Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God
our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text:
(Luke 16:19-31)
Child,
remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in
like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.
Prayer:
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in
your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
If there is one passage that we need to
take seriously in our church today and give honest and serious consideration
to, it is our Gospel today. Today's gospel reading about Lazarus is a story
from Jesus which should cut right to your soul, which should pierce like a
knife between body and soul, bones and marrow. It is so easy to mock this story
and laugh at it: people might think it's too "black and white", too
strict, too severe. St Paul says: Do not
be deceived. God is not mocked. This story of Jesus is no joke, it's no
child's play, it's no laughing matter.
Jesus calls us away from scoffing and
mocking in our Gospel reading today, and says: There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and who
feasted sumptuously every day. Here is a rich man, but don't just look at
the fact that he was rich. It's no sin to be rich: in fact, it is a blessing
from God, if he chooses to bless them in that way. Australians have a very bad
habit of attacking rich people for no other reason than that they are rich. Jesus
is not preaching today in such a way as to encourage people in their jealousy
of rich people, and to treat them scornfully because they have power and
influence. No! Thank God for what you have, and thank God for what they have --
rejoice on their behalf. There will always be rich people, and as Jesus says, You will always have the poor with you.
Also, John the Baptist says to the Roman soldiers, Be content with your pay. In the early days of the church, if you
read the book of Acts, you will find many examples of rich Christians and poor
Christians. God excludes no one.
So, don't just look at the fact that this
man had money. But look also at what he did with it. We read: He was clothed in purple and fine linen,
and he feasted sumptuously every day. He lived the fine life! Purple cloth
was very special in ancient times. Normally, only kings wore purple. Even
though this man was not a king, he dressed like one. Purple and fine linen in
our country today might be a like the equivalent of silk, velvet and fur. Also,
we read that he feasted sumptuously every day. He liked his fine clothes and
his fine food.
We might think that everything was going
completely right for him. But we live in times when even many poor people, by
our standards, dress well and eat well. This man knew that he had to look after
his outward needs, his clothes, and his inward needs, his food. But what about
his soul? Jesus says: What does it
profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Do you know
how much your soul is worth? Your Lord shed his blood for it. Do you believe
the word of God, when it says: man looks
at the outward appearance but God looks on the heart? Or do you clothe your
body with nice clothes instead of clothing your soul with good qualities, with godly
thoughts, with holy virtues? Do you feed your stomach with nice food, instead
of feeding your soul with the living words of the gospel? Do you know just what
a precious gift the Lord's Supper is, how it is a wonderful treasure filled
with heavenly gems and precious gifts, or do you much prefer something tastier
to your stomach? St Peter says: Let not
your adorning be external--the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the
putting on of clothing--but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart
with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight
is very precious. How much time people spend looking in the mirror, making
themselves look nice, combing and brushing their hair, making sure that there's
no little bits in the wrong place, women covering up all their blotches and
wrinkles, men making sure their shave is nice and close, the plucking of
eye-lashes and nose hairs! People can spend so much time making themselves
looking nice for other people, but what about God? What about the angels, who
are always with you? How much time to you spend examining your heart, your
intentions, your motives? When was the last time that you took an honest look
at yourself in the mirror of God's law, the 10 Commandments? Have you spent
time plucking your spiritual eye-lashes and your spiritual nose-hairs through
repentance and through self-denial?
Remember in our reading today, what Jesus
says about this man. He was buried and he went to hell. He was in torment,
agony, that he longed for a drop of cool water on his tongue. He says: I am in anguish in this flame.
Our Gospel reading today has the most vivid
depiction of hell in the entire bible. Listen to each part and consider it
carefully. He was in Hades, (that's
the Greek word for hell), he was in torment,
he was in anguish in the flame.
Let the angel who stands at the gate of the
Garden of Eden with his flaming, flashing sword pierce through your soul with
that picture! Remember that eternity is a long time: where do you want to spend
it?
But the how the know-it-alls, the respectable
people, the well-to-dos, the educated laugh and mock and ridicule the existence
of hell! Let them laugh. Jesus says: Woe
to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. People say, "I
believe in a god of love." Notice how they talk about "a god" of
love, as if there's more than one. Have your god of love, but there's no love
without truth! St Paul says for us to speak
the truth in love. St John writes a wonderful chapter about love in chapter
4 of his letter where he says: God is
love. Perfect love casts out fear. But before this he says: Test the spirits so see whether they are
from God, for many false prophets have gone into the world. Jesus is
loving, but Jesus teaches us more about hell, fire and brimstone, weeping and gnashing
of teeth, than anyone else in the bible. Jesus is the God we worship. He doesn't
hold the picture of hell in front of us because he hates us, but because he loves
us, and he wants us to love him. He wants us to love what is good for us, and
hate what is bad for us. There's nothing in the bible that promises that you
will go to hell. Hell is only threatened! Jesus says: Beware! He says: Do not fear
those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can cast
both body and soul in hell. But the Gospel, salvation, eternal life, the
free forgiveness of sins--that is
promised and put into your hands. And what a wonderful gift it is! It's not cruel
for parents to protect their children from burning themselves, or falling off a
cliff, or cutting themselves with a knife. In the same way, Jesus is also not
cruel with us when he slaps us across our pretty, comfortable, rich faces in
our Gospel reading today, leaving the red mark of his hand. We know that in the
next life, that redness will be revealed as his precious, redeeming blood which
saved us from the jaws of death. The red blood of Jesus is our only hope for
salvation, even though in this life it leaves us with a little sting. Jesus
says: God so loved the world that he
gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal
life.
