Text: Luke 16:19-31 (Gen 15:1-6,
1 John 4:16-21)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Our
Lord tells this dramatic story about a rich man and a poor man. The rich man is in hell, and the poor man is
in heaven, at “Abraham’s side.” The rich
man wants to warn his brothers in order to avoid the same fate, but Abraham
tells him: “They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them.” The rich man claims that if someone were to
rise from the dead, they would believe. Jesus,
speaking as the character Abraham says: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets,
neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
Why
are people so blinded to the Christian faith? Why won’t they listen to Moses and the Prophets,
and especially to our risen Lord Jesus Christ?
Why are hearts so hard? Why do
ears refuse to hear? Why do people live
their lives in stubborn denial until it is too late?
Well,
just five verses before our reading, St. Luke identifies our Lord’s hearers for
whom He told this parable: “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money,” and they “heard
these things, and they ridiculed Him.” Our
Lord is warning them, and us, to repent now, before it is too late. But they ridicule Him. Some things never change. Nothing, indeed, is new under the sun.
So
is it evil to be rich? Is it sinful to
have money? Of course not. Scripture is filled with both virtuous people
and scoundrels from all across the wealth spectrum. Is money evil?
Of course not. It is a tool. It makes it possible to trade even with people
who don’t want what we produce. Without
money, a Latin teacher who wants to buy milk for his children would have to
hope beyond hope that the guy in the village with the cow wants to study a dead
language. Money is not the root of all
evil, as Scripture is misquoted, but rather the love of money. For the Pharisees were “lovers of money.” Money became their god. Their misplaced love took the place of love of
neighbor. They became cold and
uncompassionate. They had no love, no
mercy. They became enslaved to their passions.
They became the villainous rich man in
our Lord’s story.
And
this is why wealth is such a temptation, dear friends. It distorts us from knowing true love and from
understanding where our true treasure is.
Consider
little Emmeline, the world’s newest Christian. She has the greatest treasures in the world. She has the kind of wealth that money can’t
buy. She has a godly mother and father,
a loving nuclear family, and extended kith and kin. She has a Christian congregation where she
will hear the Word of God. But her
greatest treasure – which is also so valuable as to be beyond payment even for
all of the money in the world – is her baptism.
She
has been redeemed by Jesus Christ, by His blood shed at the cross. She has been brought into the covenant – one of
those offspring of Abraham more numerous than the stars. Her sins are forgiven. She has been born again. Her baptism “works forgiveness of sins,
rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who
believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.” She is truly born again, dear friends, of
water and the Spirit. She is “God’s own
child… baptized into Christ.” Emmeline
enjoys wealth that by comparison makes the rich man look as impoverished as the
beggar Lazarus. For she has been purchased
and won “from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil,” and this
purchase, dear friends, is far too expensive for even the richest man in the
world to buy. For her redemption was
bought “not with gold or silver, but with [Christ’s] holy, precious blood and
with His innocent suffering and death.”
And
because she could not pay it, Jesus “gave [her] full redemption price.” “Gave,” dear friends. By grace. A gift.
And
Emmeline joins all of us in asking defiantly, “Do I need earth’s treasures many?” And we answer together, dear friends: “I have
one worth more than any, that brought me salvation free, lasting to eternity.”
The
great irony is that the greatest of all treasures are already paid for – paid in
Christ’s blood, and given to us as a free gift. Today, dear friends, today, in space and time,
in your viewing and hearing, Emmeline received this vast treasure that no-one
can take away from her. There is no
force in the universe that can snatch her out of the Father’s hand.
If
this were offered for sale, the world’s elites would outbid one another to buy
it. Can you just imagine what the most
wealthy people on the planet would pay for immortality? And all the while, it has already been bought,
and it is delivered not by an Amazon truck or an armed courier, but by three
scoops of water and a promise of the almighty Triune God, the God who is love!
A
promise, dear friends. In this day and
age, what is a promise worth? But now
consider the promise of God that Emmeline is His own child for eternity, a
promise signed in the blood of the Lamb, a promise sealed by the Holy Spirit, a
promise delivered by water and the Word.
The
great irony is that today people chase after money. They lust after it. They are willing to kill for it. But today, money isn’t even gold or silver,
but rather a promise, a false promise at that. People worship a phony money god that isn’t even
real money, but just pieces of paper with numbers on them. This money is treated like magic, when in
fact, it is an empty promise given by an empty god. It is worth what the false god says it is,
and nothing more.
Can
money buy love? Redemption? God’s grace?
Eternal life?
Once
again, money has its place. It is a
tool. It enables us to trade with our
neighbors whose vocations are means by which God clothes us and feeds us and
provides our daily bread. But it is God Himself
whom we are to “fear, love, and trust above all things.” Three splashes of water and the name of the Trinity
are the greatest treasure that little Emmeline will have during the course of
her entire life – a life that will have no end.
Our
Lord Himself promises that whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, will
be “carried by the angels to Abraham’s side.”
And that belief, dear friends, comes by hearing the Word of Christ. Ben and Anna, you already know this, but I
will remind you anyway, the very greatest thing you can do for your baptized children
is to love them, raise them in the faith, bring them to God’s house, teach them
the fear of the Lord, and surround them with the Word. Have them confess their sins and hear the
sweet words of Holy Absolution. Raise
them to hear the Gospel proclaimed from the pulpit. And when they are ready, bring them to the Sacrament
of the Altar.
This
is worth more than all the gold and silver in the world, all of the money in
circulation, and is of more value than anything else that you can provide for them.
For
in our Lord’s parable, the rich man was not rich at all. His god was mammon, a shriveled up, pathetic,
false deity that can only make one disconnected and self- absorbed – even to
death and hell. The truly rich man was Lazarus,
whose treasure was in heaven, who was rich in grace, whose wealth lay in his
steadfast confession of the true and living God even in the face of suffering.
For
in the end, Lazarus was blessed with immeasurable wealth, by hearing Moses and
the prophets, and by means of the One who did rise from the dead, whose mercy
knows no bounds, and whose love cannot be bought or sold at any price – and yet
is free. For it is by grace that you are
saved, grace that has flowed over the sinful body of Emmeline, Word-infused
blessed water that has transformed her into “God’s own child.” And yes indeed, dear brothers and sisters, we
gladly say it together, before God and before men, before friend and before
foe, before the angels and before the demons, in life, in death, and by grace: “I
am baptized into Christ; I’m a child of paradise!”
Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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