July 19, 2015 - The Rich Man and Lazarus

Luke 16.19 - 31 ...

Gather around boys and girls.

Set yourself down.

I’ve story to tell you.

And so begins many a fun time for families and children, with all the appropriate moans and groans - “Oh no, Grampa’s at it again; we’ve heard this story ten thousand times” … at the dinner table, by a campfire, before bedtime … and just about every time a minister steps into a pulpit to share the love of God, with all the appropriate moans and groans - “Oh no, we’ve heard this story ten thousand times.”

There is no finer tradition, in any culture, than that of story-telling … whether it be Garrison Keillor from Prairie Home Companion or Mark Twain a century ago, or Grampa at the dinner table … story tellers have a way of revealing the nooks and crannies of life, inviting us to think and rethink who we are and what life is all about, what it means to be a family, what it means to be a human being.

Jesus is a story-teller.

Someone raises a question, Jesus might well respond with a stroke of his chin, maybe even a wink, and then unwind a tale … sheep and shepherds, pearls and merchants, wayward children, anxious parents, clever managers who hoodwink the boss … and bosses who play rough with their workers.

All the stories our LORD tells are gracious with much love … yet grace can be hard-edged and disturbing, too … like today’s story.

Only recently have I learned something about it … it’s often called, “The Rich Man and Lazarus,” but there are two rich men here, men of great wealth … the man without a name, and Abraham, the Father of all the nations.

I long thought that it was a story that puts a hard press on wealth … and it does, no doubt … Jesus warns us so many times about the perils of wealth … but it’s not wealth per se, but the attitudes one can buy with it … and as a preacher once said: “Attitude is everything!”

In this parable, it’s the story of two rich men, and one man, very, very, poor.

As Jesus tells it, the Rich Man in Hades recognizes Lazarus … perhaps Lazarus worked for him at some point in time … a tenant farmer maybe … or a household servant … and then something happened to Lazarus - an injury, a chronic illness … Lazarus can no longer work, but now can only beg from the hand that once employed him.

I’ve played around a bit with the story … let’s see how it goes … a night-time tale told by a village elder around an evening campfire.

Gather around boys and girls, I’ve a story to tell you:

Once upon a time, there was a Rich Man … 

Well dressed and well fed.

Had everything, and then some.

He was a Rich Man.

By his gate, a poor man.

Lazarus by name.

Hungry all the time.

Sick much of the time.

Good to the dogs in the neighborhood, and the dogs licked his sores … oooh, kinda icky, right … but that’s what dogs do.

And then one day, Lazarus died.

And off he went.

To be with Father Abraham.

Goodness, boys and girls, don’t we all want to be with Father Abraham?

And then one day, the Rich Man died, too.

And off he went.

To a very unpleasant place.

Have you noticed something odd here?

What’s the Rich Man’s name?

That’s right.

He doesn’t have a name in our story.

Everyone has a name, except …

The Rich Man.

Oh, he has name, I’m sure!

Lots of folks knew it, no doubt.

Folks would walk by his big house and say, “Do you know who lives there in that great big house? Mr. so-and-so lives there. He’s important!”

Everyone knows his name.

But in our story, the Rich Man has no name.

His name isn’t in the Book of Life boys and girls.

He didn’t have time for that.

He was too busy writing his name every where else.

Except in the Book of Life.

And the nameless poor man at his gate, we find has a name after all.

Lazarus.

In Hebrew, it’s Elazar.

And, boys and girls, do you know what Elazar means?

It means: “God has helped.”

The poor man at the gate has a beautiful name.

And so does Father Abraham; Abraham means: “Father of a multitude” … the Father of many peoples all around the world … Father Abraham is everyone’s Father.

Anyway, boys and girls, the Rich Man sees Father Abraham.

And he sees Lazarus, too.

And what do you suppose Lazarus is doing?

Well, boys and girls, he’s sitting on Father Abraham’s lap.

Can you imagine that, boys and girls?

Lazarus, sitting on Abraham’s lap?

Father Abraham has a big comfy lap.

The Rich Man thinks to himself:

“Abraham will understand me.”

He’s rich, and he’ll know what I need.

We’re two of the same kind; cut from the same bolt of cloth.

So the Rich Man calls out to Father Abraham.

