A Sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity
A Sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity
St. Luke 16:19-31 & 1 St. John 4:7-21
by William Klock
The crowd was settling down after that first frenzied crush when Jesus had come to town. The sick had been healed. The tears had been wiped away. In Jesus the people had had a taste, they’d seen a pocket of what the world is supposed to be, of the world set to rights. They’d had a glimpse of God’s kingdom. Now it was time to listen as Jesus spoke. There were all sorts of people there. People from town, people from the countryside, regular people, poor people—even some Pharisees looking down on the town square from the rooftop of the richest man in town. And Jesus began:
“There was once a rich man. He was dressed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day.”
Jesus was smiling at some little kids sitting in front of him as he said this, but everyone else looked at the Pharisees up on their rooftop perch. They were rich. They weren’t feast-every-day rich or even dressed-in-purple rich. Very few people were. But they did wear fine clothes and only rich people could afford to live like the Pharisees with all their scruples and rules and everyday things. Jesus continued:
“A poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores, lay outside his gate. He longed to feed himself with the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.”
Jesus paints a picture of extremes. First there’s the rich man. Super rich. Ostentatiously rich. Only kings could afford to wear purple and feast every day. And in stark contrast there’s Lazarus. He’s destitute. He’s covered in sores, which means he’s almost certainly unclean. He’s probably lame. At some point he had either dragged himself to what he thought would be a prime spot for begging or someone else had deposited him there, at the gate of the richest man in town. And the rich man and his friends would come and go. He would hear the music and laughter from the other side of the wall. He could smell the meat roasting. He would have been happy with the bread the rich people used to wipe their hands. But there was nothing for poor Lazarus. And to make his life worse, as he lay there helpless, the feral dogs of the town would come to lick his oozing sores and leave him stinging.
Jesus puts a new spin on an old story the rabbis told. There was a story—it’s been preserved in the Talmud—that originated in Egypt and was brought back to Judah by Alexandrian Jews. It was a story about a rich tax collector and a poor torah scholar. They both died and everyone attended the rich man’s funeral and no one could be bothered to show up the funeral of the poor man. But a few days later, a friend of the poor man had a dream of paradise, and there in the middle of paradise was the poor torah scholar enjoying everything he’d sacrificed in life for the sake of God’s law. And not far away was the rich man, parched and in torment, struggling to reach the stream, but forever held back. When the story was told that way, everyone had sympathy for the poor torah scholar and hated the rich tax collector. But Jesus changes it up a bit. The rich man is just a rich man—maybe even a Pharisee. And the poor man’s just a poor a man. And when it’s told that way, given the thinking of the day, most people would have had their sympathies reverse. Riches—so long as they weren’t gained from collecting taxes for the Romans—riches were a sign of God’s favour. And the poor man? Well, think of the disciples’ question to Jesus about the blind man. “Who sinned? This man or his parents?” A lot of people would have chalked up the poor man’s state to his sins. He was out of favour with God and deserved his miserable lot in life.
There’s another interesting change Jesus makes. In the usual version of the story, it’s the rich man who has a name. As he tells the story his way, Jesus gives a name to the poor man instead: Lazarus. Lazarus means “God helps”, but more importantly, it’s a rabbinic form of the name Eliezer. I suspect that Jesus was making a deliberate connection with Abraham’s servant, Eliezer of Damascus. If we go back to Genesis 15 we read how Abraham lamented to the Lord that he was childless and that his only heir was Eliezer of Damascus. In response, the Lord promised that he and Sarah would have a son. When Isaac was born he displaced Eliezer, a gentile and an outsider, as Abraham’s inheritor. In Jesus’ parable, the rich man is one of Abraham’s sons. Again, the Pharisees would have seen his riches as a sign of his election and a sign of God’s blessing on him. Lazarus, even though he was a Jew, was unclean because of his diseases and his poverty would have been seen as a sign of God’s disfavour. He was an outsider, like Eliezer of Damascus, and undeserving of Abraham’s inheritance.
And yet look at what happens:
“In due course the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. As he was being tormented in Hades, he looked up and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.” (Luke 16:22-23)
Both men die. Jesus simply says that the rich man was buried, but that simple statement unpacks into elaborate funeral rites and ceremonies and all the feasting we’d expect to take place when a rich man died in an ancient culture. Proper burial was extremely important for the Jews and this man got not only a proper burial, but it came with all the pomp and circumstance that his wealth would have demanded. In contrast, Jesus simply says that Lazarus died and we wonder if anyone even noticed. There was no burial for Lazarus. His body could very well have been dragged away by the dogs while the rich man’s servants assumed he’d found a better spot to beg.
And yet Jesus says that even without recognition or proper burial, poor Lazarus was collected by the angels themselves and taken to Abraham’s “side” or Abraham’s “bosom”. The Jews described the Messianic age to come as one in which God’s people would feast and banquet in the kingdom along with Abraham. Lazarus was probably as surprised as anyone, not only to be carried by the angels into that great banquet, but to be seated at the table right next to Abraham, in the place of highest honour. That was the place reserved for someone like the rich man—not the place for a poor, sick, unclean beggar. And yet there he was.
