Luke 16: 19-31
Mel Prestamo, Ruling Elder, PCUSA
Offered to the Wharton Hungarian Church of Wharton, NJ on September 25, 2022
I want to start my message today by commenting that Luke’s retelling of Jesus’ parables is unique in its richness. We have here today the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus. This parable appears in no other Gospel. Luke also gave us the three parables of the Lost sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Sons. He also gives us the story of the Unjust Judge. None of those appear in other Gospels either. So, it is worthy of note that Luke is the Storyteller that has preserved the Jesus’ stories most fully for us. And in so doing, Luke has preserved many of Jesus’ most salient lessons, as well.
So today, we have the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Now, most interesting, the poor man who Jesus calls Lazarus is the only character in any of Jesus’ parables that is given a name. Sometimes, the Rich man is referred to as Dives. But “Dives” is simply a Latin word for “rich.” It probably was assigned to this man as translations of the Bible were made into Latin so as to give the listeners a better understanding of who and what he was. But Lazarus is a Jesus given name.
I find that curious so I thought I would do a little digging. I thought perhaps the name Lazarus had some specific meaning that would help us understand why Jesus used it.
It turns out, Lazarus is a Greek name – born of another translation. It turns out Lazarus is a translation of a real Hebrew name. The name Jesus probably used was Eleazar. And while Lazarus doesn’t give us any clear understanding about the poor man, Eleazar does. Eleazar, translated from Hebrew means, “God is my help.” Now this helps us to understand something of Jesus meaning in this parable.
The name may well have been used to emphasize the underlying truth in this parable that the poor man had no other hope or helper other than God. As we go through this parable lesson, we should realize that this poor person had no one other than God that would show him pity or bring him hope or help.
So, let’s look more deeply into the two main characters of this parable. The first person described is the rich man. In the first line of the parable, the rich man is described as wearing “Purple and fine linen and as one who feasted sumptuously every day.” Right there is a big Red Stop sign for us to take note of. This is an off the chart description of excessive luxury. First, typically, only the high priests wore robes of Purple and linen. The cost of such garments by today’s standards would be approximately $550.00 US. While you or I might be able to afford a suit of clothes at that price tag today, back in Jesus’ Palestine it was an enormous sum of money. It is also worthy of note that Jesus dresses the rich man in the finery that the upper echelons of chief priests and Pharisees might have been wearing.
The second part of Jesus’ description was that the rich man feasted sumptuously every day. The words Jesus used would give the impression to his listeners that the rich man lived life as a glutton.
Now some Biblical scholars have pointed out Jesus’ use of the words of “every day”. They raise a question as to how this gluttonous behavior relates to the commandment concerning the Sabbath.
If you recall, the commandment reads, “Remember the Sabbath Day and to keep it holy; on it you shall do no work.” We all know that part of the commandment. But God continues, “Six days shall you labor.”
The second part of the Sabbath commandment is just as valid as the first and Jews of the day took it very seriously. The Jews held work in high esteem. Rabbis of the day were not compensated for their teachings. They were expected to have trades of their own to support themselves and their families. The Jews of the day had a saying, “A father that did not teach his son to work, taught him to steal.”
For Jews, the commandment to work six days was just as valid as the commandment not to work on the seventh day. So, Jesus’ description that the rich man lived life feasting sumptuously every day branded him as utterly useless individual and a breaker of God’s commandment to work.
That’s a lot packed into one sentence.
Now let’s look into Jesus’ description of Eleazar. We are told that sores covered his body and that he was so weak that he was unable to ward of the dogs that licked at those wounds. That’s a pretty gross image. But I don’t want to gloss over that. I want it to hang out there for you to visualize, so that the image stays with you. No person gave him mercy. Only the dogs were there to administer to his wounds.
Verse 21 says that he longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table. Now what does that mean? What was it that would fall from the table. In Palestine at the time, people did not use utensils to eat with or napkins to wipe their hands. They used their hands to eat and bread to wipe up and dry their hands. When they did that, they would toss the bread to the floor. That bread is what Eleazar hoped would be passed out to him to eat. Jesus does not indicate that any of that waste was ever shared.
Jesus uses these two verses to set the stage of his lesson. On the one hand, we have a man living in opulent luxury beyond all excesses. It was a lifestyle that was foul of God’s commandment and Jewish law. And the other in total abject poverty and desperation. But note this. The circumstances weren’t that the rich man didn’t know of Eleazar. He wasn’t living under some bridge in a far-off part of the city. We know of some homeless people that live under the Route 46 overpass right here in Dover. We know they are there, but we don’t see them as we step over our threshold. NO, this creature was living on his doorstep. The rich man would have had to step over Eleazar in order to leave and then to reenter his home every day.
