Matthew 25.40
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these [who
are members of my family], you did it to me.”
Luke 16.19-31
19 ‘There
was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted
sumptuously every day.
20And
at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
21who
longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table;
even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
22The
poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.*
The rich man also died and was buried.
23In
Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far
away with Lazarus by his side.*
24He
called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip
the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in
these flames.”
25But
Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received
your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is
comforted here, and you are in agony.
26Besides
all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those
who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can
cross from there to us.”
27He
said, “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—
28for
I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also
come into this place of torment.”
29Abraham
replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.”
30He
said, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead,
they will repent.”
31He
said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither
will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” ’
Story about Priest who dresses up as a homeless man.
Today’s Parable: Rich Man, Poor (homeless) Man (Lazarus); Heaven & Hell on Earth
§ Last shall be first, first shall be last [arrogance of wealth and power]
§ God wants you to protect & feed to helpless
§ Parable: what you think you know isn’t so (wealthy aren’t more in God’s favor than the poor and homeless. God judges by different standard that we can’t understand. Heart Attack because did something wrong?
Sin: Darfur citizens worth little – trash people. Liberians worth less than us. Iraqis worth less than us.
Do you believe in Heaven? – in Hell?
Ancient Debate, Debate in Diocese, Debate in Anglican World
Literal vs. Apocryphal – Jonah, Noah, …
As Episcopalian w/ Scripture, Tradition, Reason
Ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson
Joke – Pope and Top Rabbi; Elijah announces coming of the Messiah
Story about Priest who dresses up as homeless.
Today’s Parable: Rich Man, Poor (homeless) Man (Lazarus); Heaven & Hell on Earth
§ Last shall be first, first shall be last [arrogance of wealth and power]
§ God wants you to protect & feed to helpless
§ Parable: what you think you know isn’t so (wealthy aren’t more in God’s favor than the poor and homeless. God judges by different standard that we can’t understand. Heart Attack because did something wrong?
Have you heard the story about the priest who dressed up on a Sunday morning in a stinky, dirty, coat from a homeless man? His congregation passed by on their way to their pews, looking away. He came in, took off the filthy coat and faced his congregation. Stunned silence! Embarrassed silence! These Christians knew they should have stopped and offered to help the homeless person with a meal, or with shelter.
We all, as Christians, know we should stop and help – give him the coat off our back, the shoes off our feet.
Ask young or old at the year ZeroAD – he will tell you that the rich man in Luke’s Gospel is good and that the poor man (Lazarus in this case) is bad. Isn’t it obvious that God is showing favor on the rich man and penalizing poor Lazarus? The rich man is good and great. Lazarus is evil – or his parents did evil, or his grandparents did evil. Lazarus should be thrown to the dogs. Lazarus is worthless. He is rubbish. Keep away from me Lazarus! But in this gospel, Lazarus is in Heaven resting in the arms of Abraham while the Rich Man is being tortured in Hell.
Do you believe the poor man, Lazarus, has done evil and the Rich Man has done good? But if you do not, if you believe Lazarus has worth, maybe even more than the Rich Man, that Lazarus should be loved and cared for and not scorned, then you have learned this lesson from Jesus. The world, our civilization, has learned this message from Jesus. The powerful, inspired message that all are loved and are children of God is a central message of Christianity, a message of love whose believers have grown from maybe120 early followers of Jesus at the time of his crucifixion to now 30% of population of the world.
Lazarus – the dogs licking his (ulcerated) weeping wounds. Incidentally the Greek term that translates as ulcerated was a medical term, virtually never used by those outside the medical field. This is one of the indications that Luke was a doctor. These dogs are not fu-fu lap dogs with long hair bathed and with pink ribbons in tied in their hair. These dogs are virtually wild ‘junkyard’ dogs. They fought off bears and lions in the Israel of Jesus’ day. When strangers or the very sick were left outside the city gates each night, many were torn to pieces and eaten by these dogs. Imagine these dogs licking your suppurating wounds. Terrifying! Lazarus must have had no family to take him in away from these terrifying dogs. What a life – weak, sick, begging for food, homeless, kicked away from water so he wouldn’t make others impure, not allowed into the temple because of his wounds, so further disgraced and ostracized by ‘good’ Jews and the priests.
In today’s gospel story, Jesus tells us that you think you know sinners from the godly people. But you do not! Only God knows. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. That’s the meaning of Lazarus the destitute going to heaven and reclining in the bosom of Abraham. But the rich man in purple, the member of the royal family, goes to Hell and is tortured. Neither Abraham nor even the lowly Lazarus would even give him a drop of water on their fingertips to relieve his Hell.
Too many of us here in the United States are
inclined to think our wealth means we’re rich and powerful so God must
be blessing us. Others who
live in garbage dumps, who live in countries where life is cheap, must
be less worthy than Americans.
