional wisdom among the Jews of Jesus’ day was that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing. In this parable and many other parables and sayings of Jesus we are warned of the dangers of wealth. Remember the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life, and the reply Jesus gave summarizing the Ten Commandments. The young man said he observed those from his youth. Jesus said, “You lack one thing: go sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. When the man heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many
possessions.” (Mark 10:17-22)
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” His disciples were perplexed at his words because they had the mind set that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing. Jesus goes on to say it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were greatly astounded, note the intensity of that adjective, astounded. “Then who can be saved?’ They ask. Jesus replies, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
I take comfort in those words, because by any historical or contemporary measure, I am a wealthy person. I am not one day’s wage away from hunger like many people in history have been or are to this day. I have a roof over my head. I have access to medical care. When last with you I mentioned that some of those who traveled with Jesus were persons of means who provided for him and his disciples out of their funds. Jesus did not insist that all his followers sell all their possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, but in the case of that rich young man it appears that Jesus detected just how important his wealth was to his sense of security and wanted him to learn to trust God for daily bread and share his surplus with those who had none.
Of all the subjects Jesus addresses money and its dangers to our life is the most common. You cannot serve God and mammon or money, is just one example. Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust decay but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, is another. The parable of the farmer who builds more barns to store his surpluses so that he may retire in comfort, a passage I preached on when last here, is another. I am just following the lectionary of readings as does your pastor, Clark, and they lead us to these unsettling stories of Jesus that are meant to lead us to trust in God alone as our true security and to invest generously in supporting works of compassion and support which advance God’s gracious rule in our world.
The passage we read from 1 Timothy 6 saying that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains, is another instance where we are warned of the danger of trust in money. So where does the rubber meet the road for us as we read and reflect on and seek to obey these words? It is stewardship season in our church and no doubt here at St. Timothy too. Every year our church asks us to reflect on what we plan to do to support the work of our church in the coming year. I consider this a gift, a prompting to do what should be more than a once in a year exercise. My wife, Gail, and I sit down and look at our giving over the past year. We crunch the numbers and determine the percentage that we give to our church and other charities. Do you know the percentage of your income you give away? If not, I challenge you to do the math. It may be the most spiritually important calculation you may make this year.
I looked up the statistics on giving in America based on tax returns from 2017 from the 36.9 million returns where households itemized their deductions. That is all we have to go on, but the data stunned me. Households making less than $15,000 contributed an average of 9.8%. Those making between $15,000 and $30,000 (I took the average of 20k) contributed 10%. Those in the range of $30,000 to $50,000 (I took the average of 40k) gave 7.1%. Those earning $50,000 to $100,000 (I took the average of 75k) gave 4.3%. Those earning $100,000 to $200,000 (I took the average of 150k) gave 2.8%. Those earning $200,000 to $250,000 gave 2.4%.
Do you see the trend? The poor tithe and the well off give less than 3% of their income away. Now do you see why Jesus has so much to say about the dangers of wealth? He knows the human heart oh so well. We may not like the light he shines on our trust in wealth, but he shines it nevertheless. Why? Because he wants us to find joy in giving, joy in trusting God as our true security, joy in solidarity with the poor, who interestingly enough, give far more of their income to charity than the well to do. Who are the most generous tippers at restaurants? Those who. once waited tables themselves. They know how hard the work is and how paltry the compensation. There are some states where servers earn less than $3 an hour in wages and are wholly dependent on tips to survive.
The first church I joined was when I was in college at UCLA. Thanks to an enthusiastic Christian student who invited me to read and discuss the New Testament with him, I switched from being an idealistic agnostic to a follower of Jesus, and that student took me to several churches and urged me to choose one and to get involved. I settled on Bel Air Presbyterian Church. Bel Air is an upper income area and the pastor who began that church was Louis Evans Jr. whose father had been the pastor at Hollywood Presbyterian Church, which at that time was the largest Presbyterian Church in America.