Meanwhile, what about our friend Lazarus? Well,
first of all, take note that in the eyes of Jesus, the rich man doesn't even
have a name, but Lazarus is named after one of the sons of Aaron the high-priest,
Eleazar. His name mean: God helps. And his name lives up to its meaning,
despite the way things seem. We read: And
at [the rich man's] gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even
the dogs came and licked his sores.
What did he have to wear? Sores and boils,
dog saliva. What was his food? The odd crumb, if the rich man even let him have
it.
Our whole life is covered in the blessing
of the cross. The blessings of our whole life come from the hand of God, and we
should never for a moment forget it. If we have to live with sores, boils and
dog spit, then so be it. If we have to eat crumbs for main course, and dirt for
dessert, so be it. As Job says: Shall we
receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?
As Jesus says: Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Don't deny yourself
a cup of coffee, or a bit of cake, so that you will fit into your clothes.
That's not godliness: that's just vanity again. Deny yourself, so that you will fit into the heavenly garment that
Christ will give you on the Last Day. Confess your sins, repent of your
corruption which is in the depths of your soul and in the dark depths of your
heart! Let the blood of Jesus be poured out on those things and in those places!
And in the meantime, despise the shame of Jesus' cross and the race together
with him. He is with you all the way, running next to you, helping you,
carrying you, encouraging you, supporting you, refreshing you. If you want to
win the crown of life with your own strength, you will never reach the finish
line.
So often our experience will teach us that
where our strength ends, Jesus' strength begins. Where we stop helping
ourselves, then Jesus' helps us. Jesus doesn't help those who help themselves;
he helps those who have no help, who are helpless. This is the love that Jesus
calls us to share, when he says: When
you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you
will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.
The world doesn't understand this. St John
says: The whole world lies under the
power of the evil one. This is the same power as when Satan showed to Jesus
all the kingdoms of the world, and said to him in the wilderness: All these I will give to you, if you bow
down and worship me.
The world doesn't understand Lazarus's
blessing. The world looks at Lazarus and thinks he's not worth helping. The
world looks at Lazarus and says that God has rejected him. The world looks at
Lazarus and says he's a failure, a worldly failure and a spiritual failure.
In the same way, the world looks at the Christian
church and says it has failed. The world looks at a small congregation with a
few old people and says it's dying. What the world doesn't understand -- and
what so many of us who call ourselves disciples of Jesus don't understand -- is
that the shame of the cross is precisely the thing which Jesus willed that we
should bear in his name. This shame is not something that Lazarus made up for
himself, it's not a pretended shame, the shame of a rich person who despises
other rich people by wearing shabby clothes for a show to puff up his own
pride; it's a shame that God has ordained from his merciful hand: God chastises those he loves. A golden
age of the church is the time when the church has to bear shame, reproach,
persecution, hardship and suffering. The golden age of the church is not the
time when it looks respectable in the world's eyes. The glory of the church is
not found in newspaper articles promoting ourselves: it's found in the living
oracles of God's living word. The glory of the church is not found in our nice
clothes: it's found in the clothing of the Holy Spirit given to us Holy
Baptism. The glory of the church is not found in our fine foods: it's found in
the simple crumbs and the simple wine of the Lord's Supper.
Our respectability is the way God sees us,
not people. We should care about what the angels think about us, and they rejoice
over one sinner who repents. Think about the state funerals, the lavish
expensive funerals that many rich people receive. Look at Lazarus in our
reading and see the funeral he received from the angels, how they carried him
to Abraham's bosom. What careful undertakers those angels are! What friends
they had been to Lazarus all his life in carrying him through all his hardship,
and now what friends they are in carrying him to his heavenly Father's house.
At the end of our reading we have a little
discussion between the rich man and Abraham, which goes as follows: I beg you, father, to send [Lazarus] to my
father's house--for I have five brothers--so that he may warn them, lest they
also come to this place of torment. But Abraham said: They have Moses and the
Prophets; let them hear them. And he said: No, father Abraham, but if someone
goes to them from the dead, they will repent. He said to him: If they do not
hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should
rise from the dead.
Let us take the warning to heart and
consider it deeply. Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is near. The words which we speak in the church, the
words which pastors in the church are called to speak, are words which come
from the other side of the grave, and they are words that are foolishness to
the world, and words that the world will never understand. They are words which
the devil wants to block up our ears from hearing. They will never be convinced
even if someone should rise from the dead.
But the truth is, that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and he
speaks his words of forgiveness to us from the other side of the grave, words
of strength and comfort to the ones who have to endure the shame of Jesus'
cross. If you want to be rich, fatten yourself up all you want, but remember
where the rich man goes. But when the Holy Spirit blows you together with Jesus
into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, when he puts you in the place
between heaven and hell, life and death, honour and shame, then look to your
naked and bleeding Saviour, and join him! Embrace the shame, embrace the boils,
embrace the crumbs, embrace the dogs, cherish their spit! Under their kind slobbery
licks is hidden the kindness of Jesus himself and the ministry of the angels!
Remember when the apostles received their beatings they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer
dishonour for the name of Jesus. Remember that Jesus has not forgotten you,
but that he will speak to those who know that they are sinners and have no hope
in themselves: Today you will be with me
in paradise! Remember those words of Abraham: Lazarus in his lifetime received bad things, but now he is comforted
here.
Come, Holy Spirit, our Lord and our
Comforter! Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, whom have I in heaven
but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you? My flesh and
my heart may fail, but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Amen.
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