We need to reconsider while we wear our purple robes, our robes
that have American flags.
God, through the scriptures, is telling the Jews to be the light on the
hill, to show the Way to all humanity.
God, through the scriptures, is telling us in
Do you believe in Heaven? – in Hell?
Ancient Debate, Debate in Diocese, Debate in Anglican World
Literal vs. Apocryphal – Jonah, Noah, …
As Episcopalian w/ Scripture, Tradition, Reason
I really didn’t want to preach on Heaven and Hell. But that is the elephant in the middle of the room of this gospel to ignore if I don’t.
Do you believe in Hell? This gospel says there is a Hell where the unworthy are sent to be tortured perhaps for an eternity. The unworthy can see heaven and are further tortured by seeing the bliss of those in Heaven and can even talk and plead with them – can beg them for help.
Scholars and seminary trained priests have argued at least since the year 100 AD whether the gospels and the other scriptures are literally true, or whether the bible stores are teaching metaphors something like Aesop’s Fables. No scholar doubts that Jesus told parables that turned the current understanding of good and evil of his day upside down. For example, in today’s parable, the ‘worthless’ Lazarus was worth more than the supposedly bless rich man.
Those who believe that the bible is mostly
factually true – that the stories like
Jonah being swallowed by the whale and then being spit out alive
after three days, Noah building his Ark with all the animals, the Exodus
story with Plagues and Splitting of the Red Sea, the existence of Heaven
and Hell, the world was created in seven days 5758 years ago, and so on
are referred to as Maximalists – a maximum number of biblical stories
are true. The early
Christian study school in
Today, we have Episcopal priests in this diocese who believe every word in the bible is literally true. On the other hand, we have priests in this diocese who believe that most stories in the bible are NOT literally true. And most priests in this diocese believe the truth lies somewhere in between. You can be a good Episcopalian whether you are a Maximalist, a Minimalist, or something in between. Our Episcopalian message, “Scripture, Tradition, Reason” on our sign outside and elsewhere, includes our not being required to believe everything in the bible is literally true. That’s even written down in the ‘New Catechism’ book I’ve been given to teach catechism lessons starting soon.
This is, in essence, in the largest sense, the argument tearing our Episcopal and Anglican Church apart. In particular, the question is – “is homosexuality a sin?” The bibles literally says so, but are those few passages literal prohibitions or are they parables speaking to the important message of not abusing or exploiting one another? Homosexual rape was used to humiliate defeated military enemies, for example.
The programming of all the world’s news agencies, were mysteriously replaced with a message came through in all the languages of the world – a humble but charismatic man – it must be Elijah! - appeared on all screens announcing that God’s messiah, God’s Christ, was coming to earth. The skies open, down through the clouds a wondrous chariot descends with God’s Anointed One wearing a dazzling white robe. Abraham looks down. Angels are everywhere singing ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’.
The Head Rabbi and the Pope rush forward to the chariot.
“His name is Jesus, from
“No! He’s never been here on earth before. We’ve waiting all these millennia for God’s messiah to bring His Kingdom to here on earth.”
As these two men rush up to this man stepping off the chariot, they blurt out in unison, “Holy One, have you been here on Earth before?”
He turns his glowing face and his penetrating eyes toward these two and answers, “Never mind that. What have you two been doing to prepare the Way to bring Our Father’s Kingdom to here on earth?”
Silence! Stunned Silence from the two. Uh-oh! Wrong question from the leaders of the world’s religions. Wrong focus! Has their (and our) focus has been on details, not on acting as hands of God, not on feeding and protecting and loving His children and His place of creation.
It’s human nature to want a secure, reserved ticket
to Heaven. We want to earn our
ticket to Heaven. That’s
called earning your way into heaven by Works.
The rich may probably paid all of his
I heard a wonderful theologian say on TV that his first question of God and of His right hand man was going to be, not have you been to earth before, but why does the Holy Spirit tell me one thing and tells the next person something different. Why, after most serious contemplation and prayer, some Episcopalian bishops were lead by the Holy Spirit to confirm homosexual Bishop Gene Robinson while the other Episcopalian bishops were lead by the Holy Spirit to vote against Bishop Robinson. Some theologians have proposed that this schism, this different Holy Spirit messages to our Bishops, was to teach all us to love one another in spite of our serious differences – or to ignore our differences because we can’t understand the why of our differences, anyway – to teach us to love blindly without caveats. Just as the mother of a murderer should continue to lover her son.
I think the Holy Spirit sometimes tells each of us different things because that’s what we need to access God, to bring God into us and our lives. Whether we sing and dance to praise songs or to old Hymns, whether we are Minimalists or Maximalists regarding the Holy Bible, the message is the same. We are to love and to care for God’s creation – to love one another, even the lowly Lazarus’ of the world, to prepare the Way for His Messiah, or His Christ.
Amen.