What's in a Name: Lazarus

Please Click Here For Sermon Video

Luke 16:19-31

Why did Jesus give that poor beggar the name Lazarus, inquiring minds want to know.  This is just a parable by which Jesus was addressing the Pharisees about how their love of money and consequent neglect of the poor was disqualifying them from being true descendants of Abraham and they needed to repent.  Jesus could have just stuck with saying there was a poor man who daily sat begging outside a rich man’s door, but instead Jesus named him Lazarus and on top of that he doesn’t name the rich man.  Why?  Obviously, there must be something about that name, Lazarus, that informs the parable?  Bear with me a minute and I’ll tell you what I think.

Right off the bat some would say it was the Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead in John’s Gospel.  Afterall, Jesus mentions someone being raised from the dead there in the last verse.  I don’t think that’s it, because neither Luke, nor Matthew nor Mark seem to know of that event for some strange reason.  It is more likely Jesus was referring to his own resurrection which the Pharisees, who were responsible for his crucifixion, dismissed as a hoax.

The name Lazarus as it appears in our Bibles is a Latinized version of the Greek name Lazaros which is a Greekized version of the Hebrew name Eleazer which means “God has helped”.  In the Old Testament, the most famous Eleazer was the son of Moses’ brother Aaron who became High Priest after Aaron died.  Yes, a good many to most of the leaders of the Pharisees would have been from priestly families, albeit wealthy priestly families.  But I don’t think this Eleazar is the Eleazar Jesus was calling to mind.  There’s another more recent in memory to Jesus’ day that’s worth a long hard squint, but first there’s some armchair history you’ll need to know.

In Judea during the mid-100’s B.C., the Greeks had been ruling in Judea for about 150 years.  The leader of the Greeks at that time was Antiochus Epiphanes who was a twisted, sick individual.  He sacrificed a pig in the Temple as well as put a statue of Zeus on the altar.  He burned Torah scrolls and banned circumcision and all forms of observance of the Law of Moses.  His favourite pastime was publicly forcing Law-observant Jews to eat pork or be tortured to death. 

During his tenure, there arose a loosely configured resistance movement of faithful Jews known as the Hasideans.  It’s not really fair to say they were a resistance movement though.  Their devotion to keeping the Law of Moses was due to their unwavering faithfulness to God.  It was not simply a way of resisting Greek rule.  Antiochus, for some reason, hated their devotion to God.  

From among the Hasideans there arose the brothers Maccabeus who in 167 B.C. started a three-year-long revolt that drove the Greeks out of Judea resulting in a period of Jewish independence that lasted roughly forty years.  The festival of Hanukkah arose out of that revolt.  Oddly, the majority of Jews at the time opted to just keep their heads down and their faith private and took up the Hellenistic or Greek way of life.  Thus, the Hasideans were tortured for their faithfulness while the Hellenists lived comfortably.  Just so you know, a pretty convincing argument can be made that the Pharisees of Jesus’ day traced their origins back to the Hasideans.

The Hasideans had some key teachers, some very devoted men.  One of them was an elderly scribe named Eleazer.  He was probably in his 80’s at the time of the revolt.  There is a very well-known account of the day Eleazer and Antiochus Epiphanes met up (see 4 Maccabees 6).  Antiochus actually quite respected Eleazer for his intellect, his ability to speak eloquently, and his rationality.  He just didn’t understand why a rational person would keep such strict adherence to such a strict Law out of devotion to a god, especially a non-Greek god.  After a bit of debate, Antiochus decided to get on with testing the old man’s faith by threatening to have him tortured to death if he didn’t eat a piece of pork.  They debated some more and then with a bit of reluctance; Antiochus had the guards take him away to be flogged with a scourge.  That’s a whip made with many straps that is effective at ripping the flesh open.  They stripped him naked to humiliate him, tied his hands, and commenced scourging him.  He stood there bravely and took it for longer than expected.  Eventually he fell and then one of the guards started kicking him in the side trying to make him stand up but he couldn’t due to his age. 

The guards soon started to feel ashamed of what they were doing to this old man and pleaded with him to just eat a piece of meat and say it was pork so that they could stop the atrocity. Eleazer’s answer was basically, why should he let his long life of faithfulness end in such an act of cowardice.  What sort of an example would that set for the young.  It would be shameful to do such a thing just to gain a few more days which he would spend being mocked, particularly by the tyrant Antiochus.  He finished saying, “O children of Abraham, die nobly for your faith!  And you, guards of the tyrant, why do you delay?”, i.e., “Are you ashamed of what you are doing?” 

The guards then got on with it.  They took whatever metal things they could find and made them red hot and burned him to the bone with them all over.  Then they poured stinking liquids into his nostrils (sewage probably).  While they did this he looked towards heaven and said to God, “You know, O God, that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the Law.  Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment (there were seven brothers and their mother being martyred too), let our punishment suffice for them.  Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs.”  Then he died.  (Some serious theology there.)

If you remember, Eleazer means “God has helped”.  That may not seem to have been the case for Eleazer but not long after his death the brothers Maccabeus defeated the Greeks and drove them from the land.  For forty years the Jews enjoyed independence.  That was the last time until 1948 that they enjoyed that.

Eleazer (Lazarus) suffered for his faith in God and his faithfulness to the Law.  The Pharisees, his theological descendants, were on the other hand getting rich off of keeping the Law, one could even say they were being tyrants about it and that they were persecuting fellow Jews with it.  Actually, they were more like the Hellenist Jews in Eleazer’s day than the Hasideans from whom they originated.  I think Jesus used the name Lazarus (Eleazer) in this parable to truly convict the money-loving Pharisees of their hypocrisy.  Eleazer died for his faithfulness by being undeservedly tortured with flaming things. 

The rich man in the parable was also being tortured with flaming things, flames.  He was himself a Jew and should have gone to “Abraham’s bosom” where faithful Jew’s went to await resurrection.  But instead, he was in Hades, the afterlife that the Greeks believed in, where he was being tortured with flaming things because he deserved it.  He was a self-absorbed money-lover who neglected the poor right outside his door.  Even in death he thought that poor beggar Lazarus ought to be waiting on him.  So, it was with the Pharisees.  They missed what was at the true heart of the Law – the mercy that that rich man never showed to poor Lazarus and instead were using to Law really just to make people serve them and their hunger for power.

Let me try to lighten the mood. I knew an elderly man up until a couple of years ago when he died.  He had been a banker by career.  We all make assumptions that bankers are wealthy, but with this man you would never know if he was or wasn’t.  He and his wife kept things pretty simple.  He was a devoted Christian, husband, and family man.  Everywhere they lived they always found and attended a church.  When I first met him, he was treasurer of his church.  When I came on board, within just a couple of weeks he had me over to his house under the auspices of catching me up on the financial situation of the church.  The real reason was that he wanted to strike up a relationship, a friendship with me.  He thought a minister ought to know his people and their struggles and pray for them.  He wanted me to know that his wife had periods of not being well and he was afraid of losing her.  Whenever she got sick and went to the hospital, he would call me so that I could pray.  

He was a faithful man, but I do have to admit (as he would) that after having to live separated from his wife through Covid after a bazillion years of marriage, her death, his own health issues, and great untreatable pain there in his last two years, he was tempted to eat the pork so to speak.  He was also anxious that I was going to take a call somewhere else, so I had to routinely assure him that I would not take a call away from here before he died, that I would be here to bury him.  Number three on my list of reasons for not taking a call elsewhere is that there are so many of you just like him who have been faithful all your lives and deserve to be buried by someone who knows you.  He was a faithful, humble, generous man.

On a number of occasions his last couple of years, he had me over to talk about his funeral because he believed death was imminent or at least he hoped it was.  When it came to what if any particular Scripture he wanted read, he was adamant about one verse in particular, Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O Mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”  This man was Mac Elliot.  He passed away two years and nearly two months ago.  Whenever I come across the story of Eleazer (which is more often than you would think), he is one who comes to mind.  Mac knew what was at the heart of what God expects from humanity.  He was faithful all his life but had his faith tested there at the end, but still he endured…a just, kind, humble man before God.

