“Love of Possessions vs. Love of God’s Word”
Luke 16:19-31
9/30/07
The narrative we have before us today is often
referred to as the “parable” of the rich man and
Lazarus. It’s not introduced, however, as a parable, and
Jesus tells it as if it were an actual historical event. He even
gives a name to one of the persons in this narrative, which is
something He doesn’t do with characters in His parables.
But in the end it doesn’t really matter whether this is a parable
or an actual historical event. In either case, the lesson that
Jesus wants us to learn from it is the same.
But before we talk about what that lessons is, we
need to talk about what lessons Jesus is not teaching us here. In
this account Jesus talks about two different characters - a rich man
and a poor man named Lazarus. The rich man is described as one
who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously
every day of his life. Lazarus, on the other hand, is described
as being poor, covered with sores, and desiring to be fed with what
fell from the rich man’s table all the days of his life. We
are then told that the rich man died, was buried, and found himself in
hell, while Lazarus died and was carried by the angels to
Abraham’s side in heaven. The wrong lessons one might
learn, or some of the false conclusions that one might draw from this
account, would be things like, “It’s a sin to be
rich,” or “It’s a sin to wear purple and fine
linen,” or “It’s a sin to have parties every
day. Do such things and you’re sure to go to
hell.” Another false conclusion might be something like,
“In order to please God you must be poor, you must suffer, you
must give everything you have to others and beg for a living.
(Make sure you get rid of all your purple clothes, too, and all that
linen you wear.) If you do this you can be sure you’ll go
to heaven.” But what does all this do but make Jesus teach
that you’re saved by your works, by the mere fact that
you’re poor, and by the fact that you don’t wear purple or
fine linen and that you don’t throw too many parties? What
need is there of Jesus, in that case? He becomes no more than a
new Moses, giving you more laws and commandments to obey (above and
beyond the Ten Commandments) in order to earn your way into heaven.
Jesus is not teaching us that it’s more
righteous to be poor than it is to be rich. Having money is not a
sin, nor is throwing parties or wearing purple and fine linen.
There are many examples of saints in both the Old and New Testaments
who were rich people - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, Esther,
Joseph of Arimathea, and Joanna just to name a few. But these
people did not trust in their wealth; they did not make money and
luxury their gods; instead, they trusted in God alone for their
salvation, lived under His mercy towards them, and demonstrated this
mercy towards others by using their money and possessions to help their
neighbors in need.
And this is the lesson that Jesus is teaching us
here in this narrative about the rich man and Lazarus: that we
are to beware of the deceptiveness of money and possessions, because
they can so easily become our gods, and as a result, we close our ears
to God’s Word and we fail to use what God has given us to help
others in need. The rich man’s problem wasn’t that he
was rich, but that he had made his riches his god. More than
that, he had made himself his god and used his riches to serve only
himself. He dressed the way he did and threw daily parties in
order to show off to others how wealthy he was. The man was a
hedonist, one who lived extravagantly and only for pleasure to the
exclusion of helping poor Lazarus, who sat at his gate every day
begging for food. He even knew Lazarus by name, and yet he
couldn’t have cared less about him. And it’s for this
reason that the rich man ends up in hell: He failed to listen to
God’s Word which told him that he was a sinner who needed to
repent, turn from his idolatry, trust in God’s mercy towards him
for Christ’s sake, and show mercy towards others. The fact
that he failed to show mercy towards Lazarus revealed that his faith
was not in God, but in his possessions.
So, the rich man went to hell not because he was
rich, but because he trusted in an idol. Lazarus, on the other,
was not carried away to heaven because he was poor or because he
suffered, but because in spite of the fact that he had no money, he
trusted in God’s Word and clung to God’s mercy in
Christ. As a result, he showed that mercy towards others, not
that he was able to give them anything, but he spoke kindly to them and
about them, he told them the Gospel about Jesus, he prayed for them,
and he forgave them when they sinned against him. In the end we
see that it was Lazarus who was truly rich, while the rich man was
truly poor. For all his wealth in this life, the rich man was not
rich towards God. To be rich towards God is to have the riches of
Christ’s righteousness given to you. It’s to be rich
in things like faith towards God and love towards one another.
When you have the riches of Christ by faith, you have all the treasures
of heaven - forgiveness, eternal life, the resurrection of the body,
even God Himself. And these treasures will last forever.
The treasures of this world, however, are temporal and can be taken
away in a moment. We’ll take none of them with us when we
die.
And yet, the world puts their trust in them.
The Church, who puts her trust in her Savior, Jesus Christ, is
persecuted by the world for doing this. This is another way of
looking at this narrative: to see the rich man as representing
all unbelievers in this world and Lazarus as representing all believers
in Christ. The world praises those who are wealthy, successful,
physically attractive, and well-dressed. Look at T.V. shows and
movies today and notice the images they try to promote.
