Foothills Congregational Church The Rev.. Matthew Broadbent

United Church of Christ 17^th Sunday after Pentecost

461 Orange Ave., Los Altos 94022 September 30, 2007

A GENEROUS SPIRIT

1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31

We begin this week as we did last week: There was a rich man… Luke’s working a theme in chapter 16. However, this week he is not a businessman or a landowner. He is a man dressed in the purple robes of the High Priests, and wears the fine linen undergarments of the privileged, those who inherit their wealth. This week we come to the story of the rich man and Lazarus. This is a parable that, as William Barclay wrote, is “constructed with such masterly skill that not one phrase is wasted.”

The rich man has no name. Though, in the King James Bible, he is called “Dives” which, in Latin, means wealthy. He is a man who feasts, not on occasion, or even on his day off, but daily. Daily he consumes rich, sumptuous foods in a culture where one would be lucky to eat meat once a week, or once a year during the holidays. This man eats savory, meaty delicacies everyday. The word used for feasting, in the Greek, is the word that is used for a gourmet feeding on exotic and costly dishes. This man is the image of epicurean self-indulgence.

Right outside the gate to the rich man’s house was Lazarus. Notice that he has a name. This is the only time in all of the gospels that a character in a parable is named. This must be significant. When people are named in the gospel story it is because the community to whom the gospel is being written knows them, at least, by reputation.

Could this Lazarus be the same Lazarus that Jesus loved? Is this the same Lazarus who was raised from the dead, the one over whom Jesus wept? Is this Mary and Martha’s brother? We don’t know for sure, but Luke may have given the man a name to create an emotional link between his friend, poor Lazarus, who had a special place in Jesus heart, and all of the poor who were becoming part of the early church. Luke may be saying to his listeners, “You, too, have a special place in Jesus’ heart.”

The issue of the rich and the poor, and the distance between the have and the have-nots was a critical problem for the early church. Paul wrote to his protégé, Timothy, from prison saying: …for we brought nothing into this world, so that we take nothing out of it… But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the lust for money is a root of all kinds of evil…. It is not the money, per se, but the lust of money that gets us into trouble.

The early church, as it handed down its memories, remembered how Jesus himself had seemed preoccupied with practical, economic matters. In fact, Jesus speaks more about money than anything else in the gospels, peppering his stories with references to mammon and money, to offerings and treasure and taxes, to wages and debts and investments and rewards. Jesus knew that money mattered and that money-talk could be used to speak vividly to the clashing priorities between the kin-dom of God and the “world-as-we-know-it.”

This parable story carries the theme of the reversal of values, the overturning of conventional wisdom. Here we have an anonymous rich man and Lazarus. In the normal world we live in, we would know the rich man’s name and not even recognize the poor beggar at the gates. We would know who made that special contribution to a shelter program, but not know any of the clients.

I am enjoying my tenure on the Board of Directors of Community Services Agency. A major part of being on the Board of a non-profit is to raise money to do good work. I could spend all my time meeting people of influence, raising money, and building the prestige of the institution and, yet, never actually meet any of the individuals being served.

In our world there is a gulf between the rich and the poor, the have and the have-nots, just like there was in Jesus’ world. Wealth can insulate us from ever having to see, touch, and actually know someone, like Lazarus. This was true of our generic rich man, who recognizes Lazarus less than do the street dogs that come and sniff the smelly beggar and lick his sores. From Jesus’ perspective, Lazarus (whose name literally means “God helps”), is worthy of notice and who deserves his “daily bread.”

To be fair to Dives, it is not as if Lazarus never got anything from the rich man’s house. This is why he positions himself in that very spot, like some panhandler at a mall happy to relieve shoppers of their spare change. In that time there were no knives or forks or napkins. A person ate from bowls in the center of the table and then wiped one’s hands with bread and threw it out the window.

I’ve seen it on the streets in Cairo where kitchen waste is thrown out the back windows into the alley where it mounds up providing forage for street dogs and beggars. This is what Lazarus was waiting for. So Jesus sets up the scene. The distance between the rich and the poor that, physically, only be the distance it takes to throw a piece of bread, but in real terms it is worlds apart.

In part two of Jesus’ parable, however, there is a chilling epilogue to the initial story. Both the rich man and Lazarus die, as we all will, rich and poor alike. But according to Jesus’ tale they land in different places. Lazarus finds himself transported by the angels to the bosom of Abraham, while the rich man awakes in Hades tormented by the fires of hell.

The development of the concept of hell is interesting. The ancient Hebrew concept is a place called Sheol – where dead souls reside and where only God has access. It was a hidden place of shadows, but there was no idea of punishment or pain. It was simply a place of darkness and mystery.

Hades was a Greek concept, later adopted by the Romans. Concerned as these sophisticated cultures were with justice and fairness, Hades was a place of judgment and punishment for past sins. Temple rituals were often designed to provide a convincing argument to the gods to allow the soul to pass beyond Hades to the Elysian fields.

Jesus’ referred to hell as Gehenna, which is Aramaic for the Hinnon Valley, a small valley outside the walls of Jerusalem, once used for child sacrifice, and later the site of the city dump. It was here that all of the garbage and refuse of Jerusalem was thrown, and where the bodies of criminals, the crucified, and poor, homeless beggars like Lazarus were dumped. In this composting heap, methane gas is produced and fires smolder under the surface frequently breaking out. A pretty graphic image of hell isn’t it?

In Jesus’ vision of justice, it is the rich man, not Lazarus that finds himself tortured by the composting fires of hell, and even then the rich man does not understand. Even in Hades he tries to use Lazarus (whose name he suddenly remembers) like a slave at his command to come and dip his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.

Father Abraham won’t bite. The old world order has changed, and the great chasm that divides the poor and the rich during life on earth has now been eternally inverted. But, the rich man persists (give him credit for tenacity). “Send someone to warn my five brothers.” But Abraham’s reply is blunt: They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them. In other words, they already know what they need to know.

We already know what we need to know. We know what is right. We know what is just. We know what is the righteous thing to do. Kierkegaard once said, “there is no lack of information in Christendom. The lack resides somewhere else.”

We already know everything we need to know to live according to God’s will. Yes, but, if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.

Really? Would your life turn around if someone came back from the dead? Has the resurrection of Jesus convinced us not to put our ultimate faith in money, power, economic advantage, but, instead, to rely on the providence of God? I don’t know about you, but I am one of those “priests” who would like to wear a purple robe, and fine linen shirts, who loves a good meal, and secretly lusts for money. Though I have never bought a lottery ticket, I have a recurring dream : “What if I had 40 million dollars?”

So I keep listening to – sometimes arguing with – but mostly listening to Moses and the prophets, and following the risen One to that uncomfortable place where I may meet Lazarus face to face, and come to know him, by name – and even to love him. I have known him as Julia, who dragged a chain of shopping carts behind him with his motley collection of worldly stuff. And we have known him as John Wheeler who was our Lazarus at the gate.

I also listen to Paul, who mentors Timothy in his ministry, and says, as for those who in the present age are rich here is some simple advice. We are not to be haughty but humble. We are to be careful not to set our [ultimate] hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything we need. We are not to do, just well, but to do good, to be rich in good works, to have a generous spirit, ready to share[ the wealth we have].

We are to spend this treasure of Christian practices now in order to fund a future rooted in the life that is really life. Because, in the end, in terms of our hungering and thirsting spirit, we are, all of us, beggars at the gates.