Louie Evans Jr. was a gifted evangelist ,and many persons from that up and out neighborhood came to faith. Many from the entertainment world attended the Bel Air Church. Marge and Gower Champion, Steve Allen and his wife Audrey Meadows, and later on, when Donn Moomaw was pastor there, Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
One well-to-do businessman began attending and listening to Lou Evans' sermons and was drawn to his message. He called and asked for an appointment with pastor Evans and during that encounter he said that he was interested in what Lou was preaching and he just wanted to know whether becoming a Christian would entail a change in his financial affairs. As a shrewd businessman he asked what was the bottom line. Imagine you are pastor Evans seeking to build and fund a start up congregation and sitting across from a potential benefactor. What would you say in response to that man’s question?
Lou Evans said that becoming a follower of Jesus would certainly entail a reconsideration and redistribution of his income. The man said, “That is all I wanted to know” and got up and walked out of Louie Evans office and of the church. Pastor Evans didn’t get up and chase after him and say, “Please don’t go; we can work something out.” He stayed true to the Gospel of Jesus. You cannot serve God and money. You cannot serve two masters.
When I joined Bel Air church, like every other new member, I sat down with a member of the church’s stewardship committee, a Vice President of Security Pacific Bank. He asked me what my plan was to support the church. I calculated my income to be about $1,000 and I computed the percentage I planned to give to the church along with some other charities I wanted to support, and the man thanked me and wished me well. He treated my gift with the same respect as the gifts of persons making a hundred times more than I did. I supported the church as planned and even during seminary Gail and I continued to contribute, though our income was not great,. We never went hungry or lacked for what we needed.
You may know that I go once or twice a year with teams to install water purification systems in churches whose communities lack potable water. On a trip two years ago I met a fellow volunteer from Michigan who told me about his eight-year-old grandson, Miciah. When he heard about his grandpa’s trip Miciah said that he wanted to support it and emptied his piggy bank and said, “Grandpa, I am all in. I want children in Guatemala to have safe water just like I do, and I think I can ask others to give too and maybe we can raise enough to buy a system.” In three months he raised $3,000 to purchase the equipment for a system.
When we dedicated that system and I told the 600 persons in that church who paid for the system there weren’t many dry eyes in that sanctuary.
Now I know why Jesus said that unless you become like little children you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Working on this message has spurred me to reflect once more on giving. We have more resources than we did when starting out, and to whom much is given, much is required. The challenge is to look at where our money goes, to reflect on the needs of our church and community and world, to commit to investing in God’s work, and to give not only of our substance but of ourselves.
There are pressing needs that cannot be met with mere money. Persons who are lonely need a friend to visit them. Grandchildren need a grandparent to read to them or to listen to them read to us. Those who are sick need someone to pray with and for them. Every time we give of ourselves in these ways we receive far more than we offer. We carry on in the work of God which is never in vain.
Look at how Jesus lived. He fed the hungry, healed the sick, blessed the children, forgave those who had lost their way, and announced the good news of the gracious reign of God. Go and do likewise.
The Rev. Jay Bartow, Guest Preacher at
St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Monterey, CA
Texts: 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31
When I was working on the dissertation project for my Doctor of Ministry Degree I did a lot of reading about literature and the different kinds of stories that make up literature. We humans are story tellers, and listening to stories is as old as our Homo Sapiens family. In fact, Yuval Noah Harari in his amazing book, Sapiens, says that the ability to tell stories is what enabled our branch of the evolutionary tree to prevail over against other branches like the Neanderthals and Denisovan man. The weaving of stories can draw large groups of people together and unite them in a way that simple speech like, Food there! Or, Danger there! which apes and other animals can vocalize, cannot.. And large unified groups have a selective advantage over small groups or clans. Story telling is what enabled us to prevail.
Parables are special kinds of stories. We know of them from the Bible, but there are parables from other sources of literature as well. Jesus was a master teller of parables, and that aspect of him alone ranks him as a literary genius of the highest order. Very few people can weave a parable, because a parable is a story that is subversive. Parables turn conventional wisdom on its head. They pull the carpet out from under us.
We see that time and again in Jesus’ parables, and the story of Lazarus and the rich man is a case in point.
