Dan Herold | Luke 16:19-31 | September 25, 2016
If you had a million dollars, what would you do? I remember thinking about that question when I was younger, and a million dollars seemed like an infinite amount of money. It seemed like I could do anything I wanted and never run out of money if I had $1 million. Now that I’m not so young and actually have to pay bills and things like that, $1 million is still a whole lot of money, but I know that if I wasn’t careful it would be pretty easy to waste it. You know what one of the most common responses to that question is? More often than not when that questions gets asked you hear answers like, “I’d buy a new house or car.” “I’d take a vacation.” “I’d stop working so hard and enjoy it.” Do you see a theme? We tend to view a large sum of money, like $1 million, as a reward. We tend to think of wealth as the end goal. We see it as something we get after we do all our work and then once we get our reward we can just focus on ourselves and relax.
That isn’t really how God talks about wealth, though. You would be hard pressed to find a place in the Bible where God talks about earthly wealth being a reward for something we have done. That simply is not the purpose for which God gives people earthly wealth. You’d be able to find passages in the Bible that talk about things like forgiveness and salvation being rewards or gifts that God gives simply for us to have, and treasure, and enjoy, but not with earthly wealth. In fact God talks a lot about how we are to use or spend our earthly wealth and that he never intended for us to store it up or keep it for ourselves. When God talks about earthly wealth, he doesn’t talk about it like it’s a reward but rather like an opportunity.
In our gospel lesson today we heard about two men on opposite sides of earthly wealth. Jesus tells us about how their lives played out and he tells us about the result of their lifestyles and relationships with their earthly wealth. Jesus starts out saying,
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.”
So from the very beginning these two men are very different. However, it isn’t the fact that one is wealthy and the other isn’t that sets them apart, but rather it is how the two men use their earthly possessions that separate them. If you remember last Sunday we heard Jesus’ words that come just before this. There he told the parable of the shrewd manager where Jesus tells us to use our earthly possessions to share our faith. It is difficult to find a way in which the rich man has done that.
At his gate, so just outside his house, this poor beggar sits everyday. He is so poor that we are told,
“he longed to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.”
He hoped that maybe someday he would get the scraps that probably fed the dogs who came to lick his open sores!
Jesus continues,
“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.”
Here’s the first blow to our egos. That rich man who we could sort of identify with ends up in hell and the poor beggar is at Abraham’s side in heaven. God is serious about the way we manage the wealth he gives us. After all, we don’t know anything about this rich man other than that he didn’t share his wealth with Lazarus and he ended up in hell! From what comes next it’s safe to say the rich man certainly didn’t enjoy his new condition.
He said,
“Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.”
Imagine being in so much pain that someone dipping their finger in cool water and touching your tongue would be a relief! All the wealth and earthly comforts the rich man had relied on were gone and couldn’t help him. And that’s exactly what Abraham tells him. Abraham says,
“Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.”
But Abraham has more to say. The rich man’s time of opportunity had come to an end. Abraham explains to him,
“Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.”
What’s done is done. There’s no going back, no crossing over, no second chances.
If you follow the train of thought here, as Jesus is speaking in Luke 16, it sort of seems like he’s working backwards. He does that intentionally. Right after Jesus told the parable of the shrewd manager—the parable we heard last Sunday—the Pharisee’s responded by mocking Jesus and making fun of him. They thought that they could work and essentially buy their way into heaven. That sounds outrageous, but we do the same thing. We rely on ourselves and our own abilities when we should be putting our trust in God. We get it in our heads that we need to work everything out for ourselves and that we can take credit for the good things that we get in life.
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Jesus knew that the way we think about earthly wealth is so backwards from what God intended that in order to teach us the right way he had to work backwards as well. So, in order to teach us the right way to view God’s blessings Jesus had to show us why the wrong way was so wrong.
The rich man said to Abraham,
“Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.”
But Abraham says he can’t do that because even if he sent someone back from the dead the man’s brothers would not listen to him.
Abraham said to the rich man,
“They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.”
But the rich man argued,
“No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.”
But Abraham had the final word,
“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
The Word of God is the only thing that can tell anyone who their Savior is and how to spend eternity in heaven with him. God’s word tells you that you are a sinful creature who deserves God’s wrath, but at the same time you are his prized creation whom he loved so much that he sent his only son to die on a cross for you to buy you back and secure your place in heaven. That’s the reward God promises—not anything else. Every material blessing God has ever given us is an opportunity—an opportunity to get to know our Savior and an opportunity to demonstrate our faith in him.
Abraham’s response to the rich man’s request is something we need to remember. So often our sinful nature wants to demand a sign from God or some sort of miracle to validate his Word. But we don’t need that–all we need is the Word. Sometimes we forget the purpose of miracles. Jesus never performed a miracle to convert someone, he preached the Gospel to do that. When Herod demanded miracles from him he didn’t perform any, but instead he was silent. If a person has hardened their heart so that they refuse to hear the Gospel, then even a miracle like someone being raised from the dead will not change their mind.
The rich man asked that Lazarus be sent back and coincidentally in John 11 we are told about a Lazarus who was raised from the dead. However, if you look at John 11 it supports Abraham’s words! When Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead there wasn’t any surge in conversions and Jesus didn’t gain any great number of followers. Instead, after Lazarus was raised from the dead those persecuting Jesus intensified their efforts. They didn’t become followers of Jesus, they plotted to kill him! And the same could be said of Jesus own resurrection. That miracle didn’t convert thousands, it was the preaching of the gospel several weeks later that did that.
Those examples go to show that just as Abraham told the rich man, faith is created by the message, not the messenger—no matter how influential or prestigious he might be. God has made a habit of using humble messengers to proclaim his word. There was Moses who wasn’t rich or famous and felt like he was totally incapable of public speaking. There were the prophets who by and large were thought of as a joke by the people to whom they were preaching. On the night of Jesus birth lowly shepherds were the ones who were given the privilege of sharing the good news. Then there was Jesus himself, the son of carpenter from Nazareth who died like a common criminal. There were the blue collar fishermen from Galilee whom we know as Jesus’ disciples. The list could go on and on down to us here today.
No miracle or amount of money has ever created saving faith. God’s word is the only thing that can do that. But you can’t deny that money and material things are a huge part of our lives. So, if they aren’t the end goal—they aren’t what saves us—where do they fit into our lives? That was the lesson Jesus teaches in our gospel lesson today. He teaches us how to properly view the blessings we receive from God. He shows us that they are opportunities, not the final reward to hold on to.
So, what would you do if you had $1 million? We saw what this rich man did with his wealth—he wasted his opportunity. He had every chance imaginable to get to know his Lord and share that message with his brothers. Apparently there was a man just outside his front door that knew the way to heaven, but the rich man never learned. Remember in your prayers to ask God to help you see those opportunities and not let them slip by. Ask God to help you focus on the real goal of salvation in heaven and the opportunities he gives us to share that comforting message with others. After all, when we get to the end of our lives what can you take with you? The only thing that leaves this world with you is your faith and the friends you have made in Christ. May that be the goal that we work toward using all which our Gracious God has given to us.
Amen.