Proper
21 :: Amos 6: 1a, 4–7 / Psalm 146 / I Timothy 6: 6–19 / Luke 16: 19–31
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker
on Sunday, September 29, 2019.
“IS IT OK TO BE RICH?”
(Homily
texts: Psalm 146 & Luke 16: 19–31)
Is it OK to be rich?
The question naturally comes to mind
whenever we hear Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
Our Gospel text, appointed for today,
puts before stark choices: The rich man, portrayed as living in luxury,
feasting on sumptuous foods every day, and who wore fine linen and was clothed
in purple (only the very rich and royalty wore clothing of such a color). But
outside the rich man’s gate lay a very poor, sick and troubled man, named
Lazarus. Lazarus was covered in sores. Lazarus’ sores were so bad that the dogs
came and licked them.
By the reckoning of many Jews in the
days of Jesus’ earthly ministry, the rich man was rich simply because he was
doing all the “right things”, things which gained God’s favor. By contrast, the
common belief of that day was that Lazarus was sick and poor because God was
either judging him for some grievous sin, or – perhaps – it could be that God
had abandoned him completely. Moreover, because of Lazarus’ physical condition,
he was ritually unclean. His “dirtiness” was so bad that he came into contact
with dogs, who were regarded as being unclean animals in the culture of that
time. Lazarus’ filth was so bad that he would have been barred from coming into
the temple in Jerusalem to worship. If we back up in Luke’s account just one
chapter, we find Jesus describing a person’s uncleanness in similar terms in
the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the prodigal had sunk to such a low place
in life that he was living with pigs (another unclean animal by the standards
of the day).
But as Jesus spins out the parable, a
startling role reversal takes place:
Both men die, but – contrary to the common attitudes of the day – the
rich man is carried away to hell, while Lazarus finds himself at Abraham’s side
(or Abraham’s Bosom, as it is translated in some older translations, a common
expression for heaven in those days).
(It’s worth noting, at this point, the
reversals of roles is a common theme in Luke’s Gospel account. Consider, for
example the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Song (known as the Magnificat). In it,
Mary says, “He (God) has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and
exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and
the rich he has sent away empty.” (Luke 1: 52 – 53). Here, in today’s parable,
we see this theme carried out.
Why does Jesus portray the rich man as
being deserving of hell[1]?
By all the standards of the Lord’s time, the rich man was doing everything
right. He was obviously blessed by God for the simple reason that he was living
faithfully before God, at least according to the common wisdom of the day. Was
there something that the rich man missed, somehow?
Yes, indeed, the rich man missed
something very important, something that the Law of Moses, the prophets, the
Psalms and the Proverbs, the whole body of divine wisdom that shaped the lives
of God’s faithful people in that time 2,000 years ago makes a deliberate point
of: The rich man forgot that the powerless of the world are God’s focus, too.
The Psalm appointed for this morning makes the point: “The Lord sets the
prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those
who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the
sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked
be brings to ruin.” (Psalm 146: 7b – 9) (English Standard Version) The rich
man, if he had been living faithfully, would have remembered that it was his responsibility
to care for the powerless of this world. If he had remembered one important
provision in the Law of Moses, there might have been some possibility for him
to do right by Lazarus: That provision is found in Leviticus 19: 9 - 10, which
reads, “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field
right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your
harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather
the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for
the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.” (English Standard Version – ESV)
Looking at our Lord’s description of
the rich man, we might easily come to the conclusion that the rich man must
have had a very proper spiritual life. Certainly, the rich man would have been
welcome in the temple. Certainly, he must have been very devout in living as a
faithful member of God’s people in that day and time.
But, it seems, he’d forgotten that,
though the spiritual is important, so is the physical life, a life which
demonstrates God’s generous nature by mandating that God’s people are to act generously
to care for the needs of others.
(The early Church would wrestle with a
similar problem, as the heresy known as Gnosticism arose. Gnosticism maintained
that only the spiritual was real, the physical wasn’t. Therefore, Gnostics
ignored the physical. It is a distorted pattern of belief and behavior that can
still be found in some quarters of Christianity today.)
Our Lord puts before us another
important point: We are to make wise
choices now, in this life. I think that is the Lord’s intent in describing the
separation between the rich man and Lazarus that came into being after each man
had died.
The decisions we make in this life –
since we are immersed in a life which is both spiritual and physical – matter.
To follow the Lord in sincerity, in
truth, and in holiness of life, holding in tension the
importance of maintaining our spiritual health, all the while realizing that
what we do, our actions, matter, is our calling and our quest.
In our parish of St. John’s, it’s one
reason that we receive a dedicated offering each and every Sunday, offerings
which are devoted to caring for others. In addition, we receive a number of
special offerings as needs arise throughout the year. In so doing, we are
called to be generous givers. (II Corinthians 9: 7) (ESV)
St. James, writing in his general
letter, summarizes what we’ve been considering quite well: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone
says he has faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a
brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you
says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the
things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it
does not have works, is dead.” (James 2: 14 – 17) (ESV)
AMEN.
[1] Jesus’ portrayal of hell appropriates a
common image in the culture of the day. In some places in the Gospel accounts,
hell is called Hades (the term that appears in the Greek in Luke 16:23).
But Jesus’ description of hell has elements of another word, Gehenna,
which is derived from the Valley of Hinnom. In Jesus’ day the Hinnom Valley was
the place of the town dump for Jerusalem, a place where undesired things were
put away, a place with fires that burned continually.
