A Sermon from First Church, Scarborough…
A sermon offered by the Rev. Ian F. “Jack” Steeves in the public worship of the First Congregational Church of Scarborough, Maine on Sunday, September 30, 2007. The principal reading was Luke 16:19-31.
“Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received good things, while Lazarus received bad things; but now he is comforted here,
and you are in agony “(Luke 16:25).
“Don’t Forget Me!”
The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus exists in many cultures and many versions. It is a familiar story of “the haves and the have nots.” The word used here for feasting can be translated “gourmet meals.” In ancient times food was eaten with the fingers. Diners wiped their fingers on bread and then threw it to the dogs. It was this bread that Lazarus was seeking. St. Gregory the Great commented on this parable, “In common life the names of the rich are better known than those of the poor. How comes it then that when our Lord has to speak of both he names the poor and not the rich?” The name “Lazarus” is the Latin form of “Eleazar,” and means “God is my help.” Jesus Christ is simply amazing. He tells us wonderful parables that have more facets than expensive diamonds. But what you see and find in them depends upon where you are standing. The same story can be comforting and reassuring or startlingly self-revealing. In the space of several verses one can be soothed and chastised, empowered and deflated. It is truly amazing!
Today’s story is a mad, mad parable. It just doesn’t make sense. Jesus tells us that a rich man went to Hell (Hades). Far away in heaven, Father Abraham sees him and calls to him, “Remember that you were well off in your lifetime.” If you check any common catalog of sins, nowhere will you find “being well off” listed as a cardinal or venal offense.
The rich man’s fate obviously has something to do with Lazarus who was, after all, decorating indelicately his doorstep. Jesus gives us no personal interaction between the two. The rich man does know Lazarus by name. But the only real contact with Lazarus is indirectly through the rich man’s dogs that, acting out of some canine sense of comforting, lick the beggar’s sores. What was the rich man’s sin?
Let’s review: He was rich. He was not openly cruel to his uninvited guest.
He did not order his servants to clear away Lazarus like trash from his doorway.
He raised no vocal objection to Lazarus taking the bread thrown to the dogs.
He never really saw or encountered Lazarus.
He was just indifferent to the squatter on his stoop.
It was not what he did that got him into hot water; it was what he did not do that got him into hell.
Ignorance and inaction are not acceptable Gospel behaviors. Jesus wants us to be able to answer the question: “Who is that sitting on my doorstep?” Jesus tells this stark parable of contrasts, to get our attention and to warn us. A clergy brother has commented: “Let’s hear it for the dogs; they at least shared their food with Lazarus.”
Human privilege always equals human responsibility. Jesus would teach us that, when the rich stay rich (and remember “rich” is a relative term) and the poor stay poor and the two never meet, then the rich are in big trouble. And that is because there is an additional character in the parable that also is never mentioned by name: namely, God! God is the god of Lazarus and God wants to be the god of the rich man. Because the rich man never met the poor man, he never met God. He did, however, encounter Father Abraham, the chief Patriarch of the Jewish faith.
Our thoughts can jump immediately to the long list of human ills and needs that plague our contemporary and global society in countless lives and places. Remedying any one of society’s ills is a gigantic task that calls for a massive reallocation of resources, a task that no one person – no matter how rich – can undertake alone.
What would Jesus do and have had the rich man do? Empty his pockets and thereby ruin him self in order to better the life of all the Lazarus’s? No!
The solution Jesus is aiming at appears in the rich man’s request that Abraham send Lazarus back from the dead to the rich man’s five brothers, to warn them of the definite consequences of their ongoing way of life.
Abraham refuses and cites the sufficient warnings already given, down through history, by Moses and the prophets. The rich man blurts out, “No, but if someone would only come to them from the dead, then they would repent.”
There it is, the key word that explains Jesus’ thinking: “REPENT!” It is a curious word from the Greek METANOIA, meaning “to turn around, as one turns 180 degrees.” What Jesus would have the rich man do first is, not change Lazarus but change himself. Turn his life around that he might see the lives and the needs of others.
Interestingly enough, our secular literature offers us a story about a rich man neglectful of the poor who is visited by the dead and ultimately repents. The tale is Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” We must also remember that it took the collective work of three spirits over one long night to straighten out old Scrooge.
A former chaplain in a V.A. Hospital tells the story of one memorable celebration of Holy Communion. The distribution of the bread and cup was interrupted from the front pew by a patient’s cry, “Don’t forget me! Don’t forget me!”
There was absolute stillness and an uneasy calm in the room, whereupon the patient arose from his seat, approached the front, walked behind the Communion table, tapped the chaplain on the shoulder and repeated his plea, “Don’t forget me!”
The wounds of war had left the man separated from much of what went on around him, but as the Communion proceeded, the patient wished to be included and remembered too. We all do!
So does our gracious Lord. While we can be certain of the Lord’s promises to us, our Lord remains somewhat skeptical of our individual and collective motives and along with the patient says, “Don’t forget me!”
Today’s parable is a story of values that asks us, as earlier gospel readings (Luke 10) have, where does our treasure truly lie? One man’s or one congregation’s fear of never having enough is not in the least mitigated by the presence of another who has nothing. This mad, little parable is meant to disturb us. Jesus invites those who hear this parable to reevaluate the importance of earthly possessions. Let us recall that in the culture of the 1st century A.D., many regarded material wealth as a blessing from God for the righteous alone; conversely, Jesus’ contemporaries believed that poverty and sickness were the deserved lot of sinners.
The storyteller, Jesus himself, the one who has risen from the dead and returned to us, has now warned us. While we still have breath within us, there is time to balance the equation between our privileges and our responsibilities. For those who would be Christ’s disciples, wealth and all the gifts of God’s grace are understood as opportunities for doing good.
We might well consider the words of an old Celtic Rune of Hospitality:
We saw a stranger yesterday.
We put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place,
And with the sacred name of the Triune God
He (the stranger) blessed our house, and us,
And our cattle and our dear ones.
As the lark says in her song,
Often, often, often
Goes the Christ in the stranger’s disguise.
Let us remember: the sin of the rich man was not what he did, but that he did nothing.