“Father Abraham,” 

I think the Rich Man tried to sound important.

“Father Abraham, send Lazarus, with a little water for me.”

He used to be my servant; he’ll know what to do.

Father Abraham said: “Can’t do that son.”

“And why not?” asked the Rich Man.

All blustery and none too pleased.

“Because you’re there, and we’re here … and that’s that!”

“Besides, you had your chance.”

Well, the Rich Man didn’t like that for an answer.

So, he said, “Father Abraham, look, we understand one another, don’t we? We’re of the same stuff, you and me. We’ve made our way through life, we did all right.”

“If you won’t send Lazarus to me, the least you can do is send him to my five brothers, to warn them, tell them they’d better pay attention. I don’t want them to end up like me.”

Father Abraham was getting a little tired with the Rich Man telling him what to do all the time … so Father Abraham said, “Your brothers already have what they need to figure things out. They have Moses and the Prophets - it’s all there, clear and clean. Your brothers should listen to them.”

“But my brothers need a big deal, some kind of smash hit, something really big - some hoohah and kaboom. Okay, Father Abraham? I’m sure we understand one another. Send them someone from the dead; that’ll get their attention.”

“I could do that,” said Father Abraham, “but truth be told, son, your brothers are just about as stubborn as you are, and they’re not interested in such things. If they don’t believe what Moses and the Prophets teach, someone rising from the dead and standing right in front of them won’t convince them either.”

Boys and girls … we have Moses and the Prophets, and we have Father Abraham … they tell us how to live a good and godly life. Let’s pay attention to them, okay? Good Night boys and girls. Sleep well boys and girls; the love of God give you rest; the wisdom of Father Abraham guide your dreams.

Amen and Amen!

Last Miracle - March 9, 2008

John 11

“I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”

So ends the Apostles’ Creed … the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting …

When this perishable body puts on imperishability,
And this mortal body puts on immortality,
Then the saying that is written
Will be fulfilled:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory,
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death is your sting?

The last miracle … the final enemy vanquished …

The last miracle … calling Lazarus out of the tomb …

The last miracle … dealing with the final enemy.

Paul the Apostle calls death the enemy … that which stands over against us … a shadow looming on every horizon … the hushed whisper that steals into our consciousness in quiet moments … “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.”

The final hurdle … too high for us to jump.
The final challenge … too brutal for us to master.
The final enemy … greater than all our technologies and defiant of all our philosophies.

“Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.”

Our faith is bluntly honest.
The truth is told.

Nowhere in the pages of Scripture is death presented as anything but death … terrible and ugly.

In the Old Testament, death drags everyone down to Sheol, the land of the dead, where joy and praise are no more … great and small, kings and paupers … to the land of the dead.

In the New Testament, it is the wages of sin …

Death is enemy!

Death is not a part of God’s original plan – death has no place in the kingdom of God – death comes as the result of sin … the breach, the broken chain … the chasm that opened up when Adam and Eve plucked the fruit and turned their backs on God … out of that ruptured relationship emerged the shadow of death … like an alien beast slinking out of some ancient crater.

The whole of creation groans under the weight of sin and sin’s wages: “dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return.”
The little flea and the mighty whale are subject to death … the sunflower of summer and the tulips of spring … the folks we love and the folks we don’t – friend and foe alike: “dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.”

The shadow of death casts a chilling shade.

Every ache and pain reminds us.
Every tick of the clock, and every page turned is a poignant reminder of time’s hastening passage.
Every obituary gives us a “lover’s” pinch.

Speaking of obituaries,

Gallagher opened the morning newspaper and was dumbfounded to read in the obituary column that he had died. He quickly phoned his best friend Finney. "Did you see the paper?" asked Gallagher. "They say I died!!"
"Yes, I saw it!" replied Finney. "Where are you callin' from?"

Mrs. Pete Monaghan came into the newsroom to pay for her husband's obituary. She was told by the kindly newsman that it was a dollar a word and he remembered Pete and wasn't it too bad about him passing away.
She thanked him for his kind words and bemoaned the fact that she only had two dollars. But she wrote out the obituary, "Pete died."
The newsman said he thought old Pete deserved more and he'd give her three more words at no charge.
Mrs. Pete Monaghan thanked him and rewrote the obituary: "Pete died. Boat for sale"

Sally was drying her tears when her friend Lois came by. “How’s it going Sally,” she asked. “Oh, all right. I sure miss him, though. But I’m really grateful for the $25,000.”
“What are you going to do with it?” asked Lois.
“I bought a stone with it.”
“A headstone for that kind of money?”
“No, this kind of stone.”

