Amos 6: 1a, 4–7 / Psalm 146 / I Timothy 6: 6-19 / Luke 16: 19–31
This is the homily written for Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania for September 28, 2025 by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.
“THE ESSENTIAL AND BASIC REALITY OF EACH AND EVERY HUMAN BEING
IS…”
(Homily text: Luke 16: 19-31)
Today’s Gospel reading puts before us
Jesus’ wonderful Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. (This parable is one of
those treasures that Luke, alone among the Gospel writers, passes along to us.)
As is common to much of Luke’s legacy,
this parable, too, features an overturning of the commonly-held beliefs of
God’s people in the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry. For in that day and time,
the common belief was that if a person was wealthy, or healthy, or both, then
their state in life must surely be due to their upright and blameless life,
following all the precepts and requirements of the Law of Moses.
(Among Christians today, a version of
such a belief continues to exist: It is known as the “Prosperity Gospel”, the
belief that if we do good stuff, God will bless us richly. Needless to say, the
“Prosperity Gospel” is heresy, pure and simple. For God does not promise us
health or wealth. Instead, God promises that – whatever life’s journey brings
our way - He will always be present in whatever circumstances we find
ourselves. Not only that, God also promises to love us, no matter what.)
Jesus unfolds a tale of a very rich man[1], a
man who is so rich that he can dress in purple clothing.[2] Jesus tells us that the man feasted sumptuously every day.
At the rich man’s gate, lay Lazarus,
who is sickly and whose only comfort is the neighborhood dogs, who come up to
lick his sores. He would very much like to have what was wasted at the rich
man’s table as it fell away.
Now, in typical fashion which Luke
seems to admire, the tables are now turned.
Lazarus, Jesus tells us, is carried by
the angels to Abraham’s Bosom (a Jewish way of saying that he had been carried
into God’s presence, and into a pleasant circumstance of comfort). The rich
man, however, is simply buried. (Notice the contrast.)
Following each man’s death, they find
themselves in totally different and unexpected circumstances. In contrast to
Lazarus, who is now enjoying the comfort of love and care that he never had in
his earthly life, the rich man now finds himself (perhaps for the very first
time) in want, and in pain.
It might be prudent for us not to focus
too closely on the aspect of the parable that deals with the nature of the
afterlife. Jesus point in this part of the parable might not necessarily be to
portray the process that unfolds following the end of this life’s journey. Perhaps
it is enough for us to see that Jesus’ description of the state of both men
after their deaths is to describe the value that God places on each and every
human being.
It turns out that Lazarus, who, by the
commonly-held beliefs of the time, was of little value, and was regarded, quite
likely, as being disposable, was highly valued by God. By contrast, the rich
man, who the world would most likely thought was of considerable value, was of
little help and value to anyone but himself.
We might remind ourselves that each
encounter we have with Holy Scripture is meant to change us in some way.
Scripture exists to remind us of the mind of God, and of God’s intent for the
world that we human beings have the ability to create, or to destroy.
“Choose life!” we say.
That surely must be one reason Jesus
spun out this tale of a selfish, self-centered man, and the poor and sickly man
who lay just outside the gate of his compound. For the rich man did absolutely
nothing to improve Lazarus’ life. He surely had the means. He lacked a focus on
anyone other than himself. He also lacked a focus on God’s will and command where
the care we are to provide to those in need is concerned.
Choose life! Choose to do good to
others, choose to do all we can to improve others’ lives and their walk with
God. Choose to realize that all that we have and all that we enjoy as blessings
in this life are to be used for the betterment not only of ourselves, but for
the betterment of others.
This parable conveys a basic truth
about human life and human beings: Each and every human being is God’s
deliberate and wonderful creation. Each and every human being is made in the
image and likeness of God (as Genesis reminds us). Each and every human being
has worth, and so, is to be valued.
As God’s people, we may have to look
beyond the outward circumstance of a person’s life to see the intrinsic value
of a person who has been created in the image and likeness of God. But God’s
will for us as His disciples is to be about the sometimes-difficult business of
looking not only at the things we can see about someone, but beyond that into
their value in God’s sight.
Since this is so, let us – as God’s
people in the world – be about the business of showing by our actions that
God’s love dwells within our hearts and minds.
This is, by all accounts, sacramental
living, whereby our outward actions mirror the inner reality that we have come
to know God’s love and God’s estimation of our value, and of the value and
worth of others.
AMEN.
[1] The rich man has acquired a nickname down through the years: Dives,
which is derived from the Latin word for “rich”.
[2] In ancient times, only the very wealthy, or noble people, could afford purple clothing, since it was made from the harvesting of small sea snails to dye the cloth.
