Text: Luke 16:14-15, 19-31
Focus: Charity
Function: To help people listen to their conscience and be generous
14The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. 15So he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts, for what is prized by humans is an abomination in the sight of God.
19“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 24He 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.’ 25But 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. 26Besides 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.’ 27He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— 28for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31He 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.’ ”
I suppose that the salient verse in the passage is the last one, , and I will paraphrase it to expose what I believe to be an hidden meaning: “If they won’t listen to the scriptures, they won’t listen to me when I raise from the dead.”
I titled the sermon, Listening to Love based on that last verse. They won’t listen to the record that is shown them in the scripture that the greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus and Paul both say that this command, to love our neighbor as ourself, will fulfill all the law and prophet’s messages.
You have to understand that throughout the Gospels, Jesus employs literary license in the form of parables and stories to illustrate eternal truths.
The point of the lesson is to open our hearts to those who are hurting when we have the opportunity and resources to help them.
The other point of the story is that ignoring the plight of the poor will bring us into a place of God’s judgment.
I mention literary license in hyperbole because this passage is not a passage about hell.
The OT does not have any record of anyone going to hell.
History shows that during times of great oppression and bondage, literature arises that is called apocalyptic. It often has violent images of the oppressors being beaten back or suffering eternal torment for the pain that they caused to innocents. During the time when Jesus walked the earth that started this common era of human understanding, throughout that time, there were many references to hell and destruction against the Roman occupying forces and their collaborators.
Jesus picks up on that populist idea with a “what if torture in hell were real?” story.
Jesus said, then the rich, who are oppressing us will get there eventual judgment.
I suppose this passage is where the Roman Catholic Church gets the genesis of the doctrine of purgatory from. And the idea was and can be appealing to people who are suffering with no recourse against their oppressors.
Adequate punishment might be a comforting thought. When I think of the 80 million or so people who died in WWII, I think to myself, If God is just, then Hitler will be punished for war crimes in torment with enough time sufficient to offset the pain that he caused. After all, God is just and can figure out a way to make it the right amount of punishment for what he did.
But then, the doctrine of hell that has arisen in the Christian religion, says that hell is eternal and the punishment is eternal. Eventually he will have paid back in suffering for all that he caused, even if it is a million years per life that was lost, at the end of that time, eternity will still be beginning.
That is extreme and it doesn’t reconcile with what God commands.
As a matter of fact. God commands us to forgive our enemies. If God commands us to forgive, then God must also want to forgive God’s enemies. God is God and can do what God wants, but God gave us a sense of justice and we do not believe that God will be hypocritical.
So, the doctrine of hell is confused by mankind’s own limited understanding of God’s grace and need for revenge against oppressors.
And I bring all that up to state that this is not a passage about hell. It doesn’t validate hell, it just captures a populist idea of the time in order to get the point across to be generous with your resources if you are rich.
And the Bible describes a rich man as a person with a gold ring. I have one. So, compared to the rest of the world, we are rich here in the United States.
The passage is introduced with the statement: The Pharisees who were lovers of money were ridiculing Him.
Remember, the love of money, not money, is the progenitor of all sorts of evil.
What is the sin of the rich man? Well, the context must be that he loved money, but it was proven by the fact that he ignored the poverty that was literally at his doorstep.
It is kind of like that line from the song, “Blowing in the Wind” when we hear: “How many times can a man turn his eyes and pretend that he just doesn’t see?”
I wish that line were in the Bible, but alas, it comes from a different piece of our common literature.
Because the rich man refused to see the plight of the poor, because he refused to acknowledge the plight of the poor, God judged him and if there is or was a hell, would send him there.
But again, this is not about hell but about the way we treat the poor. Do we judge them because they are dirty and filthy? Do we judge them for being lazy? Or stupid? By the way, a lot of poverty is created by the misfortune of having a medical problems and an inadequate social safety net to care for those people who are just simply unlucky, not lazy stupid, filthy or worthless.
I find it symbolic that the rich man is not named. But Lazarus is given a name.
Jesus is indicting a class of people who refuse to help others. I believe it is a scary thing to disobey God and judge the poor.
By the way, Jesus isn’t judging all the rich. There are many who generous and caring. Dolly Parton comes to mind.
The rich man, metaphorically asks Jesus to let him go back and warn the rest of the uncaring that God isn’t pleased with their actions and Jesus gives a profound answer.
He tells them that God has made the command to love one another pretty obvious in the OT law. And when the Jewish people didn’t get that message, God send prophets to warn them to care for the least of these and to stop their oppression. They didn’t listen to the command to love.
If only the rich man had listened to love, he would have seen the suffering around him. He could have been saved.
May we listen to love and see others they way Jesus wants us to see them.
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