The story rings true to human experience, as most of Jesus’ parables do. There are rich persons dressed in fine clothing who feast sumptuously every day. The number of high end restaurants on our Monterey Peninsula alone is amazing and they never seem short of customers. There are poor people and hungry people on the streets outside those restaurants hoping for a handout or hand up. And often those folks have a loyal dog at their side, which I suppose is a comfort in a world offering little comfort to them.
Jesus says that the poor man and the rich man die, which also rings very true to our experience, though we don’t like to talk about our mortality. Jesus tells us the truth here: we all die, rich and poor alike. Then what?
Lazarus, the poor man, dies and is carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom. Abraham, the Father of three monotheistic faiths, was right with God and in God’s presence as he departed this earth. The tide has turned for Lazarus; he is in a blessed place, a place of comfort and safety, unlike his situation while still on earth.
The rich man dies and is buried and finds himself in Hades where he is in torment. He looks to the blessed condition of Lazarus with Abraham and pleads for Abraham to send Lazarus with just a bit of water to cool his tongue. Many of us think of the Black Spiritual that tells this story, Dip your finger in the water, come and cool my tongue because I am tormented in the flame. But the chasm separating the rich man from Lazarus cannot be bridged. The tables have turned. The rich man begs Abraham to send a messenger to his family to warn them so that they not join him in torment. Abraham replies, They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.
The rich man says, No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. Abraham replies, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
How is this parable subversive? The conventional wisdom among the Jews of Jesus’ day was that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing. In this parable and many other parables and sayings of Jesus we are warned of the dangers of wealth. Remember the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life, and the reply Jesus gave summarizing the Ten Commandments. The young man said he observed those from his youth. Jesus said, “You lack one thing: go sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. When the man heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many
possessions.” (Mark 10:17-22)
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” His disciples were perplexed at his words because they had the mind set that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing. Jesus goes on to say it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were greatly astounded, note the intensity of that adjective, astounded. “Then who can be saved?’ They ask. Jesus replies, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
I take comfort in those words, because by any historical or contemporary measure, I am a wealthy person. I am not one day’s wage away from hunger like many people in history have been or are to this day. I have a roof over my head. I have access to medical care. When last with you I mentioned that some of those who traveled with Jesus were persons of means who provided for him and his disciples out of their funds. Jesus did not insist that all his followers sell all their possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, but in the case of that rich young man it appears that Jesus detected just how important his wealth was to his sense of security and wanted him to learn to trust God for daily bread and share his surplus with those who had none.
Of all the subjects Jesus addresses money and its dangers to our life is the most common. You cannot serve God and mammon or money, is just one example. Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust decay but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, is another. The parable of the farmer who builds more barns to store his surpluses so that he may retire in comfort, a passage I preached on when last here, is another. I am just following the lectionary of readings as does your pastor, Clark, and they lead us to these unsettling stories of Jesus that are meant to lead us to trust in God alone as our true security and to invest generously in supporting works of compassion and support which advance God’s gracious rule in our world.
The passage we read from 1 Timothy 6 saying that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains, is another instance where we are warned of the danger of trust in money. So where does the rubber meet the road for us as we read and reflect on and seek to obey these words? It is stewardship season in our church and no doubt here at St. Timothy too. Every year our church asks us to reflect on what we plan to do to support the work of our church in the coming year. I consider this a gift, a prompting to do what should be more than a once in a year exercise. My wife, Gail, and I sit down and look at our giving over the past year. We crunch the numbers and determine the percentage that we give to our church and other charities. Do you know the percentage of your income you give away? If not, I challenge you to do the math. It may be the most spiritually important calculation you may make this year.
I looked up the statistics on giving in America based on tax returns from 2017 from the 36.9 million returns where households itemized their deductions. That is all we have to go on, but the data stunned me. Households making less than $15,000 contributed an average of 9.8%. Those making between $15,000 and $30,000 (I took the average of 20k) contributed 10%. Those in the range of $30,000 to $50,000 (I took the average of 40k) gave 7.1%. Those earning $50,000 to $100,000 (I took the average of 75k) gave 4.3%. Those earning $100,000 to $200,000 (I took the average of 150k) gave 2.8%. Those earning $200,000 to $250,000 gave 2.4%.