Many small churches such as our four today are like Eleazer (Lazarus) keeping the faith and keeping the doors open and the lights on though it seems pointless.  On top of it all, the churches that are growing seem mired in the false beliefs Christian Nationalism, hating the immigrant, making the poor help themselves, (“The good Lord helps those who help themselves” is found nowhere in the Bible.) patriarchalism if not outright misogyny…and at the root of it really does seem to be the love of money.  But you folks, stay faithful, beloved of God.  Continue to listen to Jesus, the one who was raised from the dead.  The love, the friendship, you have here is an embodiment of him.  Keep the faith.  Amen.

 

In the Wake of Self-Betrayal

 Please Click Here For Sermon Video

Luke 16:19-31

There are several things that need to be said about this Parable before we get to what the Parable says.  So, beware.  At the top of the list is that this parable is not about Heaven and Hell and one’s eternal security.  It has nothing more to do with that than the jokes we tell today about St. Peter at the pearly gates.  It is a parable about how we live life in the present.  Specifically, do we live in a way that reflects the image of our God who is unconditional and self-giving love so as to give hope to the world or do we betray that fundamental self-identity and live in a way based more on self-deception resulting in our using people for our own purposes which leads to a perpetual need to justify ourselves?

With respect to how we live life in the present, Jesus is here contrasting two ways of life.  The first is the Israelite way, the Kingdom of God way, which Jesus symbolized by Lazarus being at Abraham’s side.  Older translations call this “Abraham’s Bosom”.  “Abraham’s Bosom” was a catch phrase back in Jesus’ day for the faithful life.  If you were living in “Abraham’s Bosom” you were one of God’s people, a Jew, a descendent of Abraham who was expressing Abraham-like faithfulness through keeping the Law of Moses and the demands of justice that God commanded through the Prophets.  

The second way of life is the Greco-Roman way, the way of the world, the way of Money-Love and Power-Love.  Jesus symbolized this way of life using the Greek word for the Greek concept of the after-life, Hades (not Hell), to describe the tormented existence of Money-Love that Luke said tarnished the Pharisee’s faithfulness.  They were very outwardly faithful according to the letter of the Law, but in their hearts, they hadn’t quite accepted the spirit of the Law and the Prophets.  Instead of being truly generous people concerned with justice, they loved the power and image that having money provided them.

Another thing we need to say about this parable is that it resides in a section of Luke’s Gospel where Jesus is teaching his disciples about how the pursuit of wealth can complicate being faithful.  At 16:13 Jesus tells his disciples that they cannot be slaves to two masters, to both God and Mammon; Mammon means wealth.  Immediately after Jesus says this, next in verse 14, Luke says that the Pharisees, who were “lovers of money” – money lovers and that’s a derogatory term - they heard Jesus and ridiculed him.  So, Jesus shoots this Parable of a rich man tormented in a Greek “Hell” at them in an effort to shame them.  He is accusing them of acting shamefully, like Greek’s, rather than like true Israelites.

The Pharisees were Israel’s most devout people, experts in the Law of Moses and the writings of the Prophets.  They were expecting the Messiah to come at any moment and establish the Kingdom of God.  They ardently, passionately, zealously strove to be ready for this day by strictly observing the Law of Moses.  The Pharisees of all people should have been living lives exemplary of Abraham’s Bosom, of true Israelite faithfulness but they weren’t.  

A third thing to say about this parable is that there is more going on here than just some rich guy ignoring a poor guy who daily lay outside his door.  All we’ve got to do is walk a few blocks in downtown anywhere and we all become guilty of that.  The problem was that one child of Abraham ignoring the real needs of another child of Abraham completely tars God’s revelation of himself that God wanted to give the world by calling the nation of Israel into existence beginning with Abraham and giving them the Law and the Prophets to live by.  Let me say a lot more about this because this is the heart of the parable.  Our acting in faithful compassion towards others is part of how God reveals himself in this world.

