This is really a tough
story for me to preach on. It makes me
kind of uncomfortable. I’m not sure I
understand it, and I’m not sure what to do with the parts I think I do understand.
We have basically two characters in
the story, three if you count Abraham.
The main two characters are the rich man and Lazarus, the poor man.
And that’s really all we know about
them. We’re not even told the rich
man’s name—he’s just identified as “the rich man.” We know Lazarus’ name, we know he’s a beggar, and we know he had
sores. That’s all we know about
them. Then, we know they both die. We know Lazarus goes to heaven, and the rich
man goes to hell.
And when we read the
story, it sounds like the only reason Lazarus went to heaven was that he was a
beggar who had sores, and the only reason the rich man went to hell is because
he was a rich man. You know, a lot of
times, when we hear this story explained, the person doing the explaining makes
assumptions that are not in the text.
They assume that the rich man must have been evil, or greedy, or have
cheated or stolen or done something unsavory to get his wealth. They assume Lazarus must have been a
wonderful fellow who just never got any breaks while he was alive.
Jesus did not say any of that, or
if he did it’s not recorded. We are not
told that the rich man was evil or that he did anything wrong to get his
money. For all we know, he may have
worked very hard and earned his success.
He may have treated people well.
He may have even tithed, given ten percent of his money to God. I’m not saying he did that, but there’s
nothing in Jesus’ story that says he did not.
We’re not told that the rich man did anything wrong in getting his
money.
We also don’t know whether Lazarus
was a wonderful fellow. We don’t know
if he was a nice guy at all. He may
have been a jerk. He may have never had
a good word to say to anybody. Again,
I’m not saying that’s true, but there’s nothing in Jesus’ story that says it’s
false. We’re not told that Lazarus ever
did anything nice for anyone.
The only things that seem to matter
in Jesus’ story are that the rich man was rich and that Lazarus was a
beggar. Listen to what Jesus has
Abraham saying to the rich man. “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.” The only reason we’re given for why the rich
man is in hell is because he’d had a good life while he was on earth, and the only
reason we’re given for why Lazarus is in heaven is because he had a bad life on
earth.
Now, Jesus talked to a lot of poor
people, and he had a lot of sympathy for them.
And remember, poor people back then did not get any government support
or anything. Begging was about the only
thing a poor person could do, and it was not very profitable. This kind of message would’ve given the poor
people Jesus was talking to a lot of hope.
It would’ve made them feel like God did care about them, that God knew
about their situation, and that they would get a reward in heaven. It can give us hope, too, if we’re suffering
in our lives on earth.
The thing that bothers me so much
about this is that I feel like I have a lot more in common with the rich man
than I have with Lazarus. I mean, I’m
not rich by our standards, but I’m certainly not in the Lazarus category,
either. I’ve never had to beg for
anything. I’ve always known I was going
to have enough to eat every day. I’ve
always known I was going to have decent clothes to wear. I’ve always known I was going to have a
decent place to sleep.
I’ve also always known that, if
something happened to where I might not have one of those things, that there
were people who’d help me. I have a
loving family, both on my side and on Wanda’s side, and I have friends who I
know would not let me sleep on the street and would not let me starve, no
matter how bad my personal situation might get.
Not only that, I’ve had a pretty
wonderful life in a lot of ways. I grew
up in a loving family. I have an
incredible wife. I had a career that I
love. I have wonderful people to work
with. I’ve been blessed in an awful lot
of ways. In many ways, I’ve received
the good things in my lifetime, just like the rich man did. Does that mean I’m going to receive bad
things in the next life, like the rich man did?
Also, I wonder how to square this
with all the times in the Bible where we’re told that our salvation depends on
our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and on nothing else. Because in this story, we’re not told
anything about the faith of either the rich man or Lazarus. We’re not told that Lazarus had faith and
the rich man did not. We’re told that the
rich man went to hell because he’d gotten good things during his life, and Lazarus
went to heaven because he’d gotten bad things during his life. How does that make sense?
I don’t know that I have the
answer, but I’ll tell you what I think.
Feel free to disagree. As I was
thinking about this, it occurred to me that, in a way, it’s easier for us to
rely on God when we have nothing than it is when we have everything. What I mean is that someone in Lazarus’
position has nothing, not even decent health, and most likely never will have
anything. In that situation, we
sometimes throw ourselves on God’s mercy because there’s nothing else we can
do. We ask God to help us because we
know that we have no ability to help ourselves and never will, and we know
there’s no one else who’s going to help us either. We turn to God for help because we have nowhere else to turn.
When we have some money of our own,
though, we do have somewhere else to turn.
If we have a thousand dollars in the bank, we don’t have to rely on God
for our next meal. We can rely on
ourselves. If we have ten thousand
dollars in the bank, there are a lot of things we don’t have to rely on God
for, because we can do them ourselves.
If we have a hundred thousand dollars, there are even fewer things we
have to rely on God for. And if we have
a million dollars, well, we probably don’t have to rely on God for much of
anything.
I think this is what Jesus meant
when he talked about how it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to get to heaven.
I don’t think he meant it literally, that it’s impossible for a rich man
to go to heaven, but he meant that it’s awfully hard. It’s hard because the more we have, the more likely we are to
rely on ourselves, and the less likely we are to rely on God.
I don’t think this story means that
everyone who gets good things while on earth will go to hell. What I think it means is that the more
blessings we have while we’re on earth, the more we can be tempted to believe
that we’ve gotten those blessings because of our own goodness, rather than by
God’s goodness. The more blessings we
have while we’re on earth, the more we’re tempted to take those blessings for
granted, rather than thanking God for them.
The more blessings we have while we’re on earth, the more we’re tempted
to have faith in ourselves, rather than having faith in God.
If we truly have faith in Jesus
Christ as our Savior, our lives need to show that. That’s true whether we have a lot or we have nothing. The more we have, though, the more chances
we have to do things that show our faith.
And, of course, the more Jesus asks us to do things that show our faith.
I’m not saying that you don’t do
things that show your faith. The point
here is not to make anyone feel guilty. But we can all do more.
I know I can. Jesus does not
want us to just do so much and say, “well, that’s good enough”. That’s not what Jesus did when he was on
earth. Jesus did not settle for “good
enough”. Jesus does not want us to
settle for “good enough”, either.
As I said, this is a tough
scripture. But it’s an important
one. As Jesus makes pretty clear, our
life in eternity depends on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment