SERMON FOR SEPTEMBER 29, 2019. SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. TEXT: LUKE 16:19-31

Recently I read an enticing review of the HBO series Succession, a “darkly funny drama” about the family of media tycoon Logan Roy, a fictional Rupert Murdoch. It is a show about incredibly rich people. The reviewer writes: “What it does is highlight the complete absurdity of wealth, the moral vacuum it creates. It is a drawing room drama about a family who has lost all touch with not just working people but anyone outside of its own inner sanctum. . . . . The Roys are destructive people. Their organization causes other people to self-destruct. But they are all so removed from the day-to-day agenda that their media empire is pushing, so well-protected by privilege, that they cannot see the harm.” Ignorance may not insure bliss, but it does offer protection and a serviceable excuse . . . . for the time being.

Last week’s parable about the dishonest manager or unjust steward was confounding, but today’s story about the rich man and Lazarus is a straight shot. The rich man is toast. There is no indication that he bore Lazarus any ill will. He identifies the poor fellow by name in the afterlife, so he must have been aware of him, languishing at his gate. Despite their close proximity, the rich man apparently could not see any connection or envision any mutual obligation. There was no reason to breach the separation between his comfort and Lazarus’ misery on earth. And now that the tables are turned after their deaths, there is no possibility of doing so. The opportunity for mercy is past; now there is simple justice. Lazarus will remain where he is, comforted and secure in the bosom of Abraham, while the rich man pays the price of his indifference elsewhere.

Over the centuries the parable has fueled speculation about the afterlife. It certainly suggests a heaven that is sweet and a hell that is hot. Apparently the dead go immediately to their eternal fate; there seems to be no interim state before the general resurrection and the last judgment. But informing us about the afterlife is not the point of the story. Nor is it a presentation of the mechanics of divine judgment: one cannot count on compensation in the hereafter for a life of misery on earth, and those who live high on the hog in this world are not all doomed to pay for it in the next. The Lord’s justice is not so impersonal.

But the warning is clear and echoes throughout Luke’s Gospel. The rich are at serious risk. Mary rejoices over her pregnancy with the Magnificat, proclaiming that the Lord “has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:53). At the beginning of his ministry Jesus declares, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18). In the Sermon on the Plain in Luke, Jesus announces, “Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled . . . .” (Luke 6:20-21). This differs from Matthew’s version of the sayings in his Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. . . . Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:3, 6). Matthew spiritualizes what Luke takes quite literally. Moreover, according to Luke, Jesus follows the beatitudes with stern warnings: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now for you will be hungry” (Luke 6:24-25). Jesus goes to dine at the home of a Pharisee and advises him not to invite people from his own circle, people who can return the favor, but to offer his hospitality instead to the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind” (Luke 14:12-14).

Jesus continues to speak plainly of the danger wealth poses. He tells the parable of the rich fool, warning his listeners to be on their guard against all kinds of greed, “for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” The rich man plans to pull down his barns and build bigger ones to hold the fruits of his prosperity, but God says to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God” (Luke12:15-21). In another story Jesus advises the ruler desirous of inheriting eternal life to sell all that he owns and distribute the money to the poor, “[A]nd you will have treasure in heaven,” he tells him, “then come, follow me.” But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:18-25). And then there is the thunderous verdict we heard last week at the end of the parable of the unjust steward, “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13).

Jesus’ parables invite us to find ourselves in the story, to identify with a particular character or characters, to change our roles from one reading to another. One of my favorite New Testament scholars points out that the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is really a kind of apocalyptic tale, a worst case scenario of how things might end. The sharp dramatic contrasts and the imagined journey into the afterlife are typical of that sort of prophetic writing. It serves as a wake-up call, a revelation we desperately need to heed before it is too late. Think of this story as a miniature of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Remember how Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s deceased business partner, comes back from the grave, wailing and dragging his chains, to warn Ebenezer of the fate awaiting him. The dumbfounded Scrooge insists that Jacob was an excellent man of business, and the ghost shrieks in response, “Mankind was my business.” He sends a series of three spirits to guide Ebenezer on otherworldly journeys so that he might come to his senses. The final spirit, the ghost of Christmas future, carries him to the border of such torment as the rich man in today’s parable endures for eternity. Standing in a cemetery, Scrooge begs for mercy, “Promise me, Spirit, that these are the shadows of things that might be,” not things that must be, already fixed in stone like his name chiseled into the marker on his grave. And for Ebenezer Scrooge it is not too late. He wakes to find himself in his own bed on Christmas Day with time to change his ways, to become a principled man of business and a generous friend to those in need.

There is a wonderful irony in Jesus’ telling of this parable. Father Abraham refuses the rich man’s request that he send Lazarus to warn his five surviving brothers. “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” Yet this story told by the earthly Jesus was preserved and passed down to us, and we continue to tell it all these years later, because he rose from the dead. We find ourselves among the surviving siblings of the rich man, potential beneficiaries of Jacob Marley, given the chance to learn from the experience of the uncaring and unrepentant. We have the chance to heed their mournful counsel while there is still time for it to make a difference in our lives. We can identify those whom our society readily forgets and the ones it consistently favors. We can fight against the devastation of the earth driven by human greed. We can move beyond charity to justice. Amen.