Our Neighbor at the Gate
It’s nice to be at BBC after being away the last two Sundays. Two weeks ago, Jill and I were in New Bern, North Carolina attending the wedding of our friend Adam Warren who stayed with us in the summer of 2007 when he pitched for the Brewster Whitecaps in the Cape Cod Baseball League. We had a lovely time with Adam, his bride Kristen, Adam’s parents and their family and friends. Last Sunday we were in Somerville, MA for my father’s final Sunday as a pastor in Massachusetts after 50 years of ministry in the greater Boston area. My dad has retired and he is getting re-married this Friday and then is moving to Seattle, Washington where his fiancée Carolyn lives so it has been and will be an adjustment for our family as you can imagine.
November 7, 2010: Luke 16:19-31, Our Neighbor at the Gate
Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
It’s been quite a week here at Brewster Baptist Church – beginning with the Harvest festival last Sunday – even if it got a little blustery, it was a wonderful event that we’ll do again next fall. Everyone who helped and participated did a great job. Meanwhile, nationwide, nearly $ 4 billion dollars were spent mostly stirring up fear and ripping other candidates in advance of the midterm elections on Tuesday. I think most people would agree that money could have been much better and more wisely used helping with the significant needs across our nation. Regardless, thousands of Brewster residents came to BBC to cast their ballots in the election we are relieved is over.
Yesterday another big crowd came through to enjoy the Holiday Fair, the culmination of the efforts of so many people in our church working so hard for many months, but especially this week. It is truly a great team effort and I’m so proud of everyone who led, served, contributed, and helped. I can’t name you all, but you know who you are. The proceeds of the Fair are being given to the Homeless Prevention Council to assist our neighbors in need. Given all that was going on this week, I thought a story from the Gospel of Luke would be appropriate for today. It is a parable about two men. One is known by his wealth –we’re never told his name only that he’s rich; the other is poor, but has a name – Lazarus. This is not the same Lazarus from John’s Gospel who is the brother of Mary and Martha. This is the only parable of Jesus in which any of the characters have names.
Luke places the parable in a context in which money plays a part in a series of parables. From the widow’s lost coin and the prodigal younger son squandering his inheritance in chapter 15 to the dishonest manager’s handling of debts in 16:1-13, the topic of handling money keeps popping up. The transition between the stories of the Dishonest Manager and the Rich Man and Lazarus include Jesus’ words that one cannot serve both God and wealth followed by Luke’s characterization of the Pharisees as “lovers of money” (16:14). To call one’s opponents money lovers was a common means of denigrating their character in the first century. This description suggests we should take the parable’s depiction of wealth and poverty seriously. Listen closely to the parable:
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.
The rich man also died and was buried.
In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He 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.’But 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. Besides all this, between 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.’
He said, ‘Then father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house – for I have five brothers – that he may warn them, so that they will not come to this place of torment.’ Abraham replied,
‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’
He 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.’”
In Luke’s gospel Jesus speaks repeatedly of the importance of a proper attitude toward and stewardship of whatever money or material goods we have. Those of us who are blessed with much in the way of material things have a wonderful opportunity to glorify God and to be a blessing to others. There is joy and satisfaction in being able to give and serve in a way that blesses other people. It is also wonderful and a joy to be the recipient of someone’s generosity. On the other hand, it is always sad when people don’t realize until the end of their life, when it is too late, that there are eternal consequences to what we do with our money and our life, for good or bad.
In his book, The Measure Of Our Days, New Beginnings at Life’s End,
Dr. Jerome Groopman, details the responses of eight different individuals to life threatening illness. Kirk was a 54 year old president of an investment company.
At the end of his life, after a brief remission from cancer, he and his doctor had the following conversation. Doctor Groopman begins, “I’m sorry the magic didn’t work longer.” Kirk replies, “It did more than anyone expected, Jerry. But you shouldn’t feel sorry. There was no reason to live anyway.”
“You closed a few more deals. Cathy and the children and your mother had you for four pretty healthy months.” They went on and spoke about newspapers and Kirk stated he couldn’t read them anymore because his deals and trades seemed pointless. Kirk said of his life, “I had no patience for the long term.
I had no interest in creating something, not a product in business or a partnership with a person. And now I have no equity. No dividends coming in. Nothing to show in my portfolio. How do you like that for my great epiphany?
No voice of God or holy star, but a newspaper left unread in its wrapper.”
What about your wife and children, Jerry asked.
“They’ll be fine without me. The remission meant nothing because it was too late to relive my life. I once asked for hell.
Maybe God made this miracle to have me know what it will feel like.”
Dr. Groopman writes, “I felt the crushing weight of Kirk’s burden choke my heart. There is no more awful death than to die with regret,
feeling that you had lived a wasted life,
death delivering this shattering final sentence on your empty soul.”
“Have you thought about telling Cathy and the children what you have told me?”
Kirk recoiled in shock. “Why so they can hear what they already know? That I was a self-absorbed uncaring s@#*? That’s really going to be a comforting deathbed interchange.”
“Kirk, you can’t relive your life. There is no time. But Cathy and Roanna and Paul can learn from you. And when you’re gone, the memory of your words may help guide them.”[1]
The similarities of Kirk’s life with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus are striking. In the Biblical story, life for the rich man is a daily banquet. He is draped in the purple robes of wealth over fine Egyptian linen underwear. Nothing about him hints of need. Poor Lazarus covered with open sores, lies among the dogs, gaunt, hollow eyed, and famished, his face toward the rich man’s house. Lazarus lies at the gate (the Greek suggests Lazarus is “thrown” or “dumped” there; 16:20), affording the Rich Man an opportunity to intervene, but he doesn’t, not even in the slightest most superficial way. Both men die but to different ends. The rich man died, perhaps from overeating, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure and was buried.
