A Sermon on Lazarus and the Rich Man: Finding ourselves as Sinner and Saint
Text: Luke 16:19-31
So, I finished up last weeks sermon and we all thought, yes!
We’re done with the money talk! We figured that all out!
And then I pull out the next weeks Gospel and Jesus Said “There was a rich man…” *lower head*
We shouldn’t be that surprised though, Jesus talks about money more than all other subjects besides the Kingdom of God. He talks about it more than Prayer and faith combined. Of his 40 parables, money is the focus of 11 of them. It’s brought up more than Heaven and Hell. Jesus talks about money, wealth, and the rich more than he talks about love.
Yep, more than love.
Money is difficult. Of all the idols we have made in this world, the false gods we worship, money is the strongest. There’s the song, Money makes the world go round, it does, pretty much everything in our world is impacted or connected to money. People do bad things to get themselves money. People do good things for the purpose of getting themselves money.
Last week we ended by reminding ourselves that it’s not money that itself is evil, but the way we focus on it that leads us astray.
And we tell ourselves, yep, got it. Don’t focus on money. Done. And then we go out and focus on money. And so, Jesus just keeps on hounding on the topic. It’s because it’s difficult, even in Jesus’ age it was difficult.
This week the focus is not working to focus on God rather than money, Jesus tells us instead a concrete example of what occurs when we do.
Again a rich man, and a poor man, given a name, Lazarus. The rich man is rich! He’s got fancy purple and linen clothes, and he feasts sumptuously, overwhelmingly every day. He’s so rich he has a gate at his door, don’t want those poor to get to close.
And then we have Lazarus. He lays by the rich man’s gate. He’s covered by sores, and he’d be fine with just table scraps. No one cares for him, no one to take care of his wounds besides the dogs on the street. And then they both die. Lazarus with Abraham, the rich man in Hades, the place of the dead.
Make Lazarus help me, Abraham! Why should he? You never helped him in life! You made such a chasm between you and him that it even exists now, we can’t cross over. Make Lazarus go tell my brothers to change their ways! Why? They have Moses and the prophets! That should be enough. Oh, no Abraham, they need more, if someone comes back to life they’ll listen. If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
The easy way out of this text is to simply say, oh, well, we have seen someone rise from the dead, Jesus, and we are really poor Lazarus.
But, just saying that, we all cringe a little don’t we, because we know that while we are indeed Lazarus that Jesus sees, we also are on some level the rich man. Are we to the absolute opulent levels that he made himself? No, but we’re rich by worldly standards.
But, the problem is not really wealth and money. It’s what wealth and money do to us. They create gates, they create chasms between people. The rich mans problem, his fault, his sin, is not being rich. It’s how dogs treated Lazarus better then he did.
The dogs took better care of Lazarus than the rich man did. They paid more attention to him than the rich man.
This is not a text about money, but a text about do we see those around us, really, truly see them. Or do we just walk right by. Do we change the channel when the news comes on, or flip the page or click another link and ignore it, or even do we watch and read and don’t even think about it.
One of my best friends is now the new Associate to the Bishop Renee Splichal Larson, she preached on this text this past Tuesday as pastors from around the synod gathered for our Fall Theological conference. And one of her closing statements was, it’s hard to find the Gospel in this text, where is the good news? If we truly are Lazarus then yes, we are those who have been seen and known, but so many times we are the rich man who walks past and ignores those in need.
It reminds me so much of Martin Luther’s phrase, Simul Iustice et Peccator. I’m not going to try to have you say it, it took me 5 mins to try and get the 7th and 8th graders to say it two weeks ago. It means simultaneously Justified and Sinful. We are at the same time sinner and Saint. We screw up, we make a mess of things, and God loves us, Jesus gathers us in, the Holy Spirit fills us.
The hardest part about this text and last weeks text is that they utterly condemn us. The text is not only about not helping, but not seeing the other. The rich man only looks to Lazarus when he wants to get something out of him, when he wants Lazarus to help him.
We are utterly condemned because not only do we ignore the needs of others in the world around us, so many times we don’t even see them, until we want something out of them. And so we are utterly condemned.
And we are utterly loved. In the very midst of our failure, God welcomes us and comforts us. God of course wants us to try better, to stop focusing on ourselves and see the other, but at the same time, God helps us see those faults and works to help us change.
Maybe that’s the good news. Even as we do not see those around us, and others don’t see us, we can know and trust that God always sees us. That we do have Jesus who rose from the dead so that we may see the errors of our ways, so that we can indeed change.
Let us pray,
God of mercy, we need your mercy so much. We are sinners of your redeeming, we ignore while you see. Help us listen to Moses and the prophets, help us listen to Jesus who rose from the dead, so that we may change our ways and work to help the poor and needy in this world. Amen.
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