Text: Luke 16:19–31
Date: September 25, 2022
Event: Proper 21, Year C
Luke 16:19–31 (EHV)
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. 20A beggar named Lazarus had been laid at his gate. Lazarus was covered with sores and 21longed to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Besides this, the dogs also came and licked his sores. 22Eventually the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In hell, where he was in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus at his side. 24He called out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me! Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in misery in this flame.’
25“But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, and you are in misery. 26Besides all this, a great chasm has been set in place between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
27“He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s home, 28because I have five brothers—to warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
29“Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.’
30“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
31“Abraham replied to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Can You Judge Eternity by its Earthly Cover?
You’ve heard the trite, cliche line: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But, there’s a lot of truth to that. I have a lovely copy of the Lord of the Rings books at home that have these wonderfully-feeling pseudo-leather covers. They look amazing. Despite being only a couple of years old, they smell amazing. I bought them like literally two weeks before the lockdown started in early 2020, and when we were stuck at home I thought this would be a great time to finally read these books. But as I sat down to do it, I discovered that the type in the books is so small that it’s almost unreadable. They are wildly uncomfortable to read. The good first impression did not speak to the whole.
And certainly this doesn’t just happen with books. Movies, video games, breakfast cereals, fast food commercials, real estate listings, and anything else trying to sell you on something or convince you on something’s quality is going to, at the bear minimum, put its best foot forward if not even outright lying about the quality that lies within. And yet, it works right? You go to that open house because the apartment or home looks great in the pictures and then you get there and it’s small and cramped and uncomfortable. You get that sandwich that looked so nice on the menu to find a squashed, kind of gross reality on the tray they hand to you. But still we want to believe that what we see will be what we get.
That becomes especially dangerous when we consider this life as the “front cover” for eternity. Is what we experience here a reflection of what is coming? How much about what we go through in this life shows us what God thinks about us? Should our experiences in this life make us hopeful or worried about what is to come?
In our Gospel, Jesus shares a story that’s probably a parable (although, it’s not called out as such) about an unnamed rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus. The experiences for both of these men in life could not have been more different. There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. A beggar named Lazarus had been laid at his gate. Lazarus was covered with sores and longed to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Besides this, the dogs also came and licked his sores. The rich man and Lazarus are living in two totally different worlds: wealth vs. poverty, comfort vs. pain, an abundance vs. not enough.
To look at this book on the outside, one might say that God loves the rich man and hates or at least is indifferent toward Lazarus. After all, look at all the good things the rich man has and look at all the good Lazarus lacks. Modern-day prosperity gospel preachers like Joel Osteen and his ilk preach a message similar to this. They will encourage people to measure their faith by the observable blessings that they have, and advise that if someone lacks wealth or health or anything else, they don’t believe strongly enough or haven’t pursued it with God often enough.
Does Jesus’ story give even one shred of credit to that notion? Lazarus dies and is taken to heaven and the rich man dies and is in hell. It’s a total role-reversal. If you were judging what God thought about either of these men by the cover of their earthly life, you would guess that God loved the rich man and despised Lazarus. But the reality in eternal life is much, much different. Looking at someone’s earthly life and earthly wealth tells you nothing about the relationship they have with the Almighty.
Last week we spent a good amount of time talking through the dangers of pursuing more and more earthly wealth. It leads to discontent; it could lead to a falling away from faith. And in Jesus’ story we see another strong reason for not pursuing earthly wealth and putting stock in this life: it just doesn’t matter. Being rich in this life doesn’t translate to blessings in eternity, and being poor in this life doesn’t translate to enduring grief in eternity.
I need to stress that again: it doesn’t matter. Earthly wealth doesn’t play into this at all, one way or another. Lest we misunderstand Jesus’ point: the rich man did not go to hell because he was rich in his earthly life and Lazarus did not go to heaven because he suffered in his earthly life. In Jesus’ story, Abraham makes clear the distinction as he speaks with the rich man about his brothers: They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.
In this story, the rich man ends up in hell because he does not believe the promises of God. Lazarus ends up in heaven because he does believe the promises of God. Note that God’s promises say very little about earthly life here, save for daily bread. Lazarus seemed to have just barely had daily bread where the rich man had an abundance.
But God’s promises primarily focus on the spiritual and the eternal. Is a person’s earthly life an indication of what is coming? Perhaps, but not necessarily. And if it does coordinate, one did not cause the other. The riches and pains of this life are completely inconsequential when it comes to eternity.
So when you look at your life, maybe you feel nervous about your ability to make ends meet and then worried that this situation means that God doesn’t care very much about you. Or maybe you look at your health struggles and it feels like God has forgotten you. It may feel that way, but the reality is the contrary! God loves you and has forgiven your sins in Jesus. Or when you look at your life and see that you have much more than you need or perhaps more than you could ever use, don’t let that twist your thinking to assume that this means you automatically have things set for now and for eternity.
Regardless of our socio-economic position, our health status, or our reputation among others, we have the same needs that Lazarus, the rich man, and his brothers all had in Jesus’ day: Moses and the Prophets. That’s shorthand for the inspired Scriptures at that time, so we might have sub in just “the Bible.” Rich or poor, healthy or sick, strong or frail, we need God’s message. We need God to come to us and confront our greed or our anger or our lust or our gossiping heart or whatever sins might have a snare around, and show us how incompatible those things are with God’s expectations. We need the message of God’s law to convict us of our sin and show us how we haven’t been the perfect people that God demands we be.
But then we also need the Bible’s message of gospel—the good news that Jesus lived and died to free us from those sins. This is where we actually find out what God thinks of us. You can’t deduce that from a bank account balance, the report from the doctor, or personal awards and accolades. Those things are just the cover of the book, which can be misleading. You can only deduce what God thinks of you by looking at Jesus. And what do you see when you look at him? You see the Son of God living a perfect life in place of your sinful life. You see the Creator of the universe dying to pay the debt his creation owed. You are so precious to God that he was willing to die to save you. That’s what God thinks about you, regardless of what you have or don’t have right here and right now.
We’ve spoken a lot about contentment over the last few weeks, but in Jesus’ story Abraham reminds us that if there’s one thing we should never be content with, it’s how much we know God’s Word, how well we’re connected to his love, and how powerful an impact that message of his love and forgiveness has on our lives of service to others. And those things are all things that God does for us, through his Word and sacraments.
You know how God loves you dearly, not because of what he’s given you now, but what he’s assured you is your inheritance forever. Spend your time focused on what is truly important and truly imparts understanding for what God has prepared for you. Your Savior gives you what you need now, and will give you an abundance in eternity because he loves you. May that fact, more than any earthly metric, be your encouragement as you look ahead to what is to come.
Thanks be to our Savior, who forgives our every sin in his love for us! Amen.
