“FED AT THE FEAST”
Saint Luke 14: 16-24
2nd Sunday After Trinity: 5 June Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
The only true rich man is the man who has the real wealth, the genuine good prize. The sinful fallen man has only what his father Adam lusted for—mammon. The fruits of the decaying world are rot, fungus, disease, death, and dust. From dust thou wert taken and to dust thou shalt return. “Vanity of vanities all is vanity” writes the author of Ecclesiastes. The author of that Scripture was the “richest” man who ever lived—King Solomon. Yet, David’s son realized at the end of his own “purple and fine linen…sumptuous fare every day” life, that what was important…THE ONLY IMPORTANT THING was the Word of God. In the Word of God was God. In the beginning was The Word and The Word was God.
The Lord shares His parable with you again this morning. He desires that you believe that the only richness is goodness; goodness in the sense of being right, righteous, with God—with Him. Everything else is temporary, only His righteousness is eternal. This is no morality play or spiritual exercise for you to work at, get better at, and one day accomplish.
One either belongs to Jesus or one does not. One is either surrounded by His will in His Word, or one is not. Angels only minister to the saints.
There’s no inherent sin in having possessions. There is damnable sin—which will take one straight away to hell and torments—in not fearing, loving, and trusting in Christ above all things. If the “certain rich man” had even remotely tried to love God he would also have tried, even imperfectly, even sin-tinged, to love his neighbor—to love the certain beggar named Lazarus.
Lazarus too was a sinner. He was suffering the common condition of all sinful humans—sooner or later—poverty, nakedness, hunger, abandonment, disease and death comes to all men.
The only difference among men that matters, not race, not nationality, not language, not political party, and certainly not self-righteous works, BUT, the only difference is whether one hears Moses and the Prophets or not. The only reason some, most, go to hell and others, The Shepherd’s remnant flock, go to heaven, is that the former hear not Moses and the Prophets, but the latter do. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
As The Lord describes hell it is clear that the truth of that infernal “place” is so horrible that even a man who hated God would not want his own brethren to also be consigned to its torments; it’s dry, hot, desert of despair. And, as The Lord describes heavenly bliss, metaphorically as Abraham’s bosom, as a place of comfort and impassability; no longer having sores licked by unclean canines but having good things while awaiting the final good consummation at the end of time, the whole point of Christ’s story boils down to The Word of The Lord.
When Christ spoke these words there was no Greek Bible—no “New Testament…” no Churchly Sacraments…yet. But the Word of The Lord not only endures forever, but He was/is/and will be forever. The first inscripturated, written down, Word, was when The Lord Himself wrote the Decalogue with His own finger on two stone tables.
The oracles of God, as Paul calls them, the Hebrew Bible…your Bible from Genesis to Malachi, is filled with the Word of The Lord; the full counsel of God, and yes, the Pentateuch, Moses’ 5 Books, is overflowing with both Law and Gospel. The writings of the Prophets, all of them, is overflowing with both Law and Gospel. In Moses and the Prophets Christ reveals Himself to you and to all of His family as THE Law-Keeper and as THE Sacrificial Atoning Lamb Who suffers and dies for Law breaking and Law breakers.
The beggar knew that nothing he had was capable of making God any greater than God already is. The poor man Lazarus was in reality (something “seen” by the angels) rich because in his poverty all he could do was to receive. He was made rich in Faith, which the Spirit had given him, and thus could simply receive with a believing heart all the good and merciful gifts of His Lord and Master Jesus Christ. And the means, the vehicle, the way? Lazarus had the Word of The Lord and he had it by hearing, having heard, Moses and the Prophets.
Christ would go on, only 8 chapters later, on the road to Emmaus, to open up the hearts of two of His Disciples, men just like you—loved, adopted, given peace—and again preach His Word: “and beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” [Luke 24.27] Jesus born naked and garbed with no purple and fine linen but wrapped in swaddling clothes. Jesus laid not in a gutter covered with sores but laid out and nailed upon a cross and covered with gaping wounds. Jesus remembering you from the tree and forgiving you. Jesus taking you to His Father’s heavenly house in His own precious Body and most pure Blood. HERE, Moses and The Prophets…along with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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