Day of the Church Year: 16th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Passage: Luke 16:19-31
In the early 1990s, Chip had a 4 year old daughter and a subscription to one of the news magazines, Time or Newsweek. On the cover of one of the issues appeared an emaciated child, a child clearly experiencing malnourishment and hunger, the headline about the famine in Somalia. In considering this image, Chip’s daughter asked a question. The question could have been: Why is this child hungry? Or what can I do to help this child? Or perhaps an adult question like: What systems or natural disasters are creating widespread hunger in Somalia? But what Chip’s 4 year old daughter asked her dad was: What’s her name? What’s the name of the child who’s hungry?
The most challenging aspect of Jesus’ parable today is that it’s so clear. Excruciating in its irony and simplicity, Jesus teaches his disciples as well as the Pharisees gathered round the ethic of love. Lazarus lays at the gate of the rich man’s home while the rich man wears purple and fine linen, signs of his great wealth, and feasts sumptuously every day. Both men die, Lazarus joining Father Abraham, the rich man entering Hades. In the torment of Hades, the rich man calls on Father Abraham to send Lazarus to him with water, that he might cool his tongue. Even in the afterlife, the rich man believes Lazarus is there to serve him which Father Abraham quickly shuts down. In concern for his family, the rich man then requests that Lazarus be sent to the rich man’s family to warn them of what is to come for those who ignore vulnerable people. Again, Father Abraham declines and says his family can listen to Moses and the prophets who consistently articulated the necessity of caring for those who are vulnerable. The rich man protests saying, if someone comes back from the dead, they will listen. And Abraham declares in a moment of foreshadowing, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
Because Jesus’ parable is apocalyptic in nature, not meant to be taken literally, Jesus speaks not of how to avoid an afterlife in Hades or how to hold a conversation with someone in heaven while in hell. No. Rather, Jesus speaks of love, the greatest of all the commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This greatest commandment can be paralyzing. How do we truly love God, love our neighbor, love ourselves in a world troubled by so many disasters and injustices all at once? In the deep and stormy sea of our world’s problems lies people, people in Ukraine and Pakistan, people in south Phoenix and Scottsdale, people next door and people camping on deserted lots. People who got up this morning and saw the sun, heard the birds chirp and felt the breeze on their skin. People who get hungry and thirsty, who fall in love and yearn to contribute to the common good. People who make mistakes and are caught in systems beyond their control. People shaped by the cultures and religions and families into which they were born. We are also these people. While love requires action systemic and political, and while our neighbors live near and far, including strangers we will never meet, certainly, our neighbors include the people who lay right in our path, like Lazarus laid at the gate of the rich man.
Jesus’ apocalyptic parable does not provide instruction about afterlife or salvation but about how we live here, now. Just as all apocalyptic tales do, this one reveals a truth still relevant two thousand years later: that a joyous life is full of relationships. Not acts of charity but knowing our neighbor and being known, listening to them and being listened to, helping and being helped, knowing their name and having ours known as well.
Did you notice that the rich man knows the name of Lazarus—but that the rich man has no name in this parable? Surely, we might think, if the rich man knows the name of the vulnerable man lying at his gate, he has loved the man as the law commands. Yet apparently, the rich man did not introduce himself. He did not allow himself to be known by someone he may have believed was beneath him.
A few years ago, I remember struggling with this particular lesson: of how to love others in personal, specific ways. So I asked a friend who excels in this area how he loves people in particular. My friend said: When I meet someone new, no matter the context, no matter the person, I offer my hand, introduce myself, and open my heart to them. People will respond however they want, and we have no control over that. But I offer my hand, introduce myself, and open my heart to them.
When we follow God’s command to love God, neighbor, and self, when we risk entering relationship, it’s not only the other person who gets to be loved. We get to be loved too. When we learn the name of the person in our path, we get to share ours too. This is the good news: love is not just a command to us but a promise for us. Thanks be to God! Amen.