September 26, 2004
By Jack Price

            It’s like the Wheel of Fortune.  One minute you’re down and the next in paradise.  Now you’re on top and the next thing you know, it’s the pits of the earth!  This familiar parable features a nameless rich man and a beggar named Lazarus.

            The telling of this parable was lots of fun in the musical Godspell, but what is it saying?  What is Jesus’ point in telling this story about extreme fortunes in life that are reversed after death?  There seems to be a strong connection between how we live our lives and how we relate to God’s eternity. 

            There is clearly a follow up here to Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, that sounds a similar theme:  “Blessed are you poor…” and Woe are you who are rich….”  Jesus emphasizes the relative unimportance of wealth and power.  He points out the opportunity to do good that is missed by a rich man whose ability to notice true human need is obscured by the trappings and attitudes of wealth.  Jesus is speaking to some Pharisees, who love money, see, power and status, and tend to ignore the disenfranchised.  Jesus invites them to se themselves in this rich man.

            Jesus’ audience also includes Sadducees, members of the priestly class.  He also singles them out as wealthy, powerful, and politically connected.  They didn’t believe in an afterlife.  Jesus seems to be telling them, “Not only is there an afterlife, but you are in trouble!”  The values of God’s way, eternal values, are vastly different from the world’s values.  These eternal values apply into this life.

            The main characters in this story include a rich man who had everything:  wealth, power, ease, security, and prestige.  Such things are not evil in themselves, but they are a strong temptation to active and passive evil.  There is also a poor man who had nothing.  He ate “what fell from the rich man’s table.”  This means he ate what is dumped out as garbage.  He had to vie with the junk-yard dogs at the trash heap.  These dogs also represent unclean animals and symbolize that the poor man is cut off from his religious community as well as from the benefits of society. 

            Even after death, there is a difference.  Proper burial was thought to assure an afterlife of paradise.  Lack of a proper burial was thought to cut off any possibility of eternal paradise.  In an ironic twist, Lazarus begged scraps of food in life and the rich man begs a drop of water after death.  Yet, he still treats Lazarus as a servant to be sent to meet his needs.

            This is not theological depiction by Jesus of the afterlife.  He is not developing “heaven and hell” theology, but rather is using the popular understanding of afterlife to make a point.  Lazarus rests in the bosom of Abraham.  The one who was cut off from his religious community lies now in the heart of Judaism.  Authentic Judaism includes the poor and the outcast.  Lazarus waits, after his death, in a spiritual “holding place,” to wait for eternal paradise.

            The rich man thought he was blessed.  Yet he finds himself, after death, in Hades.  This represents Sheol, a holding place for bad spirits receiving a foretaste of final judgment before going to Gehenna, the place of final punishment.  Gehenna was literally the trash heap of Jerusalem.  It was always burning.  The irony is that Lazarus seeks food at the rich man’s trash heap.  Now, the rich man awaits recompense at the eternal trash heap.  And that great chasm means no trading places by this time.  This life really counts and so you had better change ways now!

            What is the point of this story?  Jesus is telling his audience and us that, in many ways, you choose your heaven, and it’s the opposite of what you may think.  During life, if you choose the false blessings of a deceptive heaven -- wealth, security, luxury – these fade quickly.  If you choose wisely, the benefits of the true heaven more than compensate.  By way of illustration, in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the hero was pursuing the Holy Grail.  At last, after tracking its location to a secret cave, he must choose from an assortment of beautiful goblets.  The villain chooses first and decides upon the most ornate and beautiful bejeweled cup available.  He soon perishes.  Jones notes this and makes his selection:  a plain and simple cup, truly the cup of a carpenter.  His choice is correct and he is rewarded with freedom and the restoration of his wounded father.

            The point of this story for Jesus’ listeners was that religious leaders and other powerful people were clearly missing the boat.  God values honesty and the poor are closer to that than the rich.  Other people must choose who they will see and what they will value.  Will they choose wisely by helping the poor over aspiring to wealth.

            For Luke’s listeners, in the later first century, they were challenged to hear that the values of God’s “kingdom” are not the same as the values of the surrounding culture.  For them, faithfulness may mean suffering, but they would be able to endure by faith and find it worth the trade off.