The way of faithfulness that God started with Abraham would be God’s way of saving humanity whom God created in his image from its Fall into trying to be God.  God called Abraham and told him to go to a land that God would show him because God was giving him that land and in that land God would make his descendants to be a great nation through which all nations would be blessed.  Abraham believed God and went and his children became a great tribe in the land of Palestine.  But in time, the “children” of Abraham found themselves enslaved in Egypt.  The promise seemed threatened. So then, God called Moses to lead the descendants of Abraham of slavery in Egypt and God delivered them with a mighty hand.  At Mt. Sinai, after all that God had done for them, these descendants of Abraham agreed that the God of Abraham was evidently their God and they were his people and they promised to live the way he wanted them to live.  So, God gave them the Ten Commandments.  Being faithful to God by following these commandments was to be the core of their community life.  Through the Prophets God kept this people accountable.  By living this way God’s promise to Abraham would be fulfilled.  They would be a great nation.  They would be blessed and they would be a blessing to all nations.

But, it goes deeper than that.  Through this faithful people God would demonstrate to the whole world that he is the only true God and that he is steadfastly loving and faithful and an abundant provider.  The nation that worshipped this God, the Lord God of Israel, would be abundantly provided for, always protected, and their community life would be just and beautifully rich in neighbourliness.  

And it goes even deeper than that.  In its communal life of faithfulness lived according to the Law and the Prophets Israel would bear God’s image, reflect God’s image into the world.  Humanity was created in the image of the Trinity, the loving communion of Father Son and Holy Spirit.  The nature of our relationships is to reflect the image of the Trinity’s loving communion into his creation.  But, due to Sin our attempts to be God mar our reflection of God’s image.  We make God look ugly, unbelievable, uncaring.  Communal life of faithfulness, compassionate and just faithfulness, lived according to the Law wouldn’t cure the problem of Sin. The incarnation of God the Son and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is God’s remedy for that.  But, until God finally brings about the New Creation and puts all things to rights, faithfulness, Abraham’s Bosom, is the way for now.

Looking at this parable, this rich man and Lazarus in this parable are both children of Abraham.  The rich man’s daily ignoring of Lazarus and his letting Lazarus persist in such a wretched existence while he himself grew richer and enjoyed greater comforts was an utter denial by this rich man of his own claim to be a child of Abraham and thus of being one of the people of God.  This is why there was an unbridgeable chasm between Hades and being in Abraham’s Bosom.  The rich man in his Money-Love cut himself off from being one of the children of Abraham.  As Jesus said, one cannot serve both God and Wealth.  

There’s a short little book called Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box by the Arbinger Institute.  It describes the torment we go through when like this rich man we betray who we know ourselves to be by not doing what we know and feel we ought to do.  It explains that we have a predictable pattern of thought and behavioural self-deception that we go through when we don’t do what we know and feel we should do.  It goes like this.

I, a follower of Jesus, a child of Abraham, see someone in Lazarus’ condition.  Though knowing I should do something to help this person that goes beyond throwing money at them, something that would require me to change my lifestyle by making some sacrifices, something that would require me to regard this person as a real person and a child of God like me, instead I do nothing.  This doing nothing is an act of self-betrayal.  I am betraying who I am as a child of God who through my acts of faithful compassion God reveals himself to the world.  

In the wake of this decision to do nothing, of this self-betrayal, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal.  I inflate that person’s faults convincing myself they are worse than they are; a lazy, bad person.  Their faults become my justification for me not doing what I know I should.  Then I begin to look past my own faults and inflate my own virtues to justify my self-betrayal – I am a good, hardworking person getting what I work for.  I also begin to inflate the value of things that justify my self-betrayal meaning I find practical reasons for not doing what I know I should.  I’m too busy.  I have to get to work or I’ll be fired.  Finally, I will find a way to blame the person for my not doing what I know I should.  It is her fault that she is the way she is.  

When I see the world in self-justifying ways, my view of reality is distorted.  Like the rich man in Hades I cease to regard others as persons and focus only on my own needs.  I find my self closed up, isolated in a box of prejudices, of twisted perspectives of others, of self-justifying opinions.  I begin to treat others in ways to which they will respond that will reinforce my self-justifying but will also cause them to become self-justifying and to enter their own box against me.  The rich hate the poor.  The poor hate the rich.  Americans think themselves better than Canadians and Canadians think themselves better than Americans.  Whites hate Natives and Natives hate whites.  This is called collusion.  We collude in giving each other reason to not regard each other as beloved children of God. And so, we continue on in our boxed up and hateful little worlds of self-betrayal where we don’t do what Jesus commands us to do and what the Holy Spirit prompts and enables us to do – Love as Jesus has loved us, giving himself up for us.

Money-Love, the pursuit of wealth, makes it very easy for us to shut ourselves up in this living Hades of self-betrayal, self-justification, and collusion.  The way out is to see every person as a real person, a beloved child of God and act compassionately as the Holy Spirit who dwells in us each prompts us to do.  Even if it means we must give up a few or quite a bit of things, we must do the compassion we know we should otherwise we make God look really ugly and that’s not good because it eclipses any hope this world might have.  Amen.

Money-Love - A Living Hades

Luke 16:19-31

There are so many things to say about this Parable before we get to what the Parable says.  So beware.  At the top of the list is that this parable is not about Heaven and Hell and one’s eternal security.  It has nothing more to do with that than the jokes we tell today about St. Peter at the pearly gates.  It is a parable about how we live life in the present in Jesus’ Kingdom.  Specifically, do we put people first in our relationships or are our relationships based more on how we can use people for our own purposes and justify ourselves.

Jesus here contrasts two ways of life.  The first is the Israelite way, the Kingdom of God way, which Jesus symbolized by Lazarus being at Abraham’s side.  Older translations call this “Abraham’s Bosom”.  “Abraham’s Bosom” is God’s people expressing Abraham-like faithfulness through keeping the Law of Moses and the demands of justice that God commanded through the Prophets.  The second way of life is the Greco-Roman way, the way of the world, the way of Money-Love and Power-Love.  Jesus symbolized this way of life using the Greek word for the Greek concept of the after-life, Hades (not Hell), to describe the tormented existence of Money-Love that Luke said tarnished the Pharisee’s lifestyle.  They were very outwardly faithful according to the letter of the Law, but in their hearts they hadn’t quite accepted the spirit of the Law and the Prophets.  Instead of being truly generous people concerned with justice, they loved the power and image that having money provided them.

Another thing we need to say about this parable is that it resides in a section of Luke’s Gospel where Jesus is teaching his disciples about how the pursuit of wealth can complicate being faithful.  At 16:13 Jesus tells his disciples that they cannot be slaves to two masters, to both God and Mammon; Mammon means wealth.  Immediately after Jesus says this, next in verse 14, Luke says that the Pharisees, who were “lovers of money” – money lovers and that’s a derogatory term - they heard Jesus and ridiculed him.  So Jesus shoots this Parable of a rich man tormented in a Greek “Hell” in an effort to shame them.  He is accusing them of acting shamefully like Greek’s rather than like true Israelites.

The Pharisees were Israel’s most devout people, experts in the Law of Moses and the writings of the Prophets.  They were expecting the Messiah to come at any moment and establish the Kingdom of God.  They ardently, passionately, zealously strove to be ready for this day by strictly observing the Law of Moses.  The Pharisees of all people should have been living lives exemplary of Abraham’s Bosom, of true Israelite faithfulness but they weren’t. 

A third thing to say about this parable is that there is more going on here than just some rich guy ignoring a poor guy who daily lay outside his door.  All we’ve got to do is walk a few blocks in downtown anywhere and we all become guilty of that.  The problem was that one child of Abraham ignoring the real needs of another child of Abraham completely tars the revelation of himself that God wanted to give the world by calling the Old Testament nation of Israel into existence beginning with Abraham and giving them the Law and the Prophets to live by.  Let me say a lot more about this because this is the heart of the parable.  Our acting in faithful compassion towards others is part of how God reveals himself in this world.

The way of faithfulness that God started with Abraham would be God’s way of saving humanity from its Fall into trying to be God.  God called Abraham and told him to go to a land that God would show him because God was giving him that land and would make his descendants to be a great nation through which all nations would be blessed.  Abraham went and his children became a great tribe in the land of Palestine.  In time the “children” of Abraham found themselves enslaved in Egypt and God delivered them with a mighty hand.  At Mt. Sinai, they agreed to let God be their God and they promised to live the way he wanted them to live.  Thus, God gave them the Ten Commandments.  Being faithful to God by following these commandments was to be the core of their community life.  By living this way God’s promise to Abraham would be fulfilled.  They would be a great nation.  They would be blessed and they would be a blessing to all nations.

Yet, it goes deeper than that.  Through this faithful people God would demonstrate to the world that He is the only true God and that he is steadfastly loving and faithful and an abundant provider.  The nation that worshipped this God, the Lord God of Israel, would be abundantly provided for, always protected, and their community life would be just and beautifully rich in neighbourliness. 

And it goes even deeper than that.  Israel in its communal life of faithfulness lived according to the Law and the Prophets would bear God’s image, reflect God’s image into the world.  Humanity was created in the image of the Trinity, the loving communion of Father Son and Holy Spirit.  The nature of our relationships is to reflect the image of the Trinity’s loving communion into his creation.  But, due to Sin our attempts to be God mar our reflection of God’s image.  Communal life of faithfulness, compassionate and just faithfulness, lived according to the Law wouldn’t cure the problem of Sin.  The incarnation of God the Son and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is God’s remedy for that.  But, faithfulness, Abraham’s Bosom is the way for now.

This rich man and Lazarus in this parable are both children of Abraham.  The rich man’s ignoring Lazarus and letting Lazarus persist in such a wretched existence was an utter denial by the rich man of his own claim to be a child of Abraham and thus of being one of the people of God.  This is why there was an unbridgeable chasm between Hades and being in Abraham’s Bosom.  The rich man in his Money-Love cut himself off from being one of the children of Abraham.  As Jesus said one cannot serve both God and Wealth.  As Paul writes, “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Tim. 6:9,10).

While on vacation this summer I read a short little book called Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box by the Arbinger Institute.  It describes the torment we go through when like this rich man we betray who we know ourselves to be by not doing what we know and feel we ought to do.  We have a predictable pattern of thought and behavioural self-deception that we go through when we don’t do what we know and feel we should do.  It goes like this.

I a follower of Jesus, a child of Abraham, see someone in Lazarus’ condition.  Though knowing I should do something to help this person that goes beyond throwing money at them, something that would require me to change my lifestyle by making some sacrifices, something that would require me to regard this person as a real person and a child of God like me, I do nothing.  This doing nothing is an act of self-betrayal.  I am betraying who I am as a child of God who through my acts of faithful compassion God reveals himself to the world. 

In the wake of this decision to do nothing, of this self-betrayal, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal.  I inflate that person’s faults convincing myself they are worse than they are; a lazy, bad person.  Their faults become my justification for me not doing what I know I should.  I also begin to look past my own faults and inflate my own virtues to justify my self-betrayal – I am a good, hardworking person getting what I work for.  I also begin to inflate the value of things that justify my self-betrayal meaning I find practical reasons for not doing what I know I should.  I’m too busy.  I have to get to work or I’ll be fired.  Finally, I will find a way to blame the person for my not doing what I know I should.  It is her fault that she is the way she is. 

When I see the world in self-justifying ways, my view of reality is distorted.  Like the rich man in Hades I cease to regard others as persons and focus only on my own needs.  I find my self closed up, isolated in a box of prejudices, of twisted perspectives of others, of self-justifying opinions.  I begin to treat others in ways to which they will respond that will reinforce my self-justifying but will also cause them to become self-justifying and to enter their own box.  The rich hate the poor.  The poor hate the rich.  Americans think themselves better than Canadians and Canadians think themselves better than Americans.  Whites hate Indians and Indians hate whites.  This is called collusion.  We collude in giving each other reason to not regard each other as beloved children of God and to continue on in our boxed up and hateful little worlds of self-betrayal where we don’t do what Jesus commands us to do and what the Holy Spirit prompts and enables us to do – Love as Jesus has loved us, giving himself up for us.

Money-Love, the pursuit of wealth, makes it very easy for us to shut ourselves up in this living Hades of self-betrayal, self-justification, and collusion.  The way out is to see every person as a real person, a beloved child of God and act compassionately as the Holy Spirit who dwells in us each prompts us to do.  Even if it means we must give up a few things or quite a bit, we must do the compassion we know we should otherwise we make God look really ugly.  Amen.

Listening to the Resurrected One

Text: Luke 16:19-31; 1 Timothy 6:6-19

Listening is a very basic form of compassion and indeed hospitality. When we feel that someone has heard us we feel like we’ve been shown respect. Back in my seminary days I took a few pastoral care courses that were simply about listening. Believe me listening is a very hard skill to learn. No one is a natural at it. Even now after all the classes and years of experience I still wreak at letting people know that they’ve been heard. It’s very easy too. All you got to do is actually listen and then briefly summarize back what you’ve heard. The problem comes with the urges to give advice or to share an episode from your own life which are instinctual conversational devices we use to turn a conversation around to being all about me. Listening is a very hard skill to learn.

In the Bible listening or hearing is important. In pastoral care courses we were taught listening as a simple a conversational tool for helping some someone not only feel heard but also hear for themselves what they said. But, in the Bible listening involves doing. Someone may have heard the words you said but until they do what you asked them, they didn't hear you. Hearing is completed when the words that go forth from your mouth produce the desired response from another.

Looking hear at the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the reason this rich man was being tormented in Hades rather than standing at the side of Father Abraham was his failure to listen. His failure to listen to Moses and the Prophets and therefore not listening to God. His not listening exhibited itself in his ignoring the poor man Lazarus who daily lay outside his door covered in sores and hungry. If you were to read the first five books of the Bible and then the prophets you would quickly learn that listening to God involves taking care of the poor in your midst. This rich man did not listen.

Yet, there was more going on here than just some rich guy ignoring a poor guy who daily lay outside his door. All we’ve got to do is walk a few blocks in any town and we all will be guilty of that. The problem was that one child of Abraham ignoring the needs of another child of Abraham completely tars the revelation of himself that the Trinity wanted to give the world by calling the Old Testament nation of Israel into existence beginning with Abraham. The way of faith that the Trinity started with Abraham would be the Trinity's way of ultimately saving humanity from sin and death and restoring his image in humanity. The Trinity is the mutually loving and hospitable communion of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and humanity. Humanity was created in the image of God and therefore is supposed to be a loving and hospitable communion too, but we're not.

The first eleven chapters of Genesis, the true Old Testament, tells us that God dealt with humanity's not listening and being the image of God once before in the days of Noah when he all but destroyed humanity by flood. Yet, he vowed never to do it again. With Abraham in chapter twelve of Genesis, the New Testament begins. The Trinity called Abraham and told him to go to a land that he would show him for God was giving him a land and making him to be a great nation through which all nations would be blessed. Abraham went and his descendents became a great tribe in the land of Palestine. Yet, in time Abraham's descendents found themselves enslaved in Egypt so God delivered them with a mighty hand and made a unilateral covenant or treaty with them declaring, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” Having recently been delivered from slavery from Pharaoh they had no trouble giving their “amen” to that covenant and to living according to his ways as revealed in the Ten Commandments. Thus, the Triune God of grace gave them the Ten Commandments so that if they made these commandments the core of their community life they would not only be a blessing to all nations as the Trinity promised Abraham, but also they would in fact demonstrate that our God is the only true God who is steadfastly loving and faithful and an abundant provider. The nation that worshipped the LORD God would be abundantly provided for, always protected, and their community life would be just, fair, equitable and beautifully rich in neighbourliness. Moreover, by living according to the Ten Commandments they would reflect forth into the world the image of the mutually loving and hospitable communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in whose image humanity is created.

So, back to the rich man, this rich child of Abraham's ignoring of Lazarus, another child of Abraham in his great need was an utter denial by this rich man of his own claim to be a child of Abraham and thus of being one of the people of God and therefore in this parable Jesus places him in Hades. The rich man in his power and greed cut himself off from being one of the family of Abraham thereby creating for himself an uncrossable chasm between himself and being in the bosom of Abraham with Lazarus.

Even in Hades the rich man ignored Lazarus and was only concerned with his own concerns. First, he doesn’t notice that Lazarus had been healed. He just wants Lazarus to bring him water and this even after he had let Lazarus lay hungry at his own door. He still doesn't respect Lazarus as a person, a human being. Then he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers to warn them, but Abraham refused saying, “They have Moses and the Prophets to listen too,” which they weren’t doing so the rich man insists that if someone from the dead would warn them they would surely listen. Abraham sternly says, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” I think we know where this is going.

Putting this parable into its context, Jesus told it not to his disciples but to the Pharisees who were very devoutly religious people who also loved money and power and inage. The Pharisees like the rich man were not really listening to Moses and the Prophets even though they attempted to follow the Law of Moses to the tee. If they had been truly listening, they would have worked at legalistic observance of the Law but rather at being a just, fair, equitable, and faithful community that reflected the image of their God. They would have shared their wealth rather than just getting richer by means of twisting the Law the LORD God gave them to their own advantage and calling themselves blessed because of their legalistic obedience. Because of their love of power and money the Pharisees did not listen rightly to Moses and the Prophets nor could the good news of Jesus’ resurrection convince them to turn.

That’s enough talking about rich Pharisees from 2,000 years ago. What about us who have heard the voice of the resurrected one, who do listen to someone who has come back from the dead? What does listening look like for us the disciples of Jesus? First, we too cannot ignore Moses and the Prophets. Because we have heard the good news of Jesus death and resurrection with ears opened by the Holy Spirit we have been adopted into the family of Abraham and we as a church share the same blessing/burden that ancient Israel had as the people of God. We are to take the Ten Commandments and the prophets’ call to faithfulness and justice very seriously so that people can see what God is like. Jesus said, “It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law” (v. 17). I would encourage you all to pick up your Bibles and read from Moses and the Prophets and let yourselves be addressed by them for by the gift of the Holy Spirit to you as those who share in the resurrection of Jesus Christ you have been given ears to hear them and hearts that are hungry for the words of the Word that are in the Bible.

In 1 Timothy 6:6-19 Paul gives us some very practical direction as well. Contrary to most TV preachers Paul says that godliness is not a means to financial gain. Rather, godliness goes hand in hand with contentment. We brought nothing into this world and we can’t take anything with us. Therefore, having enough is enough and in that realization one finds contentment. Love of money is the root of all kinds of evils and Paul urges indeed begs us to flee from all the materialism and consumerism that surrounds us and rather pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. The Trinity has not called us to be his people so that we can act like the culture around us with cottages and cars and gadgets galore. He has called us to be faithful to him, to fight the good fight of faith keeping to our confession and acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. God will provide us with everything we need therefore we must in turn strive to be rich in good deeds, generous, and willing to share. We are to lay up treasure for yourselves in heaven. It may seem unimaginable but the good that we do now in this age and life will persist into the coming age when we too will be resurrected and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Friends, take hold of this life that is truly life, take hold of your relationship with God the Father that is freely given to you through Christ Jesus the Son in the Holy Spirit. Pray, read Scripture, come to Bible study, initiate a means of outreach that we can all share in as a church, increase your generosity to others. Turn your backs on the materialism and consumerism that seeks to enslave you and be the free people of God for which he has purchased you at the cost of Jesus’ own life. Amen.