“The Invisible Man”

“The Invisible Man”

Text: Luke 16:19-31

© September 30, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton United Presbyterian Church.

Have you seen Lazarus lately? I saw him just this past week, but he was in a place that I really didn’t expect to see him. You see, at Youth Club on Wednesday, during the Bible story time I taught the children the same story that we just heard, Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus. And one of the things I wanted to help the kids to see was how Jesus was telling that story as a way of showing us how important it is to care for people who need our help.

And so Jacquelyn Todd, who helps me with the Bible time, and I took one of the younger classes up to the food pantry to show them what’s there and to have them help pack a set of groceries. And we explained that by packing those groceries, we would be helping a hungry family in the area by making sure that there would be food ready for them when they came to the church.

And so we began by walking over to where the cereal is kept. And as I lifted a box of cereal off the shelf, a little boy in the group said, “We don’t have any cereal at our house.” At first I thought that was a little bit of a strange thing for him to say, but I assumed that he meant that he and his family just didn’t like cereal. But then he added, “We don’t have any cereal at our house, because my mommy says we can’t afford milk, and you can’t really eat cereal without milk. My mom and I are hungry a lot, but sometimes we eat macaroni.” There I had taken those little kids up to the food pantry to help show them what the story of the rich man and Lazarus was all about – how it’s so important to help other people – but of all things, as we stood there next to those boxes of cereal, there was Lazarus himself, in the form of a 6-year-old boy.

Once upon a time, Jesus said, there was a rich man. He was so rich, in fact, that he dressed in purple. To us, today, that might sound a bit strange – after all, most men nowadays don’t walk around wearing purple suits or purple pants. But back in the time of Jesus, purple clothing was the most expensive kind of clothing that there was. The reason it was so expensive was because the dye had to be extracted from the vein of a certain kind of shellfish. And in order to get enough dye to make a piece of clothing turn purple, you had to extract the coloring from the veins of 12,000 shellfish.[1]

And according to the parable, not only did that rich man live it up when it came to what kind of clothes he wore, but he also lived it up when it came to the food he ate. Because we are told that he enjoyed huge feasts not just once in a while, not just once a week, but every day.

Well, right outside the rich man’s house, laying on his front porch was a poor man by the name of Lazarus. And we’re told that Lazarus was starving. He was so hungry, in fact, that he would have been happy to eat the scraps that were thrown underneath the rich man’s table. You see, back in that time they didn’t have napkins. And so when people would get juice or some mess on their fingers, they would take a piece of bread, use that to wipe off their hands, and then wad up the bread and toss it under the table. It was those scraps of bread that Lazarus was yearning to be able to eat. And what’s more, we’re told that Lazarus had sores all over his body. And dogs would come up and lick those sores.

One day, Jesus said, Lazarus died, and angels carried him up into heaven. And one day the rich man died. But he didn’t join Lazarus in heaven. No, the rich man was taken down into the fiery pits of hell.

Well, very quickly the rich man decided he didn’t like it there in hell. And so he yelled up to heaven, “Hey, can you guys up there send Lazarus down here with a cup of water? It’s really hot!” But heaven answered back, “While you were alive, you got to enjoy all kinds of good things, and Lazarus had to suffer. But now he is up here and you are down there. And even if Lazarus wanted to help you, he can’t.”

And so the rich man called out, “Well, then, send Lazarus back to my family. If they see a dead guy walk up to them and warn them, maybe they’ll change their ways and not end up here with me.” But heaven answered back, “They already have the Bible. The Bible tells them what the right way to live is. If they won’t listen to the Bible, they won’t listen if someone comes back from the dead and talks to them.”

This is a hard parable for us to hear. Because in no uncertain terms Jesus forces us to realize that if we have money, and we fail to give and care for those in need, there are consequences – eternal consequences. And that same theme is a theme that you find repeated through the Gospel of Luke.

To help you see that for yourself, I want to invite you to turn into the pew Bibles to page 57 in the New Testament, in the back part of the Bible. We are going to begin by looking at Luke 1:52-53. On page 57 in the New Testament, at Luke 1:52-53, we find a poem that’s commonly known as the Magnificat. It’s the song that Mary sang after she realized that she would be giving birth to the Son of God.

Beginning at Luke 1:52, it says, “He [that is, God] has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

And then turn a couple of pages to page 61 in the New Testament. At Luke 4:18 we find the very first sermon that Jesus ever preached, a message that he spoke to his hometown community in Nazareth. Starting at Luke 4:18, listen to how Jesus began his message: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.”

And lastly, turn a few more pages to page 64. Listen to Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. At Luke 6:20, Jesus says: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.” And then jump down to verse 24: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.”

If you’ve recently browsed through the Christian books at a bookstore, it’s amazing how many books are out there that basically say, “Believe in God, and get rich quick.” “Become a Christian today, and turn into a millionaire tomorrow.” And on TV, some of the most popular preachers push that same idea: that God wants you to be rich, and if you’re poor, it’s your fault – you must be a sinner. But even though that’s the message that sells today in many churches, how different that is from the message that Jesus gives us here in the Bible.

One minister told that when he was invited to become the pastor of a church in New York City, people told him that New York was the most exciting city in the world. But, the people said, the city does have its problems. And by that they meant that New York has a lot of poor people who live there. But when you read the Bible, from God’s point of view the poor people are never the problem. No, from God’s point of view, the poor people aren’t problem; the rich people are the problem.[2]

Now don’t misunderstand me: money, in and of itself, isn’t evil. But if we think money doesn’t have any effect on us, we’re kidding ourselves. That’s the point that the first reading from the Bible today, from 1 Timothy, was getting at. Listen again to a portion of that reading: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains” (1 Timothy 6:9-10).

The ancient Jewish rabbis put it this way. They said that when you have a piece of glass in front of you, you can see right through it. But what happens when a little bit of silver enters the picture. By putting just a thin coating of silver on the back side of that glass, no longer can you see through it. Instead, that piece of glass turns into mirror, and all you can do is see yourself. And according to the rabbis, that’s what happens all too often when wealth comes into our lives. Even a tiny bit of silver, even a tiny bit of money, can suddenly make all the hurting and needy people in the world around us invisible to us, so that all we end up seeing and thinking about are ourselves and what we want.[3]

There is a tradition that says that when we die, it’s not St. Peter that will meet us at the gates of heaven. Instead, there is a tradition that says that when we die, it’s going to be Lazarus who’s going to meet us at the gates of heaven. And it’s going to be Lazarus’s judgment that will determine whether we’re allowed in or not. And his judgment will be based on whether we saw the poor and hurting people there in our lives and did something to help them, or whether we treated those people as though they were invisible and just walked away from them.

Is there a Lazarus on your front porch? There probably is. Who in your life is desperate for some help, desperate for some hope? Do you see him? Or is he invisible to you? Lazarus is calling. Will you answer?