The Rich Man and Lazarus

Why I love parables

You know, every time we come here we’ll have prayer before the service and do all that kind of stuff. We can plan till our hearts’ content. And when we plan and when we pray, we typically do something like this: “Lord, we know that we’ve prepared, but would you have your way with us? Would you just manifest yourself in any way that you see fit?” And then we carry on our merry way and we do the things that we planned for. And then God actually does what we give him permission to do. And it’s amazing, isn’t it, when God just does things like that?

So I want to start off by saying I love parables. I love them, probably because I can read them and I go, “Huh?” And it really kind of bothers me when Jesus says, “Let him who has ears to hear and eyes to see.” And I’m thinking, I got ears and I got eyes, but I’m not getting this, Lord. And then the Holy Spirit just prompts you: just give that another read. Just give that another read. And little by little the scales fall off, don’t they? And you see what he has for you.

So I love parables that start out with “the kingdom of heaven is like.” It gives us a glimpse into Jesus’s heart and presents us with some truths to chew on. It gives us a look at the compassion, at the justice, at the provision, all the promises of heaven without any of the spoiler-alert things that this generation loves so much. Are the pearly gates really pearly? I don’t know. Are the streets really made out of solid gold? Here’s the one that concerns me a lot: will the banqueting table in heaven really be filled up with wonderful delights for which there will be no end? Will there be endless brisket and cheese? Nolan has faith to believe that’s actually going to happen. Here’s the thing, I don’t know. We love spoiler alerts because in this generation they allow us to build reasonable expectations of what comes next. We want to know what comes next.

A glimpse of heaven

The only glimpse of heaven that I ever got in my entire life (and I count myself blessed that I actually got a glimpse of it) was given to me as a mercy. Pure and simple, a mercy. I didn’t see any of the things I just mentioned. I saw a dirt road. I saw a green lawn. I saw this beautiful little character-filled home. And I saw children, children everywhere. Now it sounds plain, maybe, in comparison to pearly gates and streets of gold, but I was reduced to tears because Jesus was explaining some precious things to me. There was no need for another parable, we were beyond that now. And he explained them tenderly to me, because I desperately wanted to understand and I was struggling. God is so good and so gentle that when you are struggling, he comes, he puts an arm around you and says, “Okay, listen up.” And he did. And it was perfect. I would have happily stayed in that vision forever.

So what do we make of a parable that doesn’t start with “the kingdom of heaven is like,” that includes a vision of hell instead? The same parable gives us the image of a physically impoverished man. Our notions of heaven and hell have a bit of a collision here. Namely, they both exist. There’s a popular notion floating around today, universalism basically, that when you die you’ll be so overwhelmed by the love of Jesus that at the zero hour you’ll fall on your knees and accept him, and everybody will escape hell. Everybody. Sorry, there’s really a heaven and there’s really a hell, and there’s going to be people in hell and people in heaven. That universalistic notion doesn’t wash with Scripture. That’s not cause for alarm, not cause for concern. It’s just a fact. Tuck it in the back there.

Reading Luke 16

Let me read to you, if I could, from Luke 16:

“There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen, and who lived each day in luxury. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores. And as Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores. And finally the poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the heavenly banquet. The rich man also died and was buried, and he went to the place of the dead. And there, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side. And the rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity. Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I’m in anguish in these flames.’ But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he’s here being comforted, and you’re in great anguish. And besides, there’s a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’ And then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home, for I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so that they don’t end up in this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’ The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’ But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'”

Not an anti-wealth parable

The rich man in this case, though fictional, is very likely made up by Jesus as a very serious poke at some people in the audience. And we’re not just talking about rich folks here, you may have guessed that we’re talking about Pharisees. As far back as Exodus, with the specifications laid out by God himself for the tabernacle and for the priests and their vestments, it just so happened that money was involved. And at least to this point in the parable, we don’t think God has received much of anything from this rich man.

So then on to the end of the story, because now things get a little dicey. They both die (a very typical event in the grand cycle of life) but even here, Jesus turns the tables on death in his description of how it went down. First, Lazarus, the poor man: suddenly he’s no longer in want of anything. Verse 22 says, “Finally the poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the heavenly banquet.” Other translations say he went into Abraham’s bosom. I’m reading from the New Living Translation, but I love that image of Abraham’s bosom. How many of you, if you think back to your childhood, ever crawled up into a grandparent’s lap and just melted into them? You know that you are secure, that you are loved, and you could just fall asleep there, and it would be fine. If you’ve never had that experience, I’m sorry. But if you have, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Into Abraham’s bosom.

Except for the rich man’s futile request of Abraham, that’s the last time Lazarus is mentioned in this parable. If I were Lazarus, nothing more would need to be spoken. He’s now in paradise, in want of absolutely nothing. He is literally in the presence of his father, on whom he has depended his entire life, and all is well.

