A story of role reversal - Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 16: 19 - 31

When I conduct weddings, I am often asked for the hymn, “All things bright and beautiful.” Whenever this happens, I always request the couple to ensure that one of the original verses is not on the hymn sheet. It is a verse which thankfully is no longer in any of the hymn books that we use. It is the verse which goes like this;

“The rich man at his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high or lowly
And ordered their estate.”

What nonsense! And yet it was sung in churches not that long ago. And certainly, those words represent the orthodox religious beliefs at the time of Jesus.

And yet Jesus blows the idea that social class is ordained by God completely out of the water. And nowhere does he do this more powerfully than with the story of a rich man whom we often call Dives which is the Latin for “rich” and Lazarus.

The story that Jesus told was probably a reworking of similar stories which were told at his time. And yet amidst what would have been familiar to his listeners, Jesus provides his own rather unique spin. We are less familiar with the similar stories and so we can approach it with minds and hearts that are hopefully open to the insights that Jesus would wish to transmit to us.

And so to the characters. Let us first look at the rich man, Dives. And rich he most certainly was. After all he dressed in purple robes which were the most expensive garments, normally associated with the aristocratic elite from whom the Sadducces came. These were people who aside from religious beliefs to which I shall return later, devoted themselves to modelling their lifestyles on the Roman elite with whom they were all too willing collaborators. And more than that he wore busos which is the Hebrew for a particularly expensive underwear, that which today we would describe as designer underwear.

Not only did he dress to the nines every day but every day was a feast day for him. Each and every day he ate the finest foods and so each Sabbath Day his desires would find their gratification by requiring servants to miss out on the rest requirement of the Sabbath which was so important to the Jewish people.

So before us we have one of the idle rich living the life of Riley, enjoying an obscenely rich lifestyle.

Now let’s turn and look at the other character, Lazarus. His name means “God helps.” But God’s help seems to be far removed from his experience in life. After all, Lazarus is an impoverished beggar. He is totally dependent on others. And like many of those who suffer from poverty, he carried the evidence of his deprivations, in his case through the sores that covered him. But he had one reason for hope. The translation that we use misses that reason for hope but other translations especially from Arabic and Syrian versions of the gospels include it, namely that he didn’t simply lie at the gate of the Dives. Instead he was laid at the gate. This would imply that he had friends who would bring him to that gate day by day. Why? Because only this Dives had the necessary resources to adequately help Lazarus.

Now at this point we need to take care to avoid a dangerous and simplistic conclusion. Too often this story is used to back a view that poor people are good and rich people are bad. Of course, there may be cases that back such an interpretation but take care for such an interpretation can lead us on a road to despair. For on a global basis, we are the rich. Those of you who are on the internet can look up a site called Global Rich List and I suspect that most people here would be in the top 5% whether you feel rich or not. I go further and remind you that being affluent just as it is not a sign that you are favoured by God, is also not something that means you should be judged harshly. For if we had turned to today’s reading from the New Testament letters, we would have found that contrary to ignorant folklore, it is not said that money is the root of all evil but that;

“The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”

Do you get the difference? It is a vital difference if we are to understand where our rich man goes wrong.

Back to the story that Jesus told and we find a shocking indifference to the sufferings of Lazarus on the part of Dives. From the conversation that he has with Abraham, he is aware of Lazarus having been at his gate. He even knows the name of Lazarus but he has been callously indifferent to the sufferings of a nearby man at the same times as he has indulged his own fanciful whims. Indeed such has been the level of his indifference to the sufferings of Lazarus that he compares unfavourably with his own dogs.

Let’s for a moment think of these dogs. Many of us today think of dogs as loveable creatures who are man’s best friend. But that is not how it was in Palestine at the time of Jesus. For the traditions of Palestine are that dogs were regarded as unclean, almost as unclean as pigs. A rich man keeping dogs would not have them to pamper and to walk as might be the case today. No, their purpose would have been to serve as guard dogs that protected his property. Today, we contemplate the problems caused by dangerous dogs but this was a society in which only dangerous dogs were of any use. And such dogs would only be safely approached by those who were their handlers.