Do you see the trend? The poor tithe and the well off give less than 3% of their income away. Now do you see why Jesus has so much to say about the dangers of wealth? He knows the human heart oh so well. We may not like the light he shines on our trust in wealth, but he shines it nevertheless. Why? Because he wants us to find joy in giving, joy in trusting God as our true security, joy in solidarity with the poor, who interestingly enough, give far more of their income to charity than the well to do. Who are the most generous tippers at restaurants? Those who. once waited tables themselves. They know how hard the work is and how paltry the compensation. There are some states where servers earn less than $3 an hour in wages and are wholly dependent on tips to survive.
The first church I joined was when I was in college at UCLA. Thanks to an enthusiastic Christian student who invited me to read and discuss the New Testament with him, I switched from being an idealistic agnostic to a follower of Jesus, and that student took me to several churches and urged me to choose one and to get involved. I settled on Bel Air Presbyterian Church. Bel Air is an upper income area and the pastor who began that church was Louis Evans Jr. whose father had been the pastor at Hollywood Presbyterian Church, which at that time was the largest Presbyterian Church in America.
Louie Evans Jr. was a gifted evangelist ,and many persons from that up and out neighborhood came to faith. Many from the entertainment world attended the Bel Air Church. Marge and Gower Champion, Steve Allen and his wife Audrey Meadows, and later on, when Donn Moomaw was pastor there, Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
One well-to-do businessman began attending and listening to Lou Evans' sermons and was drawn to his message. He called and asked for an appointment with pastor Evans and during that encounter he said that he was interested in what Lou was preaching and he just wanted to know whether becoming a Christian would entail a change in his financial affairs. As a shrewd businessman he asked what was the bottom line. Imagine you are pastor Evans seeking to build and fund a start up congregation and sitting across from a potential benefactor. What would you say in response to that man’s question?
Lou Evans said that becoming a follower of Jesus would certainly entail a reconsideration and redistribution of his income. The man said, “That is all I wanted to know” and got up and walked out of Louie Evans office and of the church. Pastor Evans didn’t get up and chase after him and say, “Please don’t go; we can work something out.” He stayed true to the Gospel of Jesus. You cannot serve God and money. You cannot serve two masters.
When I joined Bel Air church, like every other new member, I sat down with a member of the church’s stewardship committee, a Vice President of Security Pacific Bank. He asked me what my plan was to support the church. I calculated my income to be about $1,000 and I computed the percentage I planned to give to the church along with some other charities I wanted to support, and the man thanked me and wished me well. He treated my gift with the same respect as the gifts of persons making a hundred times more than I did. I supported the church as planned and even during seminary Gail and I continued to contribute, though our income was not great,. We never went hungry or lacked for what we needed.
You may know that I go once or twice a year with teams to install water purification systems in churches whose communities lack potable water. On a trip two years ago I met a fellow volunteer from Michigan who told me about his eight-year-old grandson, Miciah. When he heard about his grandpa’s trip Miciah said that he wanted to support it and emptied his piggy bank and said, “Grandpa, I am all in. I want children in Guatemala to have safe water just like I do, and I think I can ask others to give too and maybe we can raise enough to buy a system.” In three months he raised $3,000 to purchase the equipment for a system.
When we dedicated that system and I told the 600 persons in that church who paid for the system there weren’t many dry eyes in that sanctuary.
Now I know why Jesus said that unless you become like little children you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Working on this message has spurred me to reflect once more on giving. We have more resources than we did when starting out, and to whom much is given, much is required. The challenge is to look at where our money goes, to reflect on the needs of our church and community and world, to commit to investing in God’s work, and to give not only of our substance but of ourselves.
There are pressing needs that cannot be met with mere money. Persons who are lonely need a friend to visit them. Grandchildren need a grandparent to read to them or to listen to them read to us. Those who are sick need someone to pray with and for them. Every time we give of ourselves in these ways we receive far more than we offer. We carry on in the work of God which is never in vain.
Look at how Jesus lived. He fed the hungry, healed the sick, blessed the children, forgave those who had lost their way, and announced the good news of the gracious reign of God. Go and do likewise.