But the rich man’s condition now suddenly changes radically. He finds himself in the place of the dead, the original Greek refers to this as Hades, the Greeks’ idea of hell. Luke is obviously appealing here to folks other than just the Jews or the Pharisees in the audience.

Now, it’s a good idea at this point to say this is not an anti-wealth parable. God has no issue, per se, with a person possessing wealth. What he has an issue with is what people do with it. He knows the human heart and its propensity toward self. And if that was present in those days, can we all say a giant amen that we see the evidence of it even greater today? We are far more about self today than we were then, and it was an issue then too.

The Amway dream wall

Anna Marie and I went to school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And if you don’t already know, it’s the headquarters of the Amway Corporation. Amway is the world’s largest multi-level marketing machine, and let me tell you, it is a machine. Its sales reps go to monthly meetings where it’s like a pep rally, rah-rah, as they push health and beauty products. And they are all very strongly encouraged to put up something in their home called a dream wall. In the dream wall they place pictures, clippings from magazines, and other such things of the things that they desire. And most of the folks who run Amway (the whole DeVos family) they are believers. And so an awful lot of the devotees, wherever you happen to be on the level with Amway, many of them are good church-going folk. So as a result, when you go to a rah-rah meeting on a monthly basis, you’re also told that you should take at least a portion of your dream wall and devote it to how you can give, because God loves a cheerful giver.

I saw a wall once. It was about 8 to 10 feet long in somebody’s basement, and they proudly displayed the things that they were dreaming of. I looked from the left, like reading a book, and went to the right. On the left I saw magazine pictures of grand executive-style homes with fountains in the front yard, then Mercedes-Benzes, homes with four-car stall garages, pictures of amazing cars, five-star vacations around the world, and pictures of their children holding up degrees from Ivy League colleges. And in the far corner, down toward the floor, this little corner, a picture of a kid from a developing nation holding out his hands with a bowl of rice in it. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me… you.

God has no issue with wealth. God has an issue with what we do with it. Do good. The rich man spent his entire life concerned about self. Now he finds himself in torment. If I have everything I want, is there any room for saying, “Oh God, please?” You don’t say please to God when you’ve already got everything you want. Lazarus said, “Please. Please. Please, Lord.” And then, the bosom of Abraham: “That’s my son, who is no longer in want, but in the comfort of his heavenly father.”

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, it’s very hard (very hard) for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of God.” It is not impossible, but it is hard, and you will face a great mountain that you must climb (the mountain of wealth) so you can see Jesus on the other side of it. This is recorded in three gospels. It’s not impossible to love God when you’re rich, but it’s much, much harder. It’s harder to live by a creed that says, “Everything I have is a gift to be stewarded. It all belongs to God, and I will treat it as such.”

Eternal separation from God

The nameless rich man is now in a place of eternal separation from God, which, by the way, is the scariest hell that I can possibly think of. You can have fire. You can have brimstone. You can have nasty-looking little guys with pointy tails and pitchforks poking you, and that is not nearly as scary as eternal separation from the presence of God. That’s a fear that would shake me to my core. There’s flames, there’s torment, but knowing that you lived temporarily for your own pleasure in order to deal with an eternity without Jesus is a grief I cannot possibly imagine.

Now the rest of this parable becomes a sort of pleading from the rich man toward Abraham: “Warn my brothers. They’re headed for the same end as me.” And there are five of them. Biblical scholars have basically two ideas about this, though none of them are really settled. One is that Annas, the high priest at that time, had five sons who were also high priests, could this be a warning to the whole religious establishment of Israel? Possible. Five also represents a form of completeness in Judaism, is it a warning to the whole nation? Regardless, this man had money, power, influence, and absolutely no compassion, and no reliance on God. His comfort was in his status.

In this life, your status is meaningless if it becomes your identity. Let me say that again: in this life, your status is meaningless if it becomes your identity. That’s a false identity, and it’s dangerous, oh, is it dangerous. To a godly person, any status given is intended to be stewarded for the building of the kingdom. It is not meant to serve self. Lazarus’s life was built on complete dependence on God. He had nothing. He leaned on God for everything.

Abraham is very pointed in his words to the rich man: “Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.” The rich man has one more card to play, and Jesus wraps up the parable with a mic-drop moment intended to hit the Pharisees right between the eyes: “No, Father Abraham, but if somebody is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.” But Abraham said, “If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone is raised up from the dead.”

Jesus weeps over Jerusalem

This parable, and many of these parables, were told when Jesus was actually on his way to Jerusalem. Presumably, when he told this particular parable, he might have been maybe just a week or two’s walk away from Jerusalem, knowing full well what he was walking into. And he still put one foot in front of the other. He still did it. He would enter into Jerusalem, and when they got to a hilltop that overlooked the gates, he broke down crying. He said, “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, your salvation has come to you, but now it’s too late.” Is it too late because God hardened their hearts? No. Jesus just knows prophetically the condition of the heart of Israel. He knows what condition they’re in.

Jesus will come into Jerusalem into what we call Passion Week. He’ll preach again. And then he’ll be arrested. And then they’ll have a kangaroo court complete with hired witnesses who will lie, lie, lie. And then they’ll take Jesus and beat him to within an inch of his life. And then they’ll throw two hundred pounds of lumber on his back, where he’ll walk a kilometer or two uphill. And then they’ll nail him to it. And three days later he will rise.

Who did the covering up of the resurrection? The Pharisees. They go running off to say, “Hey, hey, we need some guys from the Roman guard, could they please stand in front of that great big rock, because there’s some scuttlebutt going around that he’s going to rise again in three days, and we know some nasty stuff is going to go on, so make sure nobody steals his body.” Is that going to stop Jesus from walking out of the grave? Of course not. Roman guys sleep. Angels roll the stone away. Jesus walks out. And now those very same Pharisees who are the object of the dire warning in Jesus’s parable are being told this: “Send somebody to warn them, and maybe if somebody would rise from the dead they’d listen.” And Jesus says, “Rise from the dead? No. They’re not going to believe. You think it’s going to take that?” We shake our heads in kind of scorn and say, “Well, if I saw somebody walk out of the grave, I would certainly believe.” That’s the condition of the heart. That’s the condition of Israel. And Jesus still dies, and Jesus still walks out of the grave, and Jesus still offers salvation to anybody who would take that free gift.

So where does this leave us? We’re the secondary audience here. We’re not the original primary audience of this parable, the Jews are, the Pharisees are. Where does it leave us? What’s the word of God? What do we call it? Living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing between bone and marrow. The Holy Spirit can bring endless truth to this lesson, but here are three that kind of nailed me.

Three takeaways: be a Lazarus

Number one: religion devoid of real love, compassion, and care for the other, not self, is empty. It will not save. We use the word religion loosely here as just a system of belief, it’s not an ugly word, we only make it a bad word when we make it mean something like that. But religion that is overflowing with love, filled with compassion, constantly concerned with other rather than self, that’s the kingdom.

Number two: wealth is not inherently evil, but its ability to draw your dependence away from our heavenly Father and feed your own need for your self-centered pursuits can lead to death. And death in this particular case is hell. It’s eternal death, spiritual death.

And finally this: be a Lazarus. Be a Lazarus whose complete dependence on God, even in the face of great need, always revealed a Father who is our helper, that’s what Lazarus means, God is my helper. So take that away.

But can I say very quickly in closing (we’ll get the prayer team up here) you’ve heard now a handful of parables. Take this one, take the ones that are yet to be preached on, and ask yourself, Holy Spirit (the gift to the church that we celebrate today) reveal what you would reveal to me. What is Jesus saying here? How does this affect my life? How is it that when I read that parable, I say, “How now shall I live, Lord?”

A call to generous giving

There’s a lot of stuff in that message, and I want to say today that everybody sitting in this room is a wealthy person. Whether you’re on disability, whether you have a job, whether you live on Eagle Mountain, we are all wealthy people. And we are all called to give.

So I guess today, specifically, are we able to hold our hands open and freely give of the things that God has given us? And I’m not talking about just giving your portion to the church; if you’re a believer, that’s just a no-brainer. I’m talking about generosity giving. When he says, “Do you trust me enough? Do you trust in my faithfulness enough so that you can live generously? Are you willing to give enough so that you sacrifice?” Because there’s joy in that. But the enemy’s going to tell you there’s no joy in that, because he’s going to say, “Are you sure? Because if you give sacrificially, you might not have enough at the end of the month.” He’s sneaky. He’s so sneaky. He comes in with these little lies because he’s prowling around like a lion waiting to devour.

So we’re going to say this morning that we’re going to pray for people who want to live more generous lifestyles, whatever that looks like. If you are already living a generous lifestyle and you trust, that’s amazing, well done, and we can always grow in many ways. We’re going to leave that open today, and we’re going to pray for lunch.

Father, would you speak to hearts today. First of all, we want to thank you that we are all rich in this country that we live in. There are needs and there are wants, but Father, everyone in this room has a bed to sleep in and a roof over their heads, has a family, a church family that loves them. Father, would you continue to open our eyes to see your blessings all around us. Forgive us when we grumble and complain. And Lord, I just ask today that there would be freedom in the area of giving. Father, for those that long to be freer in that area, would you impress upon them to come forward, not to be reprimanded, but Father, to have a bigger vision of what their wealth can do when they surrender it to you. Because wealth can be a chain around our ankles, and you don’t want that. You want us to walk in freedom. Thank you that all you have for us is levels of freedom. In Jesus’s name, we ask a blessing upon this food. We thank you that you once again provided it through various means, for you are the giver of all good gifts. In Jesus’s name, amen.