It fascinates me that Dives allowed his dogs to wonder down to where Lazarus lay at the gate. It seems yet further evidence that this Dives felt no duty of care to the suffering man at the gate. And yet these attack dogs did so much more for Lazarus than was managed by their owner. They licked his wounds and of course given that the saliva from the dog is sterile, they probably helped to bring a soothing and a healing to the wounds of Lazarus.

What a scandal! A rich man outdone in compassion by wild attack dogs. But that is part of the problem. Our Dives fails to see the reality of shred humanity with Lazarus. He sees his prosperity as putting himself on a higher level than that of a down and out like Lazarus. Even as he look up to Abraham, he still cannot see Lazarus as an equal but as a skivvy who could bring refreshment to him and be sent with a message of warning to his brothers. Even though their fortunes have been reversed, he still sees Lazarus not as a an equal but as one who should still know his place at the bottom of the pile. Far from seeking the forgiveness of Lazarus for the ways in which he has failed him, this Dives remains stuck in his self centredness and indifference to suffering other than that which is now his lot. In contrast, is it not amazing that Lazarus, unlike similar characters in parallel stories that Jesus would have known, remains quiet and makes no demand for vengeance?

So what does Jesus seek to tell us through this story. Often I have heard this story used by preachers as a warning concerning the afterlife. I think that this is stretching things somewhat. Such an interpretation fails to adequately engage with the literary genre somewhat. Furthermore, it creates a blasphemous picture of a God presiding over a regime of torture. And yet, the question of judgement cannot be totally ignored. You see, Sadducees like Dives had no belief in an afterlife or any form of judgement. And so they display the outlook of those who feel that you can live for yourself without any degree of accountability. And because he felt unaccountable to God or indeed anyone else, Dives felt himself free to indulge himself while just a short distance away, a man lay suffering whose plight he could have considerably eased. What a warning of what we can become when we lose sight of our accountability to God.

So how do we live as those who are accountable to God?

Firstly, we need to avoid the cheap doctrines that see the unfairness of life as being about God’s judgement on others. This is so in the case of individual human suffering and it is so when nations suffer calamities. God does not inflict these things on people. On the contrary, God weeps with those in pain and urges us to respond with compassion.

Secondly, we are each called upon to exercise compassion. Possessions and the things we cling to in our lives should not get in the way. The sin of Dives was not his wealth but the ways in which he allowed it to dehumanise him. The late Pope John Paul 11 put it well in saying;

“The rich man was condemned because he did not pay attention to the other man, because he failed to take notice of Lazarus, the person who sat at his door and who longed to eat the scraps from his table. Nowhere does Christ condemn the mere possessions of earthly goods as such. Instead, he pronounces very harsh words against those who use their possessions in a selfish way, without paying attention to the needs of others.”

And thirdly, we are called to be sensitive to need that is close at hand. For within our own community, there is a number of people who have an impoverished experience of life. Jesus encourages us to avoid the sin of Dives in being desensitivised to such places of suffering. But now, because of the devoplment of communications media, we are able to be aware of suffering that is far away from us geographically and lie it or not, we become connected to every suffering person. Indeed, this is a parable that challenges indifference to suffering not just on an individual level but challenges us at the level of our fractured nation and indeed, it can be a parable that speaks into the division in our world between nations of wealth, however badly distributed that wealth might be, and the countries of the South whose path to development is burdened by debt. And as we dare to expand the scope of this parable, we begin to see that it is a parable which raises issues not just of charity but also of justice. For who can be other than shocked to learn that the nation which spends most on weaponry in our world is also a nation in which we have heard of a 12 year old boy dying because his mother lacked the insurance or financial resources to get treatment for what was at first a dental problem. And now an apology of a President is to veto the very measures that might save the lives of other such children.

You see, this parable tells us that Jesus sees us all as having responsibility for those who suffer. So much can be done by charity but policy of governments is also relevant.

It is likely that we shall soon be entering a General Election. No party broadcasts will ever come from this pulpit. But I encourage you to do but one thing. Look for the causes of suffering be they local or global. And then, don’t do a Dives and shut your eyes. Ask what you can personally do to help. And also ask and ask with persistence those who would seek to represent you, how they will seek policies that help those whose need is greatest.


This sermon was preached at Bideford Methodist Church on Sunday September 30th 2007