Pentecost 19 (9/30/07): “Lazarus at the Gate”

Text: Luke 16.19-31

Last week we considered a parable that we described as the most difficult one Jesus ever told. Today’s parable is pretty easy to understand, at least on one level, and it is one that is reasonably familiar to most of us. Indeed, it is a rather popular parable because it seems to be a case of the underdog winning in the end, and that’s a popular story, whether in literature or sports or politics. I can see this parable turned into a movie, with everyone cheering as the terrible rich man finally gets what’s coming to him after years of mistreating poor Lazarus!

But of course, as we are always finding with the parables, there’s more here than meets the eye. This morning I’d like to focus on the rich man. He’s the villain, I know, but I think we need to look at him with some different eyes. He’s not an evil person. He does find himself, in this story, cast into hell. So let’s ask the question: “What’s a nice guy like him doing in a place like this?” And we really need to ask that question, because the rich man is really in some ways not unlike you and me.

First, who is he? Interesting question! Did you know that Lazarus, the poor beggar in this story, is the only character in any of Jesus’ parables to be given a name? That’s something to ponder, because while Lazarus has a name, the rich man doesn’t. It is as if all we can know about him is summed up in a phrase: he is “a certain rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.” What does it mean that this is all that is to be said about him?

I’m fascinated by the obituaries that are printed in our local paper. Often they give headlines to rather ordinary people which try to sum up what was significant about that person. “She was a dentist, but her real love was raising canaries.” “He spent years reading the Encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover.” Interesting things to see in a headline about a persons life!

What kind of a man would it be about whom the headline would read, “He was rich, he dressed well, and he ate fabulously!” Not much of a life, was it? The old saying is that no one wants to see, engraved on their tombstone, “He worked a lot of overtime” or “She was an immaculate housekeeper,” but I think either of those would be preferable to the summary Jesus gives us of this man’s life. “Rich, well-dressed, well-fed.” There are plenty of people in this world who could be so described, of course. But this man’s problem wasn’t that he was rich; it was that being rich was all he was. That summed it up. That was the focus of his life. There was nothing else to say about him.

Oh, but perhaps I’m being too harsh. There were other things about him, but we have to read between the lines. Sometimes preachers rail against this man by claiming that he simply ignored poor Lazarus, lying at his gate. Don’t you believe it! Read between the lines. Lazarus lay there because he wanted to eat the scraps that came from this man’s table. I don’t see anything to suggest he wasn’t given those scraps. If he hadn’t been given those scraps, he would have found another place to beg, a more profitable place.

Furthermore, it is obvious, isn’t it, that the rich man was at least aware of who Lazarus was. He seemed to have no difficulty recognizing him as the parable unfolds. He knew this man, knew that he was beggar, knew that he had lain at his gate—knew, no doubt, that every day his servants had thrown Lazarus the scraps left from the rich man’s sumptuous table. And he knew—or should we say, “he thought”—that those scraps were enough.

Now he becomes a little more like us, doesn’t he? We see him, not as a heartless and selfish man, but as one whose level of concern and giving never goes beyond the cast offs. “Of course,” he thought, “that poor man can have my scraps. I don’t need them.” Isn’t that how we often give? What we don’t need, what we can easily afford, that we give—and feel so good about it!

But there is more. How about the part where the rich man is in Hades, tormented by thirst? He sees Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom and so he calls out to Abraham, “Send Lazarus down to bring me some water!” My goodness! This certain rich man no doubt led his whole life thinking that other people were at his beck and call, that he was somehow more important than they. Now even in the prison of Hades, he still thinks that way. Send Lazarus down—that’s what people like him are for, to help people like me!

Of course it isn’t only the rich who look down their noses at other people. Who is it that you view as being essentially different from you, less important, not worthy of much consideration. Is it the poor? Is it someone of a different race or culture? Is it the illegal immigrant, or the criminal? Is it the young? Is it the old?

Then there’s the part where the rich man tries to get Lazarus sent back to warn his brothers about where their road is leading. “Oh, but they have the law and the prophets to warn them,” Abraham says. “No,” the rich man replies, “but if someone would go to them from the dead, then they would understand.” Let’s not be too touched by the rich man’s sudden concern for his brothers. Let’s read between the lines. He’s saying, isn’t he, something about himself. “If only someone had told me . . .” What a human response! “It wasn’t really my fault, I didn’t know any better.” Abraham says, in effect, “Oh, but you did. You just chose not to listen.”

And what about us, on that score? We listen, of course. We hear the words week after week about what the Lord calls us to do. Do we listen? Do we hear, any more than a certain rich man? Or are we, like him, content to throw our scraps to the beggar at the door?

Albert Schweitzer, the great missionary doctor, read this parable and felt the call of God. He became convinced that Africa was the beggar lying at the gate of Europe, and so he left his lucrative practice and his prominence as a scholar behind and went to Africa to heal the sick in the name of Christ.

I knew a young couple some years ago, newly married and living in a large old house in Oakland. They had been involved in a ministry that took meals to AIDS patients in their homes, and through that ministry they came to know a man, in the fairly late stages of the disease, who had lost his job, whose family had essentially deserted him, and who now had lost the place where he was living. This young couple, married only a few weeks, decided to take him into their home and care for him. They provided him with more than food and a bed and medical help; they loved him. They became his family and gave him a home in every sense until he died.

Of course God doesn’t give us all the opportunity to do such a dramatic thing. But he does call us to look out the window of our comfortable lives and see who might be lying at the gate. I was able to listen in on part of the PLCW meeting yesterday, and I thought it was fascinating—different women in our congregation talking about the ministries in which they are involved, from Hospitality House to Habitat for Humanity to the hospital auxiliary. So many different opportunities we are given to have a look outside the gate. For there are many kinds of beggars. They are the poor, like Lazarus, the homeless and the needy. They are the sick, the lonely. They are the aged who fill the convalescent hospitals around us, and the children who have little or no parental support for learning. They are the confused and lonely and troubled who may live right among us but whom we conveniently overlook. They are all Lazarus, all of them, crying out not just for scraps but for people who will care and love and see them with eyes of compassion and hearts of tenderness.

I’ve been thinking recently about the wonderful gift God has given us in this new building that is almost finished. It will be wonderful for us, of course, and we look forward to being able to enjoy it. But we need to be thinking about those outside. Who lies at our gate? How can we help? I’d like to challenge you over the next few weeks to pray very specifically about how our new facilities can facilitate our ministry to Lazarus. What opportunities can it give us? How can we use it to serve?

I’m convinced that God will give us the answer to these questions—but we need to be asking. Make this part of your praying: ask the Lord to open our eyes to see who is at the gate. And when you sense a possible answer, when God puts something on your heart that you think might be significant, mention to a member of the church council, or to me, and let us consider it.

Our closing hymn today will be a great text by Herman Stuempfle, and I think his third stanza is just the prayer we need to pray:

O Christ, create new hearts in us that beat in time with yours

that, joined by faith with your great heart, become love’s open doors.

We are your body, risen Christ; our hearts, our hands we yield

that through our life and ministry your love may be revealed.”

We ask in this prayer that it may be so in us.

Copyright 2007 Richard O. Johnson. All rights reserved.