Listening to God’s Word

In today’s Gospel from the 16^th chapter of Luke, Jesus tells the story about a rich man and Lazarus, who was a poor person.  The rich man had no particular name.  The poor person’s name, Lazarus, means “God helps.”  The rich man was obviously very wealthy; he dressed in royal purple, wore fine linen clothing, and feasted sumptuously every day.  Outside the gate to his house and property, the poor man Lazarus begged for food that would fall from the rich man’s table.  He was also covered with sores, perhaps it was leprosy,

A seminary and college chaplain colleague and friend, Mark Harris, who is an Episcopal Priest, poet and writer, wrote an article about this parable in an issue of The Christian Century, September, 2001.  He said that this parable is not a morality tale.  It is rather a tragedy and “tragedy is closer to the truth of the Gospel than any morality play.  What is deeply troubling about tragedy is that it involves more than our individual will to action, or our intellects; it involves character flaws so grave that they permeate the actions of complete families and whole communities.”

This tragic situation of Lazarus begging at the rich man’s gate, and the rich man ignoring his presence, continued until both the rich man and Lazarus died.  Then, there was a reversal of fortune.  Lazarus ascended to reside at Abraham’s side.  Abraham, you recall, was the founder of God’s covenant people.  During his lifetime Abraham had also been rich and well off.  However, he was obedient to God.  The rich man had not been concerned about the poor, and he overlooked Lazarus whenever he passed through the gate of his property.  When he died, the rich man  “was buried in Hades, where he was being tormented.”  Hades is the dwelling of the dead.

In death the rich man looked up and saw Abraham “far away with Lazarus at his side.”  He called out asking for mercy, but Abraham said, “Remember that during your lifetime you received good things, and Lazarus received evil things.”  So now, it was Lazarus who was comforted, and the rich man was in agony.   The tables were turned, the rich man was powerless and dependent.  During his lifetime his actions had lacked compassion and they were hurtful to others.  In death there was no second chance.  Moreover, a great chasm has been fixed; there was a gap so wide between the two of them that it could never be bridged and no one could cross it.

Mark Harris commented, “The rich man doesn’t get it: it is not that he screwed up by not helping Lazarus while they were both alive; rather it is that he could not hear, or did not listen to, Moses and the prophets, who had a lot to say about justice, the poor and those in need.  He had what Jesus in other contexts calls ‘hardness of heart.’”

What did the rich man do?  Knowing that he could do nothing for himself, he asked for help for his five brothers so they would not enter “this place of torment.”  Abraham responded and said, you had Moses and the prophets but did not listen to them.  Your brothers also have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.  And if they don’t listen and repent, “neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

Mark Harris wrote about the meaning of this tragedy. “The tragic flaw in all this is that the rich man suffers from a deep spiritual deafness, an inability to hear and listen to the call for mercy and justice, or even the practical plea for just plain bread and some salve for the sores the dogs lick.  His heart is hardened.  Everything else in this drama is the unwinding of that fact.”

What you and I need to understand about this story is that it is not simply about the rich man and Lazarus; it is about all of us.  “The effect of any good tragedy is that it transfers to us, the audience…. We see our own hardness of heart in the behavior of the rich man and in Abraham and Lazarus as well, who seem disinterested in the plight of the five brothers and of the rich man. “

Prophecy in the Old Testament challenges the people of God, those who adhere to the covenant they made with God, to live faithfully in a future based on the call of God, and not to live with blind acceptance of corruption, violence, greed, or self-interest.  Jesus in the Gospel parables proclaimed a message about seeing a new and better world because of the grace of God and the hope given us by the Holy Spirit.

When Luke writes in his gospel that if the rich man’s brothers “do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead,” he is pointing to the fact that we have Jesus’ own resurrection.  If our hearts are open we shall know the gift of God’s grace and love.  As you know, when I preach a sermon I usually begin with a prayer:  “Open our hearts, O God, enlighten our minds, and kindle our spirits.”  We pray in this way so we can hear and act faithfully in response to the word of God as it has been given to us in both the Old and New Testaments.

Jesus’ resurrection, however, is nothing more than a cerebral nod to God unless we respond to the call of justice for the poor.  Responding to the cries of the poor for mercy, food, clothing, shelter, education and health care matters.  Our spiritual hunger depends on it because by feeding the needs of the poor we feed our own hunger.  We have God’s word through Abraham, Moses and the prophets, and we have the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection and God’s saving grace.  It is not enough simply to listen to these stories; we must become engaged with courage and active involvement to fulfill God’s call to us.  Amen.