“Don’t you want to look like this? Don’t you
want to be rich? Don’t you want to have a beautiful
home?,” and on and on. And it’s very easy for us to
get tangled up in this kind of thinking. We’re led to
believe that we’re missing out on something, that God is
withholding something from us. “Look how the wicked
prosper? It looks like they live under God’s blessing
instead of His curse! Why do the righteous suffer? Here
I’m a Christian, but I’m barely able to scrape by this
month. Why doesn’t God bless me like He blesses
others?” And if we continue to entertain thoughts like this
our minds will turn from God’s Word towards the things of this
life, and the goal of our life will be all about getting more money and
things. Jesus doesn’t tell us how rich the rich man
was. That’s because even if you don’t have a lot of
money, you can still trust in it, you can have the same rich attitude
that this rich man had.
The Church, however, is truly rich in Jesus
Christ. She’s promised the world as part of her
inheritance. But she lives right now under the sign of the cross
in this life. Like her Lord, she too is both persecuted and
ignored. The world couldn’t care less what happens to those
who cling to the Word of God, who faithfully preach Christ crucified,
and who hold onto the hope of the world to come. Like Lazarus,
the Church is beaten, bruised, and bleeding due to the attacks of the
devil, and the dogs (the cults, sects, and false religions of the
world) come and feed off of her.
But through all this we hold onto the hope of our
eternal home, where we too will be gathered together with Abraham, the
father of all believers in Christ, and enjoy comfort, peace, and rest
forever. There’s going to be a great reversal. The
rich in this life - those who trust in their wealth and in their own
righteousness - are going to die, be buried, and find themselves in
hell where they will be tormented under God’s wrath
forever. Christians, however, if they die before the Lord comes
again for them, will go to be with their crucified and risen Savior in
heaven. For the one, true poverty; for the other, true riches.
The Lord does not forget you even though you suffer
in this life. Notice how Jesus calls Lazarus by name, but the
rich man remains anonymous. Jesus knows His own by name; He knows
you by name who believe His Word and trust in Him. He will not
abandon you to the grave. Notice how Jesus says that the rich man
died and was buried, but of Lazarus He says that he died and was
carried by angels to Abraham’s side. Jesus doesn’t
even mention the fact that Lazarus was buried. He simply says
that he died and went to heaven. Could this be a reference to the
resurrection of the body that our Lord promises to us and which we
confess in the Creeds? Could it suggest that there’s no
period of time between your death and your resurrection? Lazarus
simply closes his eyes one moment and the next moment he’s
awakened by the sound of the trumpet on the Last Day and to the angels
being sent out to gather God’s elect from the four corners of the
earth to bring them to their eternal home.
The rich man, on the other hand, is not known by the
Lord. Jesus doesn’t call him by name. And yet, the
rich man, even in hell, seems to believe he is unjustifiably
suffering. In this strange conversation that takes place between
him and Abraham the rich man addresses Abraham as if he were his
father. By doing so, the rich man is claiming some kind of right
to be known as a child of Abraham, perhaps because he was a physical
descendant of Abraham, perhaps because he thought he lived a fairly
descent life. He pleads with Abraham to send Lazarus to cool his
tongue with some water, but here we learn the sad truth that there is
no escape, no second chance, and no mitigation of the torment that the
wicked will suffer in hell. If the wicked will not trust in
Christ’s sufferings for their sins here and now, they will have
to suffer for their sins themselves for all eternity. Lazarus,
too, would have ended up in hell had he relied on his own
righteousness. But the only One who can and has taken care of our
sin and suffered the torments of hell for us in our place on the cross
is God’s only-begotten Son, whom God sent as the perfect
sacrifice for our sins. Those who believe in Him will not perish
but have eternal life.
But to believe in Him they must hear the Word about
Him. To this Word Abraham points the rich man when he finally
thinks about someone other than himself and asks Abraham to send
Lazarus to his five brothers. The rich man thinks that if they
see some extraordinary miracle, such as someone coming back from the
dead, then they’ll repent and believe the Gospel. But
Abraham says, “No... If they don’t listen to Moses
and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise
from the dead.” In other words, if they won’t listen
to the Word of God, they won’t be convinced even if they see
extraordinary signs and wonders.
And that’s exactly what happened in
Jesus’ case. He is the One of whom Moses and the Prophets
speak. But though He performed many extraordinary signs and
wonders, most people refused to believe in Him, even though He came
back from the dead, a fact to which over 500 people were
eye-witnesses. The trouble is not with the facts, but with the
heart. A heart that’s infected with sin will not believe,
even in the face of undeniable facts, unless and until the Holy Spirit
enlightens that heart with the Word of God. And so, Jesus sets
forth that Word as our true treasure, infinitely more valuable than
silver or gold, money or clothes, or anything else this world can
offer. All those things have to offer is temporal pleasures,
which will eventually pass away. But the Word of God gives you
the gift of a Savior and the eternal pleasures of knowing Him and
living with Him in His heavenly kingdom forever. Cling to that
Word and let nothing and no one steal it away from you or take its
place. The more you live under God’s mercy towards you
delivered to you through the Word, the more you will show that mercy
towards others and use the possessions that God has given you in this
life towards that end. And though you live with Jesus under the
cross now (as do all God’s people), you have His Word that you
will live with Him in glory at the resurrection and feast with Him and
all the saints at His party to come. Amen.