            For those of us listening today, we must not fail to recognize that poverty around us, at our very doorstep that now includes the whole world!  We become so concerned with our own safety and comfort.  The desperately poor and weak suffer outside our consciousness.  We fail to notice the desperate plight of poor, the embittered and disenfranchised, until it lands on our doorstep with a bang and we ask, “What’s going on?”  Eternity is not just after death.  It breaks into the present.  The time is now to pay attention.

          What does this story really tell us about possessions, about the treatment of others, and about God’s bottom line?  Jesus uses the story to dramatize what God values and what God does not value.  You had better pay attention to the Lazaruses around you because God is surely noticing.

            Pay attention to Lazarus at your doorstep.  Hearing this story changed Albert Schweitzer’s life.  He saw Africa as Lazarus on the doorstep and went to Africa to minister.  Lazarus is not only in the individuals we see, who touch our heart and our guilt, but also in entire cultures of people suffering off the front pages of newspapers.  Lazarus is in the systems in which we participate that result in creating and sustaining the oppression and suffering of people.  Such an example is the island nation of Haiti.  The mudslides that have taken well over a thousand lives are symptomatic of the systematic exploitation and oppression of the Haitian people.  The mountains have lost their forests, as in a desperate effort to survive, many Haitians cut down trees to make charcoal.  The heavy rains lead to catastrophic mudslides wiping out substandard housing.  There will be outbreaks of cholera and other disease because of inadequate drainage.  The tremendous suffering is not an accident.

            There is also invisible suffering of people around us – in the congregation, at the workplace, and on the streets.  Pay attention to Lazarus at your doorstep.

            Pay attention to Lazarus who is present in the rich man.  This is the people whose trust is placed squarely in wealth, status, and security.  Let us pay attention as our national values and priorities tend to reflect reliance on military and economic strength, out of fear, more than in the power of ideals and deep values.  Don’t fail to notice Lazarus in the rich man.

            Pay attention to Lazarus in your heart, in our own struggles with fear and in the brokenness of life.  The dark night of the soul can be a time for stripping away false self and coming to know more and more that true self that God has created.  It can also become a black hole from which we feel we can never escape.  It can be hell on earth.  But the story of Lazarus and the rich man is not an inescapable fate.  It is not too late, but the time for change is now.

            Crossroads Church needs to learn the lessons of this parable and learn them well.  It’s not too late, nor is it too early, to be making choices about intentional direction, about ministry, and about the future.  Are we paying attention to Lazarus at our doorstep?  These ministries say “yes” -- sewing machines for Guatemala, Neighborhood Partnership, Community LINC, support for missions, the Heifer Project International, and the Alliance of Baptists.

            Are we paying attention to Lazarus in the rich man?  These ministries say “yes” -- voices speaking out for peace and justice, our welcoming and affirming stance, and our individual and communal stewardship.

            Are we paying attention to Lazarus in our hearts?  These ministries say “yes” – worship, spiritual formation, theological exploration, and communication within our congregation.

            Do these reflect who you want to be?  Do these reflect who you want Crossroads Church to be?  Will you support these ministries and be involved in some?  Will you live these priorities in your own life?  Living out these identified priorities will make this experiment in church a permanent and viable expression of church in the Kansas City area.

            Do these ministries reflect your priorities?  If no, then work to change them.  If yes, then work to give them life.  It is a clear matter of will to minister where God is calling us and to minister how God gifts us.

            Last year, we adopted a statement of our identity – “To live and serve in the Spirit.”  This is our priority, demonstrated in the ministries in which we choose to invest ourselves.  We choose to live by the Spirits guidance, risking that the world may not approve and that all among us may not agree.  We choose to live this way knowing that to serve God by living in the Spirit is the highest calling for any individual and for any congregation. 

            It is a matter of the commitment of ourselves individually to that vision sparked by Lazarus – a life of awareness, compassion, and honesty.  It is a matter of the commitment of ourselves as a congregation to the vision of freedom – freedom not live as we want, but to seek God’s essential truth.  It is a commitment to be a healing presence -- not to feel safer, but to release the fear within and around that leads to destruction.  Let us commit to practicing courageous faith, knowing that peace will only come when all people embrace love instead of fear.  We can imagine such a world.  Let us live in this world we image by faith.

            God, make it be so.  Transform us.  Transform the world through us by the power of your Spirit.  Amen.