Year C

Luke 16:19-31

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Empowered to Love Our Neighbor

St. Teresa of Avila, a Spanish Carmelite nun, mystic and author of spiritual writings and poems lived from 1515-1582, wrote in her book The Interior Castle, Our Lord asks but two things of us: love for him and for our neighbor….she says, I think the most certain sign that we keep these two commandments is that we have a genuine love for others. We cannot know whether we love God although there may be strong reasons for thinking so, but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbor or not. Very good and very hard advice because Jesus makes it clear in the scriptures that our neighbor is anyone around us, regardless of their ethnic, religious or socio-economic status. He makes it clear that we are to care for the poor, the sick, the needy and the marginalized. What we hear in the readings today offers a straightforward message about the seriousness and urgency of that charge.

The readings all point to one thing: God is on the side of the poor, the outcasts, the tax-collectors, widows, orphans, and our leper neighbors. Did you know that there are more than 300 verses in the scriptures that talk about poverty and generosity. Generosity is at the heart of who God is with us and God want us to be generous to our neighbor as well. Who embodies that caring more than Jesus, who consorted with all sorts of people urging them to have faith and restoring their dignity. He said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor. “Blessed are you that hunger now, blessed are you that weep now.” And he promised them the joys of the kingdom of God. A complete reversal of expectations. One of the classic themes in the gospel according to Luke is the reversal of expectations.

Nothing in the teachings of Jesus is more clear than that of the last being first, and the first being last. This reversal of expectations is what we hear in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus today which gives us the very reversals of fortune that we hear in the Sermon on the Mount and it drives home Luke’s concern for the faithful stewardship of goods. Justice is presented as a balancing of the scales: those who have suffered in need are made full, and those who have lived with excess are left empty. This story today follows a previous conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees about the love of money and the search for true riches. After some remarks about the Mosaic Law, Jesus tells this parable. It’s not difficult to understand, it’s meaning is clear that riches cannot save us.

This text where a rich man and a poor man are living out their stereotypical lives on earth, provides us with the great moral challenge of seeing, and then making visible, the invisible suffering of the world.  When they both die, it is the poor man who is greeted in heaven. We are not told outright why the rich man deserves to go to hell. We have to infer from the parable that it is simply because his riches shielded him, blinded him to the point where he could ignore Lazarus starving to death at his gate. He had every excuse not to notice Lazarus, servants to run his errands, and he probably would be swept through his gates rather quickly on a horse or in a carriage. His servants would know better than to let Lazarus bother their master. And so the reversal occurs.

It is only in the next life, when he is rid of his riches that he is able to see Lazarus, the poor man in his exalted status now secure at Abraham’s side. He becomes the beggar as he looks up and, sees Lazarus. The irony is biting. The one who had no mercy on the homeless diseased neglected one, is now begging for mercy. The rich man’s request to send Lazarus, a person from the dead, to alert his brothers is denied on the ground that they already have Moses and the prophets. There are a whole host of texts in OT writings that remind Israel of its covenant responsibility to the poor in the land. Moses and the prophets, or for us, Jesus and the gospels are ample warning. If we will not listen to them, even a messenger from the dead can be ignored.

1 Timothy today contains a series of warnings to it’s prosperous readers that having the basic necessities of life should be enough. Paul exhorts Timothy to “be content.” “There is great gain in godliness with contentment.” The word for godliness can mean “piety” or the characteristic of one’s life whose ultimate quest is for God. It is a life centered in and out of God. A life that pursues the qualities of righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Paul urges his readers to: “Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” They are to place no trust in riches that have no value for eternity, but to be generous and ready to share what they have. Paul offers the assurance that when we live a life of generosity, the benefits far outweigh the passing pleasures of self-indulgence.

The problem with those who want to be rich is that it is hard to remember how dangerous money is. Greed has the devastating effect of leading people away from the faith and of causing pain. It ironically diverts our attention away from God. Instead, we are to rely completely on the one who “richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” Unfortunately, this is not easy to do and the scriptures do not provide us with a step by step guide as to how to shun the love of money. This text provides us with sound insight about the proper attitude toward wealth and the beautiful story in Jeremiah today offers us a powerful model. Against the best wishes of all the financial planners of Judah, the prophet Jeremiah purchases the field at Anathoth and invests his money in the divine promise, in the outlandish conviction that God is faithful.

We know that God is faithful. We have been richly blessed with Jesus, our risen savior, our model for how we are to live our lives. Our place in the kingdom of heaven is not dependent on our works but on God’s generous grace, nevertheless, if we follow Jesus we cannot rest content while others whom God loves have no prospects of similar advantages. God has taken the side of the marginalized and invites us to join in the fight. Fighting “the good fight of faith.”Jesus’ story today of the Rich Man and Lazarus assures us that messengers of God will come to us in the form of the poor, as Lazarus in the parable and raises the question of whether we “see” the poor at our gates. As Jeremiah affirmed that God was the people’s hope amid their siege, so Jesus becomes our hope in the midst of our siege and gives us courage to embody hope to others in the midst of theirs. He empowers us to notice the poor on our doorsteps.