Again, with stark contrast, Jesus describes the situation of the rich man. Despite his high status in life, he wakes to find himself being tormented in the afterlife. And not just tormented. Where Lazarus finds himself feasting at Abraham’s side, the rich man finds himself on the far side of a great gulf that separates him from that banquet and from Abraham. The tables have been turned. In life the rich man feasted and a great social gulf kept Lazarus away and starving.
Now it needs to be emphasised that Jesus’ parable is not meant to give us teaching about the afterlife. A lot of theologians, down through the ages, have gone to this parable assuming that Jesus’ point was to teach us about the intermediate state or about heaven and hell. That shows the danger of pulling portions of Scripture out of context. Jesus was using a well-known folk tale to make a point. We tell jokes and stories, for example, about people being met at the pearly gates by St. Peter with his list. St. Peter and his list are never the point of those stories. We don’t believe that this is what actually happens when we die—it’s a popular folk tale in our culture. The point is what happens to the people in the story or joke when they get there. Jesus is telling a story like that here. He’s using the elements of a common folk tale, not to teach about the afterlife, but to rebuke the Pharisees for their love of money and for their failure to truly live out the law and the prophets—to truly live as Abraham’s heirs. As the Lord had been generous to Israel with his grace and his provision, the people of Israel should have been generous with their grace and provisions with each other—and especially with people like Lazarus. They were supposed to be a pocket of God’s future in the present, showing the nations the generous love of God.
And so here are these two men with their roles completely reversed in death. And yet the rich man still doesn’t get it. He sees Lazarus seated at the table with Abraham and he calls out in verse 24:
“‘Father Abraham! Have mercy on me! Send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue! I’m in agony in this fire!’”
The rich man calls out to “Father Abraham”. His entire life he had deceived himself into thinking that Abraham was his father simply because he was one of Abraham’s biological descendants. Like the Pharisees, he was convinced that his genetics, his circumcision, his diet, his sabbath observance, his separation from gentiles and from all things unclean, and all his sacrifices and offerings made at the temple guaranteed him a seat at the great banquet. And yet he feasted away his days while poor Lazarus starved at his gate. We should be reminded again of the Lord’s rebuke through the prophet Hosea:
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)
Or as Jesus puts it in Matthew 9:13, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”
The rich man doesn’t grasp Lazarus’ position either. Not only is he still calling out to Abraham as if he has a claim on Abraham, but he calls out to Abraham to send Lazarus to him with some water. He sees Lazarus at Abraham’s side and misreads the situation. It never occurs to him that Lazarus is there to be honoured. He thinks that Lazarus is there as Abraham’s servant: a waterboy in hades. Abraham has to explain the situation to him. Look at verses 25-26:
“My child, remember that you in your life you received good things, and in the same way Lazarus received bad things. Now he is comforted here, and you are tormented. Besides that, there is a great chasm standing between us. People who want to cross over from here to you can’t do so, nor can anyone get across from the far side to us.”
Jesus is still following the folk tale at this point. Abraham puts the rich man in his place. Lazarus wasn’t taken by the angels to be Abraham’s servant—or the rich man’s for that matter. And the rich man hasn’t landed in a place of torment by mistake. The rich man realises that the way he lived his life was wrong—he’d made assumptions about his status with Abraham and with the Lord, but his assumptions were wrong. Again, Jesus’ point isn’t to teach us the geography of the afterlife. He’s warning the Pharisees—and through them he’s warning all of Israel—that the role reversal that happened in this folk story could very well happen to them and that they’d better watch out. The kingdom was at hand, judgement was coming soon, and they had little time left to repent.
Now, in the last verses of the chapter, Jesus changes the story. The way people were used to hearing it, the rich man realised the error of his ways and asked for warnings to be sent to his brothers lest they suffer the same fate—and the Lord or Abraham obliged. As Jesus tells the story, just the opposite happens. The warnings have already been sent. Look at verses 27-31:
“‘Please, then, Father,’ the rich man said, ‘send him to my father’s house. I have five brothers. Let Lazarus warn them, so that they don’t come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone went to them from the dead, they would repent.’ ‘And if they do not hear Moses and the Prophets,’ came the reply, ‘neither would they be convinced, even if someone rose from the dead.’”
Look at Abraham’s response again: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, “neither would they be convinced, even if someone rose from the dead.” With the coming of Jesus, the kingdom of God was breaking into the world. God sent Jesus to lead his people out of their long exile. He sent his Son to conquer sin and death and to lead his people out of their bondage to both. And so with every sickness healed, with every demon cast out, with every sin forgiven Jesus was showing that the kingdom had come, that God’s new future was beginning. This is why tax collectors and sinners were celebrating. Jesus was setting them free. Imagine the joy of Lazarus as he was carried by the angels to feast at Abraham’s side. This is the reality that Jesus was making known to the poor and the outcast and to sinners.
And yet the Pharisees grumbled every time they saw Jesus doing these things. The men who were sons of Abraham and who spent their lives in devotion to God’s law, they couldn’t accept what Jesus was doing. He was inviting all the wrong people to the banquet! And so Jesus is rebuking them; he’s calling them to repentance just as he called the tax collectors and sinners to repent. And here he warns them: They’re like the rich man who refused poor Lazarus even the bread thrown under his table. They’ve been entrusted with the light, but they refuse to share it with those living in darkness. They’ve been entrusted with the law and the prophets—God’s Word and the means of redemption for the nations—but they’d rather keep it to themselves and see the nations, the poor, the unclean tormented in hades. And at the end of the day, it’s just that attitude towards the poor and towards sinners and towards all those on the outside—it’s their refusal to celebrate as Jesus heals and forgives and makes new—that reveals that while they have the law and the prophets, they’ve never truly understood them and they’ve never truly lived them. They’re supposed to be little pockets of God’s future in the present, but instead they’ve been little pockets of darkness. And because of that, they may be surprised to find themselves, just like the rich man, on the receiving end of God’s judgement. If they don’t repent and recognise that in Jesus the kingdom has come, they will have forfeited their inheritance and it will be given to others. They will have no share in the kingdom.
This is where Jesus’ choice of the name Lazarus or Eliezer comes back into the story. When Isaac was born, the gentile Eliezer lost his inheritance. The Pharisees—and the rest of Israel—are the nation born of Isaac. They are the inheritors of God’s promises to Abraham. But with those covenant promises come covenant obligations—not just circumcision, avoiding unclean food, and sacrifices at the temple, but a seeking after justice and mercy and truly living out the lovingkindness of God in the world. If Israel refuses to fulfil those obligations and if she refuses to acknowledge that in Jesus they are being fulfilled, she will lose those covenant promises—she will lose her inheritance and it will be given to others, to outsiders grafted into Jesus who is the true Israel and the one truly faithful son of Abraham.
This has been the message of Luke’s gospel from the beginning, when Mary sang out:
He hath put down the mighty from their seat,
and hath exalted the humble and meek;
He hath filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he hath sent away empty. (Luke 1:52-53)
This was the message that John the Baptist was preaching back in Chapter 3: “You’d better prove your repentance by bearing the proper fruit! Don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; let me tell you, God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones! The axe is already standing by the roots of the tree—so every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:8-9). This was the warning that Jesus gave when he told the people to strive to enter through the narrow door before it’s shut, before it’s too late: “He will say to you, ‘I do not know where you people are from. Be off with you, you wicked lot.’ That’s where you’ll find weeping and gnashing of teeth: when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in God’s kingdom, and you yourselves will be thrown out. People will come from east and west, from north and south, and sit down to feast in God’s kingdom.” (Luke 13:27-29).
The rich man and his brothers, just like the Pharisees and just like unfaithful Israel, all had the law and the prophets. They didn’t need any more witnesses. Jesus’ rebuke that even if someone should be raised from the dead they still wouldn’t believe is a prophetic look ahead at Israel’s fate. They refused to listen to the law and the prophets. Jesus came to renew Israel, and she refused to hear him and continued to refuse even when he rose from the dead. And so others are being grafted in: unclean people, sinners, and gentiles are being grafted in and through Jesus are being given the inheritance that Israel has forfeited.
What does this mean for us? Brothers and sisters, we have Moses and the prophets, but more importantly we have Jesus and the Spirit, too. We’ve been renewed. The Spirit has given to us the one thing that the old Israel lacked: he’s inscribed God’s law on our hearts. He’s made it a part of us. He’s made it such a part of us that St. John can say in our Epistle today:
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God, and all who love are born of God and know God. The one who does not love has not known God, because God is love….If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is completed in us. That is how we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us a portion of his Spirit.” (1 John 4:7-8, 12-13)
Maybe this is why the Spirit appeared as tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples at Pentecost. They became light in the Spirit—very visible those little walking pockets of God’s light-filled future, God’s new creation, pulled into the present for the sake of the world. That’s the day when, through his Spirit, God made his people to truly be what he’d intended them to be all along.
Brothers and Sisters, it was easy for the Pharisees to take their convent status for granted. It should not be so for us. They were the natural sons of Abraham, but we are the dead wood that was grafted into the living vine—by the Spirit, into Jesus. We’re the ones who have received an inheritance that was not naturally ours. The Table we come to this morning, the bread we eat and the wine we drink, remind us of the amazing grace and generosity of God towards us. In so many ways and for so many reasons, we do not deserve his invitation to this Table, but he has been gracious and merciful to us. He’s given his own Son to die so that we can be a part of this family. May we never take his grace or our position before him or his Table for granted. May we, redeemed by his blood and filled with his Spirit, embody his love for the sake of the world. May we always be faithful and living witnesses of God’s new creation—light in midst of darkness, love in the midst of hate; hope in the midst of fear.
Let’s pray: O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.