Death remains the great mystery for human beings … of all God’s creatures, great and small, it’s our frontal lobe – the capacity of our mind to contemplate our own end, to know that our days are counted … that time is ticking away – like sand held in the hand, one grain at a time, until the last grain falls, and time is no more!

“Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.”

I’m grateful that God’s Word terms death “the enemy.”

An enemy worth hating … that which steals away love and crushes hope … that which sin created, not God … an enemy with whom we need never be reconciled … to whom we need never surrender … an enemy that deserves to be called what it is: the enemy!

Olivia Manning wrote The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Triology, about a young British couple, Guy and Harriet Pringle in Romania just prior to the outbreak of World War 2. Guy teaches English in the university of Bucharest; Harriet is a secretary.

When Romania is invaded, Guy and Harriet flee to Athens, and finally to Alexandria, Egypt, and as the war deepens, Harriet is sent home to England by ship.

At the last moment, before embarking, Harriet hooks up with a friend traveling to Damascus.

A few days later, word is received that torpedoes sunk the ship … and Guy believes Harriet is dead.

In the chaos of the Middle East, Harriet is unable to get a hold of Guy. She has no idea the ship has gone down; she has no idea that Guy and their friends believe her to be dead.

Guy is devastated … so many memories of failed promises and delayed kindnesses … he blurts out in a moment of private grief: “I hate death and everything to do with death” (The Levant Trilogy, p.414)

Rightly so … death, the final enemy.

Having told the truth … is there yet a greater truth?

If death is our master, is there anything that masters death? … anything greater then the final enemy?

Some are willing to concede death’s victory.

Nihilists and others who have neither God nor hope conclude that death is the master … all the universe is hurtling toward a dark hole from which there is no escape, and for which there is no meaning; life is nothing but a momentary accident, without reference point, without purpose, without value or destiny.

That’s what some believe!

But it is not so.

“I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”

From the water turned into wine at Cana to our LORD's triumphant cry by the tomb, “Lazarus, come forth,” Jesus stands in the breach … holding heaven and earth together.
Where there is darkness, He’s the light of the LORD.
Where there are lies and deceptions, He’s the truth.
Where there is confusion and doubt, He’s the way.
Where there is death, He’s the life.

The lost are found by Him.
The blind are given their sight.
The dead are raised to life anew!

The last miracle confronts the final enemy.

It’s quite a story.

News comes to Jesus that Lazarus is ill … “Come quickly,” they plead.

But Jesus takes His time … no hurry for the Son of God … what strikes us as urgent has no urgency for Him.

When Jesus arrives, He’s greeted with the sounds of lament, and a tongue lashing:
“Where were you?”
“We were counting you?”
“You could’ve done something.”
“This wouldn’t have happened if you had been here.”

“Where is he?” asks Jesus.

Off to the graveyard they go, and he commands them to take away the stone … “but he’s already been dead four days … it’s no use; death is doing its grim work; the body stinks; there is no hope.

“Take away the stone,” says Jesus.

And He cries out with a loud voice … loud enough to wake the dead: “Lazarus, come out.”

Lazarus steps from the tomb as if it were nothing more than a Sunday afternoon stroll … wrapped in the linen of death … “Unbind him,” says Jesus, “and let him go.”

To whom does Jesus says those words, “Unbind him”?

To the family and friends there? Of course.
But more importantly, Jesus speaks to death itself: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Death, you have no jurisdiction here; your word, O Death, means nothing.

I think of John Donne’s poem,

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

When my father died in my 23rd year, six months after Donna and I were married, I remember the drive to Wisconsin … the October sky, overcast, and I remember looking to the clouds, asking, “Where’s my father now?”

I wept bitterly … my heart was stricken …

Before we went into the funeral home, we all prayed in the car … then on to greet family and friends … and there my father lay in state … his life with us, no more. My mother standing beside the casket, her face puffy with grief.

The service, a blurred memory … the slow drive to the cemetery … and many years later, my son and I standing by that grave, I wept, and my son, taller then me, held me in his arms and said, “That’s okay Dad.”

We Christians live in between realities … on the one hand, the reality of death … on the other hand, the reality of Christ!

The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our LORD (Romans 6:23)

I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

The Holy Spirit whispers to our heart: “All will be well. All will be well.”

The poet Donne ends the poem:

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Death has met its match in the matchless grace of Christ.

On that terrible cross, the Son of God endured and embraced all of hell’s fury … He was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into hell …

The Harrowing of Hell it’s called … He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah (1 Peter 3:18-20).

He descended into hell … as far away as one can go from God … to meet the last enemy on the enemy’s turf, and there to proclaim the love of God and the victory of life, to set the prisoner free … to drive the stake of grace through the very heart of death.

Where is my father now?

He is with Christ … along with all the saints in glory, who behold the face of God and sing the songs of heaven:

Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
To receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
And honor and glory and power,
Forever and ever! (Revelation 5:12)

But all is not yet complete … my father waits for the final day, the last miracle of miracles … the creation of a new heaven and a new earth … the dead in Christ gathered from the four corners of the world, and all made new … flesh and bone raised up like Ezekiel’s vision … all that we were, all that we are, and all that we hope to be … redeemed and made new … just like Christ … forever and ever, world without end.

I believe in resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

Amen!

Eyes - September 30, 2007

Last week’s message, a simple thought about money: make friends with it!

Use it to make a better world for someone … make a difference with it … make as much as you can, save as much as you can, and give a lot of it away.

Today’s message is a follow up … our LORD tells another story … that of a rich man without a name, and a poor man named Lazarus, a beggar by the side of the road, the lowest of the low, the least of the least … sitting by the rich man’s gate.

As I thought about the message this week, I recalled one of my all-time favorite films: Empire of the Sun, 1987, wherein a young English boy, separated from his parents in the invasion of Shanghai, struggles to survive in a detention camp.

Prior to the invation, and his family live in the lap of luxury – the English community of Shanghai – with the look and feel of Merry Olde England – on his way to school, in a limousine – he leaves the house down a long driveway, passes through the gated high wall and into the street – there, by the gate, a beggar – the young boy stares at him, mystified, uncomprehending – he’s too young to see.

The image poses a simple question: who sees the poor man at the gate?

Our LORD's story puts the same question – who sees the poor man at the gate?

A few things that catch our attention as our LORD tells the story:

The wealthy man has no name … that’s odd!

Wealthy folks have names, prominent names.
We know them by name - Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey.

But in our story, the rich man has no name … in Medieval tradition, he became know as Dives, the Latin for “rich” … but he’s nameless in the text; it’s the poor man who has a name, he’s Lazarus.

There’s another story in the Bible about names … Exodus … Chapter 1.

Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is out to do a little population control on the Hebrews … he instructs the Hebrew midwives, “If it’s boy, kill him; if it’s a girl, let her live.”

But the Hebrew midwives “feared God,” says the text; they defied the king.”

The great king of Egypt goes unnamed in his murderous plans … it’s the Hebrew midwives who’s names are recorded forever: Shiphrah and Puah.

It seems that God’s take on things is slightly different than ours.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts,” says the LORD.

“The first shall be last; the last shall be first,” says our LORD.

A different accounting system; heaven’s social registry … God’s book of life.

The story goes on … Lazarus dies and angels carry him off to Abraham’s side.

The rich man dies and is buried.
The text is abrupt, without sentiment – the RichMan made choices – dead-end choices, choices that could only end this way: to the land of the dead … Sheol, Hades … torment.

He looks up – an unaccustomed posture for a man who spent his life looking down.

He sees Abraham, “far away,” says the text.

All of life is a vector, a direction, a heading … the rich man choose a road that led him further and further away from Abraham … how many chances lost for a turn-around? … how many lost opportunities to make it right?

But the man didn’t know how to make friends with his money; he could buy friends, he could buy fame and influence; he could make a name for himself … “But what good does it do to gain the whole world and forfeit your life?”

The poor old rich man cries out, “Father Abraham” … a glimmer of hope? Some possible restoration of spirit? Something good about to happen?