The poor man died, perhaps of starvation, and was carried away by angels.
In death, their roles are reversed. Lazarus, whose name comes from Eleazar which means “God helps,” is an honored guest with Abraham at God’s table. Neglected by others in life, Lazarus is prized by God in death. Meanwhile, the rich man is in agony and torment in flames. Both their conditions are final. Part of what makes this parable uncomfortable is that the economic and social condition of most of us in the congregation is closer to that of the rich man than poor, starving Lazarus. What also makes us really uncomfortable is the idea that those who are judged by God to be selfish, contemptuous, and uncaring toward their neighbors face agony and torment after death when they finally realize the eternal consequences of the choices they made in life. This is not something we like to think about too much, but perhaps we should.
Jesus is driving home a crucial point about how money and possessions can be a barrier or a blessing in our relationship with our neighbors and with God. A focus on self, money and material consumption produces people with shriveled, impoverished souls who are also bad neighbors. Even after the rich man died he doesn’t understand what has happened and where his selfishness, greed, and pride have led him. He speaks to Abraham, a giant of the faith, as if he is his equal and he regards Lazarus like a servant to be sent on an errand to cool his thirst or to pay a visit to his brothers! Talk about someone who doesn’t get it! Even after death he doesn’t think of Lazarus even remotely as an equal.
The anonymous rich man failed in life and in death to grasp the truth about how our lives are to be invested. Almost 100 years ago Archbishop Richard Trent wrote about the “disease” that killed the rich man in the parable. He said the sin of the rich man “in its root is unbelief: hard-hearted contempt for the poor, luxurious squandering on self, are only the forms which his sin assumes. The seat of the disease is within; these are but the running sores which witness for the inward plague. He who believes not in an invisible world of righteousness and trust and spiritual joy, must place his hope in things which he sees, which he can handle, and taste, and smell. It is not the essence of the matter, whether he hoards (like the rich fool, Luke 12:16-21) or squanders (like the son in Luke 15:11-32): in either case he puts his trust in the world.”[2]
Having put his trust in the things of the world and realizing his mistake, like Kirk the head of the investment company, only when it is too late to re-live his own life, the rich man pleads with Abraham to send Lazarus as a messenger to go warn his five brothers of the fate that awaits those who fail to obey God’s word. Abraham tells him they already have a sufficient message about treating other people with dignity and generosity in the law and the prophets, just as the rich man did. The Pharisees to whom Jesus addressed this parable would have known the words of Deuteronomy 15:7-11, “7 If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. 8 You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. 9 Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, “The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,” and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt. 10 Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11 Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.” There are many other passages I could cite (see Isaiah 58:6-7).
We have not only the Old Testament but the gospels which tell us of Jesus and his teaching regarding material possessions, wealth, and poverty; but of Jesus who was crucified for our sins and who rose from the dead and we have the rest of the New Testament as well. Did the rich man’s brothers ever get the message about living generous, compassionate, trusting lives? We’re not told because that is the question the parable leaves us to answer. Each of us is a sister or brother of the rich man and we will write our own ending to the story. Will we treat all our neighbors both those who are literally close by and those who are poor but who often are “out of sight and out of mind,” with dignity and neighborliness?
Two quick observations from this past week – from India I read about the newly built home of Mumbai multibillionaire Mukesh Ambani that has a 50-seat theater, 9 elevators, 6 floors of parking, and 3 helipads, and it stands 27 stories tall over India’s financial capital, a city where 62% of the population lives in slums. The building, estimated to be worth $1 billion, will be home to Ambani, his wife, and their three children. I don’t mean to cast aspersions against him, perhaps he is incredibly generous with his fortune, but the contrast and the excess are hard to ignore or defend.
Secondly, driving this week I saw a snide, contemptuous bumper sticker that said, “Keep working – Millions on welfare are depending on you.” I have a hard time imagining Jesus putting that on his chariot, if he had owned one. In this case the bumper sticker was on a minivan. Next to it was another bumper sticker that said, “My German Shepherd is smarter than your honor student.” What was terribly ironic about these two bumper stickers was the following – the minivan had one of those signs that goes on the stop indicating it served as a school bus! So the driver was communicating to the students she picked up that she thought her dog was smarter than they were and that it was acceptable to treat other people disrespectfully. Condescension and disdain toward children or the poor are directly opposite of the attitude that Jesus has and commands us to have toward those two groups of people.
We are the sisters and brothers of the rich man in the parable. Jesus wants us to understand we have been warned and encouraged in God’s holy word to live generously and compassionately – to see and respond to the neighbor at our gate. Who is that for you? For some of us it may literally be our next door neighbor, for others there would never be someone like Lazarus at the end of our driveway. Who is our neighbor at the gate? How are you responding to him or her? Are your eyes open to see them?
Jesus says our money and possessions can be a barrier to our relationship with our neighbors and with the Lord or our money and possessions can be used to bless and build a bridge to our neighbors and give pleasure and glory to God. Either way the handling of our money demonstrates the nature of our relationship with our Creator. Everyone who helped in any way with the Holiday Fair this year can feel great knowing that thanks to everyone’s efforts and God’s blessing we are going to be able to give the Homeless Prevention Council around $30,000 to help our neighbors! Praise the Lord.
As we think about our neighbor at the gate, let us be committed to responding to them as Jesus would and write a happy ending to our life story.
[1]The Measure of Our Days, Dr. Jerome Groopman, pages 35-38.
[2] Richard C. Trench, Notes on the Parables of Our Lord (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Tribuner, & Co., 1915) p. 457.