“YOU HAVE MOSES AND THE PROPHETS”
Saint Luke 16: 19-31
1st Sunday after Trinity: 19 June Anno Domini 2022
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
This is one of our favorite parables that The Lord told. If it is a parable. I believe it is a true event which, of course, has universal applicability.
The point of course is not that rich, entitled, arrogant, and selfish people go to hell, while starving beggars go to heaven. No.
You, every one of you “have Moses and The Prophets…hear them…” The Psalmist understood the human condition—he who though the ‘apple of God’s eye’ and The Lord’s anointed’ had committed lust, adultery, and murder—would write by The Spirit: “…they are all together become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” [Ps. 14.3]. The same Spirit would cause Paul to reiterate to the Romans “…as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one” [Ro. 3.10]. This includes all of you.
And this is no graded “curve” where everyone passes because, after all, nobody’s perfect. You are supposed to be perfect. You are commanded and demanded to be perfect. Obey! Do the Law.
Moses recorded The Lord’s will in his 3rd book: “…keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live IF he DOES them” [Le. 18.5]. Do you know this? If The Word of The Lord endureth forever and if God’s Word is Life and Light, do you daily read, learn, digest, and meditate upon it? Do you know it? We don’t take The Law seriously enough. Anyone who ignores The Commandments because we’re too busy praying to “Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura” doesn’t understand The Crucifix and The Lamb bleeding, dying, and giving His Body to atone for our failure to be Holy.
You like the rich man are told to love your neighbor as yourself. God means it. Whether the rich man despised and mocked Lazarus, or, whether he simply had no knowledge or care of him or about him, the same result occurred. He who could have and should have helped—didn’t. And here’s the thing…in Lazarus’ own life, he did the same to other people; one way or another. The full counsel of God includes Saint James to complement St. Paul: “…but ye have despised the poor…if ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well…for whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” [Ja. 2. 6-10].
So, the rich man has failed to keep The Law and should be damned. Lazarus has failed to keep The Law and should be damned. You have failed to keep The Law and should be damned. And God means this. He is serious…dangerous.
You have Moses and The Prophets. Hear them. You do. You know that God’s Hebrew Scriptures, which we call the Old Testament, is neither old or bereft of the comforting Gospel. Genesis through Malachi is ever eternal and fresh, and refreshing with Mercy and Forgiveness, and The Works of The Lord on behalf of his rescued, redeemed, and saved people. The Old Testament was the Bible which Saint Peter and John had—and read—and preached. Saint Paul used it to show his hearers that the actions and person of Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the prophecies of The Father’s Christ. Moses’ five books are also a “fountain filled with Blood, flowing from Emmanuel’s veins.” Lazarus believed all that had been written. The beggar knew nothing could come from him to save himself—not just from hunger and sores, but from hellish torments in the hereafter. We are all beggars said the Reformer. It’s a good place to be placed by The Holy Ghost. We join Lazarus and Job and blind Samson, and Stephen being stoned, and Paul being taken to Rome in chains, and all the Saints who suffer under The Cross.
And Jesus said unto Paul: “My Grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” [2 Cor. 12.9]. This He too spoke to Lazarus through Moses and The Prophets.
You believe this though you may not “feel” it. You hear this Word of The Enfleshed Word and you trust it though you do not “see” it. One looking at the rich man would have seen only purple and fine linen and sumptuous food and drink—not the tormented lonely flame creature in the abyss. One looking at Lazarus would have seen only a scabby, skinny, puss-producing street beggar—not the shining white brother of Jesus carried by the Seraphim to be comforted by Father Abraham.
Yes, it’s a mystery…why you the Saints suffer; why Saints die; why you seem, at times, to be abandoned. The Prophet David wrote: “why standest Thou so far off, O LORD, and hidest Thy face in the needful time of trouble [Ps. 10.1]? And while those words apply to David’s own situation, and to your daily tribulations, they are about Jesus. The Lord never stands far off from you—save to stand on a bloody tree to suffer and die in your stead. The Lord Jesus never hides His Face from you—save to veil it for a brief time in Baptismal water, soothing Words of Absolution, and life-giving Eucharist.
Jesus had The Apostle write: “…for which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” [2 Cor. 4.16-18]. Christ spoke this to Lazarus. He speaks it to you—this day. A man has risen from the dead—a God/Man. Lazarus, not yet resurrected with glorified flesh, waits patiently in Abraham’s bosom. You, not yet dead, not yet resurrected with glorified bodies, wait patiently in Jesus’ own bosom given in His Holy Sacrament of The Altar.
This is your confession. This you believe by the power of The Holy Spirit.
You have Moses and The Prophets. You believe!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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