“Send your boy, Lazarus, to comfort me.”

Catch the drift of the story?

One rich man to another … “You’ve got a boy there, Lazarus.”

Irony: the RichMan knows the beggar’s name now … but remains entrenched in old ideas, old thoughts, stubborn pride, consummate self-interest.

“Send your boy to me … he can dip the tip of his finger in some water and cool my tongue” … a decadent image; a lascivious late-night party … power and command, money and control – “send your boy to comfort me.”
Poor old RichMan … still can’t see … blind as a bat … still giving orders; expecting folks to jump for his comfort!

Abraham speaks … “Son, you had your chance.”

Too late … a great chasm between us … no one crosses the great divide.

Why?
Why does no one cross the great divide?
Because they don’t want to.
They are where the want to be!
God never sends anyone to hell.
Hell is a choice.
Everyone in hell wants to be there!

C.S. Lewis writes of a bus tour arranged one day from hell to heaven … folks in hell board the bus and ride to heaven … they see the love of God, light and peace, but its painful and disturbing for them; loved ones beg them to stay, to let the miracle of love rework their minds and hearts, but at the end of the day, they can hardly wait to return to hell.

God never sends anyone to hell … hell is choice!

The RichMan: “Well, if you won’t send your boy to me, send him to my father’s house; I have five brothers. Warm them.”
The poor old RichMan knows how to give orders.

Abraham replies: “They have Moses and the prophets; they can listen to them.”

The rich man protests – “No, it’s not enough, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they’ll repent.”

Abraham: “If they can’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

End of conversation.

Jesus said, “Make friends with your money.”

Let’s think for a moment about life … things that capture our attention … and things we overlook …

No man on his deathbed ever says to his family, “I should have spent more time at the office.”

It isn’t so much a matter of choosing one over the other, but choosing things in proper sequence.

Did not Jesus say: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all the other things that otherwise occupy your mind and unsettle your spirit, will they not also be added unto you?”

Have you noticed anything on the LORD's Table this morning? - a large jar of walnuts and rice.

Michelle and I did the jar on Friday – a simple exercise in priorities: if the rice is poured in first; no room for the walnuts.
Put the walnuts in first, then pour in the rice – everything fits!

Priorities!

Question on an application form for a newspaper job:
You have the choice of saving a drowning man or getting a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph. What type film would you use?

Two theatrical agents bump into each other on Wilshire Blvd.
One agent says, "Did you hear about Sam over at William Morris? He went into the hospital last week ... and the next day he died."
The other agent is shocked. "What did he have?"
"Not much, a few voice-over people, a magician, and two actors on a soap."

Priorities!

Walnuts in first … the kingdom of God first … faith, hope and love … kindness, mercy and gentleness; surrender and servanthood … Lazarus-at-our-gate.

Who is Lazarus-at-our-gate?

Mary Thompson meets Lazarus at the food pantry. Willie Hodges meets Lazarus at Living Water for the World. Leslie Evans meets Lazarus in Nicaragua.

Lazarus is real … the ragged man pushing the shopping cart along Manchester … the weary woman driving a beat-up car to her second job of the day … a family who can’t pay its medical bills … and you can fill in the rest of the story. Lazarus is real.

Lazarus could be a co-worker down the hall, in the next cubical - her car is clean, the home is large, but her life small and sad, neither purpose nor peace. Every day a grind; every night a weariness.

The Lazarus within each of us, our own spirit … the soul languishing at the gate, living on crumbs.
We leave the house with a fresh shirt and pressed pants, but our wounded soul is dressed rags.

Jesus says: “Life is more than food … more than clothing … don’t keep striving for what you are to eat and drink … it’s the way of the world to do these things … strive for the kingdom, and all the other things will be added unto you.”

The Apostle Paul tells his young pastor-friend Timothy: “As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life” (1 Timothy 6)

What goes into your jar first? I’ve spent many a day pouring in the rice and then trying to jam in the walnuts. It doesn’t work; it it never will.

Maybe it’s all about our eyes.

The way we see things.

“Your eye is the lamp of your body,” says Jesus.
“If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light. If it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness.”

I want to see things like God sees them … and I know that you do, too.

Amen!