19th Sunday after Pentecost
September 29, 2013
Luke 16:19-31
A pastor told me about the people who took up the front pew, right below the pulpit in his downtown church. They would arrive first thing Sunday morning, as soon as the sexton opened the door. By service time they would be asleep, waking up just as the sermon started. Sometimes they would wake up with words that mean one thing inside the church and another outside.
The preacher often met them on the street on weekdays. They were very attentive to the church property. They made sure any sidewalk garbage that accumulated around the building was picked up promptly. They spoke of that old church as their church, the minister as their friend.
One Sunday I watched that church at worship online. There was one camera and for most of the service it gave a long view, showing most of the sanctuary. I saw several figures in that front pew. I saw them move around, settle down, and sit up around sermon time. I saw an acre of oak behind that front pew. The congregation on the pulpit side crowded into the back rows. The pews on the other side of the aisle were well filled, back to front. Everyone could see the little group in the front seats. Only the minister knew their names. And, he confessed, he first got to know them so he could ask them to keep quiet during the sermon.
Jesus told a story we often rush through to get to the part about the (Hebrew) Bosom of Abraham and (Greek) Hades. The story isn’t about, as one scholar puts it, the furniture of heaven and the temperature of hell. The destinations of Lazarus and the wealthy man are extensions of the lives they’ve lived.
The story is a mash-up of popular religion and folktales from several sources. It may have been familiar to some who heard Jesus tell it, or first read Luke’s version of it. It challenges the popular belief that wealth is a sign of God’s reward for righteousness, while misfortune and poverty are the lot of sinners. As in many good stories a reversal of fortune occurs partway through. The rich man and his family have no excuse. They have Moses and the prophets. They should know what’s required of them.
There’s often a great gulf between knowing what’s right by the book and doing it; an acre of oak between those who measure their own righteousness and those who have no option but to leave it to God (Lazarus means “God helps”). The wealthy one knew who and where the poor man was, and what he needed. He chose not to see Lazarus lest it cost him something. Custom said table scraps should be tossed to the poor. Sometimes the poor were allowed to come in and get them, after the worthies left the dining room. It was the minimum charitable donation. There was no charity for Lazarus, in life or in death. The rich man in Hades believed Lazarus should serve him from heaven.
This parable is part of a series of vignettes in Luke’s gospel in which Jesus names the huge, yawning chasm between rich and poor, those who love money and those who can’t get close enough to it to feel its attraction, those who are sure of their righteousness and those the righteous are sure about. Jesus doesn’t condemn either wealth or religion. Doesn’t the Kingdom of God mean everyone can have a share in both? Both can be great blessings in this life. Obsession with either separates us from God and from each other. Blessings aren’t for counting and saving, or piling up into walls to protect the blessed from the unworthy. Blessings are for bringing people together. Blessings are for giving away.