This, of itself alone, is an aberration of Jewish law. It would have been considered a breaking of the law for someone not only to step over or around poverty without offering aid of some sort but to ignore it but not even seeing the pain of the needy around him, that was an abomination. Jewish law was clear in that it required that the poor be dealt with fairly and provided for. That is why during harvest, workers were not permitted to clean up the remains of the harvest that had fallen to the ground after the reaping was done. What had fallen to the ground was to be left for the poor to glean and collect. So, there was an element of social consciousness in Jewish law that this rich man was ignoring to the point of blindness. It is one thing to decide not to care when you see need. It is another to decide not to see it at all.
What happens next is that both men die. The poor man dies and is carried away by Angels to be with Abraham. Remember his name means “God is my help.” The rich man dies and is buried. Eleazar is carried by Angels. The rich man dies, is buried in the ground and we next find him in Hades.
Now in Hades we hear of some classic descriptions of hell: torment, fire, and thirst. Of paradise, we have an image of Elazar sitting on the knee of Abraham being comforted for eternity. And between the two, there is a great chasm. It is one that separates the two sides. On one side there are the blessings of being in the house of the Lord and on the other there is the pain of separation for life eternal. A classic Jewish view of the afterlife was that the damned would live out eternity in view of the glory of God’s kingdom with no hope of crossing the chasm between the two. That was the fiery torment. Their thirst was that they could wish and desire and long to be with Abraham in God’s kingdom, but that thirst would never be quenched.
The rich man begs for mercy, the mercy that he never once afforded to Eleazar. “Father Abraham, send him to dip his finger into the water and place a drop on my tongue to ease my thirst.” Abraham’s response, “Sorry. No can do. It’s this chasm thing. It’s fixed. We can’t cross it.” But remember, in your lifetime, you received all good things and Eleazar got the evil in life that you created. [My editing] But now, here, he is comforted, and you are in agony – also of your making. [My editing, again].
At this point, the rich man makes a second request. It is that Abraham send Eleazar to his father’s house to warn his five brothers.
Another thought strikes me about this line in Jesus’ story. This rich man was not even head of his house. He was living in his father’s house. He, himself had never produced anything in his life of value. He had not worked for his riches. He did not earn them by his labors. All his riches were showered upon him by his father, and he rolled in that excess like a pig in a mud filled sty. He had all the advantages of his father’s love and grace and gifts, and he squandered it all on his gluttonous and lavish living. He never once thought that those gifts should be shared. He kept all that the father had given him to himself. He died never having stored up any of the right kind of riches that would help him gain entry into God’s kingdom for the afterlife. He never tried to build a relationship with God. There must be a message in there somewhere for the Pharisees and Jewish leaders within earshot of his lesson. And maybe for us as well.
So, the rich man asks that a messenger be sent to his brothers so that they might be warned to avoid the same fate. But Abraham’s response is that they have Moses and the Prophets as their messengers. They should listen to them. Yes they already have the Law of Moses and all the Prophets who were constantly admonishing Israel and Judah to stop their evil ways, repent and return to God. They already had all the teaching that they needed.
But wait, says the rich man. If you send someone to them that comes from the dead, they will surely listen and repent. And now comes Jesus makes a closing swipe at the Jewish leaders prophesying his own resurrection. “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
What is it that the Prophets have told them? What is it that God has told you? “O mortal, what is good? Do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
And who is that is raised from the dead? It is, of course, Jesus. He is foretelling his own rising and their continued rejection of his kingship. The day will come when evidence and proof of his resurrection will be made plain to them through the witness of his disciples and the empty tomb, but their response will be to squelch and blot it out.
There are only 12 verses in Luke for the retelling of this parable. But it is jammed pack with intentional meaning and lessons. I have unpacked some of them for you but there remains one more.
It is the whole thing about living within the Father’s house and being showered with all of the blessings and grace that the Father lavishly and recklessly pours out upon us and then doing nothing with it. That is the core unforgivable sin of the Jewish leadership, the scribes, the pharisees, the chief priests. They had been given it all, but they held it tightly within their own grasp never letting others have a glimpse of it. That is what Jesus told them they had gotten wrong. They had misinterpreted their role as God’s chosen people. The lavish gifts poured on them by God, the righteous relationship that God wishes for all of humanity, were meant to be shared.
And we have to be careful because we are similarly warned not to make the same mistakes. We have this story to tell, this Good News and we have the burden of being called to share it. But we are also called to share all the other gifts that God has given to us. We are to share our wealth and resources. These are the gifts you have been given. Don’t let them blind you. We are to share God’s saving grace, God’s compassion, God’s love, and God’s justice. We can be rich. We can have wealth. What we cannot do is to use them to build a chasm between us and the need in this world around us.
Charge: My friends, Jesus’ message has been sent. It has been announced by Moses and the Prophets and now one has died and has come back to life to repeat it for us. My charge to you is to listen and hear it.
