16 Pentecost

 

September 25, 2022

 Ok.. . .I  weirdly love the parable we heard today.

 I think I might be one of the very few people who do actually love it.

 For some, it’s just so weird and…well, bizarre.

 It’s such an interesting story.

 There’s just so much good stuff, right under the surface of it.

 So, let’s take a look at it.

 In it, we find Lazarus.  

 Now, if you notice,  it’s the only time in Jesus’ parables that we find someone given a name—and the name, nonetheless, of one of Jesus’ dearest friends.  In most of Jesus’ parables, the main character is simply referred to as the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son.  

 But here we have Lazarus.  

 And the name actually carries some meaning.  

 It means “God has helped me.”

 Now the “rich man” in this story is not given a name by Jesus, but tradition has given him the name Dives, or “Rich Man”

 Between these two characters we see such a juxtaposition.  

 We have the worldly man who loves his possessions and is defined by what he owns.  

 And we have Lazarus who is poor, who seems to get sicker and hungrier all the time.

 In fact, his name almost seems like a cruel joke.  

 It doesn’t seem like God has helped Lazarus at all.

 The Rich Man sees Lazarus, is aware of Lazarus, but despite his wealth, despite all he has, despite, even his apparent happiness in his life, he can not even deign to give to poor Lazarus a scrap of food from all that he has.

 Traditionally of course, we have seen them as a very fat Rich Man, in fine clothing and a haughty look and a skinny, wasted Lazarus, covered in sores, which I think must be fairly accurate to what Jesus hoped to convey.  

 They are opposite, mirror images of each other.  

 But there are some subtle undercurrents to this story.  

 Lazarus is not without friends or mercy in his life. In fact, it seems that maybe God really IS helping him. 

 He is not quite the destitute person we think he is.

 First of all, we find him laid out by the Rich Man’s gate.  

 Someone must’ve put him there, in hopes that Rich Man would help him. Someone cared for Lazarus, and that’s important to remember.

 Second of all, we find these dogs who came to lick his sores.  

 The presence of dogs is an interesting one.

 Are they just wild dogs that roam the streets, or are they the Rich Man’s watch dogs?

 New Testament theologian Kenneth Bailey has mentioned that dog saliva was believed by people at this time to have curative powers. (We now know that is definitely NOT the case)   

 So, even the dogs are not necessarily a curse upon Lazarus but a possible blessing in disguise.

 Finally, when Lazarus dies, God receives him into paradise.

 In fact, as we hear, “angels carried him to be with Abraham.”

 The Rich Man dies and goes to Hades—or the underworld.  Lazarus goes up, Dives goes down.

 The Rich Man, in the throes of his torment, cries out to Father Abraham.

 And Abraham, if you notice, doesn’t ignore him or turn his back on him, despite the fact that the Rich Man did just that to Lazarus.

 Abraham does not even really scold him.  

But he does let him know that those who are still alive will not listen to someone raised from the dead, just as they did not listen to Moses and the prophets.

This is all obviously an allusion to Jesus' own death and resurrection.  

There really is a beauty to this story and a lesson for us that is more than just the bad man gets punished while the good man gets rewarded.

 And it is also not really about heaven and hell either.

 I get a lot of people who, when they hear that I do not believe in an eternal hell, remind me of this parable.

 I, in turn, remind them that it is a parable.

 It is a story that Jesus is telling.

 He is not talking about literal people here.

 And he is not talking about literal places.

 It is poetry and poetic imagery.

 And that is vital to remember.

 What we find is that, by the world’s standards, by the standards of those who are defined by the material aspects of this life, Lazarus was the loser before he died and the Rich Man was the winner, even despite his callousness.

 And the same could be said of us as well.  It might seem, at moments, as though we are being punished by the things that happen to us.  

 It is too easy to pound our chests and throw dirt and ashes in the air and to cry out in despair and curse God when bad things happen.  

 It is much harder to recognize that while we are there, at the gate outside the Rich Man’s house, lying in the dirt, covered in sores, that there are people who care, that there are gentle, soothing signs of affection, even from dogs.  

 Actually, there have been times when I have been soothed more by dogs than humans.

 And it is hard sometimes in those moments to see that God too cares.

 I have done that.

 I have actually done that not all that long ago in my own life.

 Since we’re discussing last things this morning, since we’re talking about heaven and hell and feeling sometimes as though God does not care, let’s take it up a notch.

 As many of you know, I do have a gravestone.  

 My gravestone is actually entirely inscribed, save for the last final date of my life.

 You can actually go and see it if you’d like.

 And it’s actually the backside of my parents’ gravestone.

 And if you want to see some defiance even in death, notice as you look at it that it n has a Celtic cross on it.

 I’m kind of proud of the fact that among all those Swedish Lutherans, there is a Celtic cross on my stone.

 But what people who see my gravestone take note of is the epitaph I chose for myself.  

 It’s actually the final line of a poem I wrote toward the end of my “cancer experience” 20 years ago which felt to me very much like a Lazarus experience.

 The poem was written as my father and I were driving to Minot on a particularly cold night 20 years ago next months, in October 2002 shortly after the first snow fall of the year.  

 We were driving up there for my final interview with the Commission on Ministry before I was ordained to the Diaconate.  

 As we neared the city and came up over a hill, I could see the city laid out below us.  

 Above us, the sky had cleared after a particularly gray and gloomy day.  

 When the clouds had cleared, we could see the stars, which, on that cold night, looked especially crisp and clear.  

 And in that moment, after all that I had went through with my cancer, I suddenly knew for the first time, that, somehow, everything was going to be fine.   

 At the end of that poem, I wrote what would become the epitaph on my stone.

 I wrote in that poem, “Dusk” (I’m not going to inflict the whole poem on you, but it’s in my book, Just Once, which I’m giving away for free):

 “…I look up into the sky

and see it—a transformation

so subtle I almost didn’t notice it

as I sit there trembling

behind the tinted windshield.

I say to myself

‘Look! Just look!

 

Look how the dusk—

full of clouds and gloom—

has dissolved into

multitudes of stars!’”

 

My epitaph is just that:

 Look how the dusk—

full of clouds and gloom—

has dissolved into

multitudes of stars!’”

 

To some extent, that’s what it’s like to be a Christian.  

To some extent, that’s what it’s like: when we think the darkness and the gloom has encroached and has won out, we can look up and see those bright sparks of light and know, somehow, that it’s all going to be all right.

And in those moments, we can remember one important thing:

Paradise awaits us.

That place to which Lazarus was taken by angels awaits us and, for those of us striving and struggling through this life, we can truly cling to that hope.

For those of us still struggling, we can set our eyes on the prize, so to speak and move forward.  

We can work toward that place, rather than “diving” like Dives himself, into the pit of destruction he essentially created for himself.

In a real sense, the Rich Man was weighed down by his wealth, especially when he refused to share it, and he ended up wallowing in the mire of his own close-mindedness and self-centeredness.

What happens to this Rich Man?

Well, the chickens came home to roost.

The rich man, full of hubris and pride, full of arrogance and selfishness and self-centeredness.

The rich man, who did not care for the poor, who ignored the needy, who cared only for himself,

The rich man who boasted and blew smoke and walked around with his puffed-out chest,

The rich man fell, as all such people we find will fall.

Scripture again and again tells us such people will fall.

History again and again tells us such people will fall.

The chickens ALWAYS come home to roost.

The moral of this parable is this: let us not be like the rich man.  

Let us not follow that slippery, dangerous slope to destruction.

But for those of us who, in the midst of our struggles, can still find those glimmers of light in the midst of the gloom, we are not weighed down.  

We are freed in ways we never knew we could be.  

We are lifted up and given true freedom.

We are Lazarus.

God has truly helped us.

And God continuous to help us again and again.

And when God does help us, it is then that we see moist clearly those multitudes of light shining brightly in the occasional gloom of our lives.

Let us pray.

Loving God, open our minds and our hearts that we may always be willing to serve those who need to served and help those who need to be helped. Make us truly aware of those around who cry out, however silently, for help, so that we may do what you call us do in this world; in Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.