“LAZARUS AND DIVES”
Saint Luke 16. 19-31
The First Sunday after Trinity: 29 May Anno Domini 2005
Fr Watson
True riches are only found in knowing Christ and in being known by Him. True death is to be in Hades without the Lord. If your walk with Jesus is sequenced, compartmentalized, relegated, and parceled out to this one hour every Sunday morning; if your contact with the Risen God is limited to supper prayers over the meat loaf; if when you leave Bible Class, thoughts of the Savior never cross your mind for another seven days; you perhaps have found your own rich man's table.
Don't feel superior to the rich man in Jesus' parable. There is a rich man deep inside all of you that every day tries to break fully through to the surface. Do you love the Lord your God with all your strength, soul, mind and heart? Do you spend more time during the week thinking about your own "purple clothing" and "sumptuous fare" than you do in prayer and meditation. Do you consider yourself "confessional," and not like those other "Conservatives?" But, do you spend more time reading the Confessions or in watching television programs which glorify: sex, slander, mockery and killing foreigners? Do you love your neighbor as yourself? You probably don't have Lazarus lying outside your front door but do you spend any time thinking about, and helping those pathetic human beings, humans like you, made in the Image of God, with the basic necessities of food and shelter? Just who takes center stage in the sanctuary of your mind, you or God?
Kyrie Eleison, Christie Eleison, for we are all like the rich man in our actions, words, and hidden thoughts. Thanks be to God though, that it isn't our actions as actions that damn us. It is only lack of faith which sends one to Hades. It is only the rejection of Jesus that consigns one to the place where even a drop of water on the tongue would be heavenly. It is instructive however that ones outward actions, may, and usually do, indicate ones' inward motives, beliefs and deeply held convictions. The rich man didn't go to hell because he ate like a pig, dressed like a pimp and treated Lazarus like a social parasite. The rich man went to hell because He did not trust in God His Savior. But how do we know that? By its fruits a tree is known. By ones fruits a man's heart is known. If only nasty, brackish, or salt water spews out of one, then can there be a fount of living water at the source; has the Savior come and made His home in that individual?
Lazarus had faith. He had set his sights on the "things above." When he died the Lord of those "things above" sent His angels to carry this believer to the Table which is always overflowing with good things; to the feast which always has the friendliest, loving, caring and sharing banqueters.
And the key to all this is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The key to all of this is to believe in Christ Crucified by trusting the Word. And even that trusting isn't your work. You trust the Word by the power and gift of God the Holy Spirit. Lazarus isn't better than the rich man; both are sinful and unclean. Lazarus trusted in Christ Jesus but the rich man trusted in his own possessions. This trust, this "Gift," is a truth which can never be discerned, possessed, by ones own intellect or empirical investigations. This truth of "The Truth" is only given by the Word of God.
If one doesn't find, or believe they can find, the saving Grace of God in His redeeming Son Jesus the Christ, yes, in the Books of Moses, that individual will not have God even if his "pastor" is friendly, brilliant, and adept at packing the pews. If one doesn't find, or believes they can't find Christ Crucified for the Forgiveness of Sins, in the Psalms of King David and in the stories of the Kingdom of Israel, in Chronicles and Kings, then that person won't have the real Jesus no matter how many "programs" and Bible classes they attend and no matter how "alive" and "ablaze" they feel their little home-cell-groups are.
God shows you who you are without Him, He shows you yourself in the mirror of His Law to be a pitiful "rich man" who is not rich at all. God gives to you Himself as surely as He gave Himself to Lazarus; and the same way. "We are beggars all" said Luther. Thank God for that my friends. As a poor, pitiful, sore-encrusted, hungry, thirsty and aching fellow wretch, you, me, and Lazarus, we have been given salvation, forgiveness, healing, life and heaven in Jesus---by the Word.
You have Moses and the Prophets, hear them! You have the Blessed Evangelists and Apostolic Letters, hear them! Read, mark, learn and inwwardly digest them. You have your Holy Baptism, the Sacrament of Penance & Absolution, hear them! You have Jesus' true Body and real Blood to eat and drink, hear them, hear Him.
You are in Abraham's bosom.
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost