Text: Luke 16:19-312 (Gen
15:1-6, 1 John 4:16-21)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Just a few verses before St. Luke relates our Lord’s story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, he explains the occasion for Jesus’ tale. “The Pharisees” says St. Luke, “were lovers of money” and when they heard our Lord’s parables, “they ridiculed Him.” They ridiculed Him, dear friends. And our Lord rebuked them, saying, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”
And so, the Rich Man in the story represents the Pharisees. They love money, but they do not love their neighbor. They love to justify themselves, but they do not love the Word of God that speaks of justification as a free gift. They love being exalted by men, but they do not “fear, love, and trust in God above all things.”
Without understanding this background, we may be tempted to interpret our Lord’s parable to mean that wealth is evil, that rich people are all going to hell. But this is not so. For two of our Lord’s benefactors during, and after, His crucifixion were rich men: St. Joseph of Arimathea, who lovingly donated his own tomb, and St. Nicodemus, who lovingly brought spices to anoint the body of Jesus. Our Lord also benefitted from the businesswoman St. Lydia, and other wealthy donors, who lovingly supported his ministry.
So don’t fall into the trap of thinking that this isn’t about you. The problem with the Rich Man isn’t that he’s rich, but rather he lacks love, he justifies himself, and he does not love God. Rather, he loves himself. He loves his bling and his hits on Instagram. He loves his food and his parties, and he isn’t really thinking about other people.
And if the Rich Man loved God, he would love the Word of God. But notice that he and his family did not care enough about “Moses and the Prophets” to “hear them” and avoid the “place of torment.” And so the Rich Man pleads for Abraham to warn his brothers. But Abraham says, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” The Rich Man retorts that “if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” But Jesus, acting as the story’s narrator, has Abraham saying, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
So were they convinced, dear friends? When Jesus rose from the dead, did the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Judaism who justified themselves and loved money, did they repent? Did they come to faith in Jesus? Did they understand what Moses and the Prophets said about Jesus?
They did not. In fact, they continued to mock our Lord and persecute His disciples.
And how sad this is, as they had been warned. They had Moses and the Prophets. They had the teachings of Jesus. They had the God who loved them offering to justify them just like He justified their father Abraham – the same Abraham in our Lord’s story. For what did we just hear about Abraham in the Old testament reading? “He believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness.” Abraham believed the promise. He did not become righteous by works, nor by his own great deeds. He became righteous by fearing, loving, and trusting in God above all things. He acted by faith, and it was his faith that was credited to him as righteousness.
How sad that the Pharisees missed out on this free gift. It was right there in their own Scriptures all along. Moses and the Prophets told them, but they did not hear them. And although God loved them – and indeed the whole world, “that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish,” the Pharisees mocked Jesus. The only love they displayed was their love of self, and their love of money.
But before we become smug, dear friends, let us take this lesson to heart. Do we read the Scriptures every day? Do we really know what is in the Bible? Do we hear Moses and the Prophets? Our congregation gathers an hour before the service to read the Bible together, and there are plenty of empty chairs. There are many ways to read the Bible through in a year. There are special Bibles for this purpose, and even apps for the phone, and audio to listen to. The Word of God is accessible in convenient ways today, in ways that the Pharisees could not even dream of. We have prayer books that incorporate the Word of God – Moses, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles – into our daily prayer life. Do you make use of these resources?
And if not, is it because you think you know it all? Do you think Jesus is impressed with you? He has come back from the dead to call you to repent. Well, are you repenting? Do you put more stock in your works or your money than the Word of God, than the Lord’s counting to you righteousness based on your faith? Does the faith matter to you?
These are hard questions, dear friends, because this lesson from Jesus is hard. Don’t think this call to repentance is only for LeBron James, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos. For all of us who live in America are part of the global one percent. We are all rich. I don’t care who you are. You’re rich. So how do you use your wealth? Do you care about the Lazaruses of this world and in your own community? Do you support mission work so that others may hear the Word of God freely as you do? Do you support the work of the church – both this congregation and the church at large? How about our seminaries and missionaries? How about those relief agencies of the church that helped us out after many a hurricane? Is this even on our radar screen as a congregation?
Are we going to hear Moses and the Prophets and the One who rose from the dead? Or will we mock Jesus by ignoring His Word and justifying ourselves?
The Good News, dear friends, is that Jesus did come back from the dead – from His death on the cross, the cross He suffered upon to save us. He conquered death by dying for us as a gift. He destroyed Satan by keeping His promise to do that, to call us to repent, and to forgive us our trespasses. He bids us, like Abraham, to believe His promise. Jesus is God, and we just heard in our epistle that “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” For “we love because He first loved us.”
In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus warned about the seed (that is, the Word of God) that falls on thorny soil, and the seed grows up, but is choked by the “cares and riches and pleasures of life” – and the seed dies. This is really the same warning to the Pharisees in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. And it is our Lord’s warning to us today, dear friends.
Your faith is counted to you as righteousness. Your faith is trusting in the promises of God. And those promises are found in the Word. The Word is available to you. Jesus is here for you every week in the Word and in the Sacrament. When we gather at the beginning of the service and confess our sins, this isn’t just some silly ritual. For Jesus Himself gave authority to His ministers to forgive sins by His authority. And this baptismal font is in front of your eyes, dear friends, for a reason – even on those weeks when we aren’t baptizing anyone. It is there as a reminder for you to remember the promises God made to you when you were baptized. And in our service, several times we are encouraged to make the sign of the holy cross in remembrance of our baptism, for that is when we were promised salvation, and that Word of God was placed on us with the water bearing the Word and promise of God.
Where you are seated right now, dear friends, is an embassy of the Kingdom of God. We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses that we cannot see, but we believe are with us. We believe this because we believe God’s Word and His promises. We are with Abraham and everyone whom Lazarus represents, right here, for here we are counted righteous. And Jesus begs us not to leave this place. For with the grandson of Abraham, we proclaim with joy: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
Remain in your baptismal grace, dear friends. Abide in God by abiding in His love. Believe the promises of Moses and the Prophets. And trust in Jesus for your justification. For He has indeed risen from the dead and comes to you in love, calling you to repentance, and justifying you in His love and by His mercy.
And when you are warned by the Lord’s Word and by the Lord’s preacher, pay attention. Listen. This Word of God that I am proclaiming is more important than anything that is distracting your attention right now.
For by this Word and by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, you will not be on the other side of that chasm, in Hades, in torment, begging for someone to put a drop of water on your tongue and warn your family to hear the Word of God. Let us abide in His love by abiding in His Word, even to that day when the saints will be carried by the angels to Abraham’s side, where they will be comforted for all eternity.
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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