Luke 16:19-31; 1
John 4:16-21; Genesis 15:1-6
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
In the late
1990s, a strange little song hit the pop radio airwaves having the provocative,
but catchy, name “Hell.” It was a jangly Hot-House Jazz stomp by a
one-hit-wonder from Chapel Hill, North Carolina named after a type of southern
moonshine – The Squirrel Nut Zippers. While the song is a Dante-esque
description of the place prepared by God for Satan and his fallen angels, the
opening lines of “Hell” make it clear that those who fair sumptuously in this
life may well suffer in the next: “In the afterlife you could be headed for
some serious strife. Now you make the scene all day, but tomorrow there’ll be
hell to pay.”
Indeed, this
is precisely what our Lord Jesus teaches in His story about The Rich Man and
Lazarus: “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who
feasted sumptuously every day.” The rich man in Jesus’ story showed no love,
mercy, compassion, or pity to a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who
was laid daily at his gate. It was common practice in first century Judaism
that the less fortunate would gather or would be brought to those more
fortunate so that they might show mercy to them. Culturally, this practice was
of mutual benefit to the rich and the poor alike: the poor needed help, and the
rich, according to Jewish law, needed to help the poor and the needy. However,
this rich man did not give help. He did not show compassion and mercy to his
neighbor in need. He was not a good Jew according to the law. You see, Jesus is
not condemning wealth in this story, but rather lack of love, mercy, and
compassion. It was not because the rich man was rich that he found himself in
hell, but it was because he merciless and pitiless; he did not love.
As it turns
out, both men died. The rich man was tormented in Hades (or, hell) while
Lazarus was comforted at “Abraham’s bosom.” Sadly, even in torment in hell, the
rich man failed to have compassion or pity. Seeing Lazarus at Abraham’s bosom,
he asked Father Abraham that he might send Lazarus to serve and to comfort him
in hell by dipping his finger in water to cool his tongue. Then, when Father
Abraham explained that that was not possible, the rich man asked that Lazarus
might be sent to his brothers so that they could avoid the torment he suffered.
Perhaps Jesus has the rich man subsist in his poor opinion and treatment of
Lazarus in order to confirm that punishment in hell is not intended to provide
a second chance for repentance and that those sentenced to damnation are justly
so.
Still, there
is something more to our Lord’s story: The poor man who reclines at Abraham’s
bosom has a name, Lazarus. He is known by Father Abraham, and by Jesus, and his
name is provided to us hearers as well. In contrast, the rich man is known only
as the “rich man.” Whatever his true
name might have been, in the afterlife he is known only by what he truly loved,
his wealth and riches. In this regard, I will share with you a bit more of that
raucous song I mentioned earlier. The chorus of the song goes like this: “Lose
your face, lose your name, then get fitted for a suit of flame.” The Great
Commandment of the Holy Scriptures is “Love the LORD your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as
yourself.” However, if your love in this life is misdirected, you may well end
up named by the object of your misdirected love. Maybe you are the rich man, or
the proud man, or the gluttonous man, or the lustful man, or whatever. These
names are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. However, the humble man, the contrite
man, the repentant man, his name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life: “I will
make him a pillar in the temple of My God,” says the Lord. “Never shall he go
out of it, and I will write on him the Name of My God, and the Name of the City
of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and
My own New Name.”
You were
fitted, you were marked with that Name when you were baptized in the Name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, just as was little Jonathan
this morning. The Name you were given is God’s Name, the Name the Father
bestowed upon His Son whom He loves and whom has done all things well. You were
sealed in that Name by the Holy Spirit with the promise that the Father will
never leave you or forsake you and that nothing can separate you from His love
that is in Jesus Christ. You are not named, you are not identified by, you do
not love riches, reputation, power, food, sex, possessions, or anything else
more than or above the LORD. Therefore, you belong to Him, and He belongs to
you: He will be and He is your God, and you will be and you are His people.
Still the rich
man pleaded with Father Abraham, “If someone goes to [my brothers] from the
dead, they will repent.” Well, finally he’s really thinking about someone other
than himself. That he didn’t love others is the reason he was named “rich man”
and it is the reason he went to hell. For, the reason that the second half of
the Great Commandment is “Love your neighbor” is that you will be able to do
the first half, “Love God.” As Jesus taught Nicodemus in last week’s Gospel
reading: “If I have told you earthly things – like, “Love your neighbor” – and
you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things – like, “Love
God” – ?” Since the rich man failed to love his neighbor in his earthly life,
he did not learn to love God. This is why Father Abraham replied to him saying,
“They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” Father Abraham directed
the rich man to the Word of God. However, since this is Jesus’ story, He is
also directing you to the Word of God.
Your Lord
knows that you want more than that, or something other than that, just like our
First Parents in the Garden. God’s Word is great and all, but it’s not enough,
you think. It needs to be supported and defended. And some of the really weird
stuff it says, and, let’s face it, some of the really embarrassing stuff it
says, not to mention some of the really backward and offensive stuff that it
says, that needs to be omitted altogether. Your Lord knows this about you. This
is why He teaches you in this way – in stories and in parables. The Word is all
there is. It alone has the power to change your heart and mind. That power is
the Holy Spirit of God who works through the Word of God to bring life out of
death and speak light into darkness. Jesus directs you to the Word. And, He
says to you through the mouth of Father Abraham in His story: If you will not hear Moses and the Prophets,
[that is, the Word of God], neither will you be convinced even if someone
should rise from the dead.
And so, the
question comes back to love: What do you love? Who do you love? The First
Commandment of God is that you have no other gods before Him. Luther explains
this commandment saying: We should fear, love, and trust in God before all
things. So, what do you love? Who do you love? Whatever or whoever your answer
is – do you love that thing or person more than or above God? If so, then that
thing or person is your god – a false god, an idol. Perhaps the thing that you
love more than god is yourself. The idol of self-love and self-worship is at
the root of all idolatry.
Your God and
Lord lovingly gives you people to love – wife, husband, children, friends,
neighbors, strangers, enemies – so that you might have opportunity to love
someone other than yourself. God gives you people to love to break you out of
idolatry that leads to death and damnation. God gives you Lazarus, the poor
man, that you may love him, have mercy upon him, and show him compassion, that
in so doing you will see how your God loves you and will come to love Him in
return. And, last but not least, God gives you His Son, Jesus, so that you may
see what true love looks like – sacrifice – and learn, and grow, and be
inspired to love others as you have been loved. “God so loved the world that He gave
His only Son.” Greater love than this is
not possible, that a man would lay down His life for His friends.
This teaching
John the Evangelists sums up well in his first epistle; permit me to read it
again: “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day
of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in
love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and
whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved
us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he
who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he
has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must
also love his brother.”
You are not a
nameless soul, receiving your identity from the false gods and idols you love,
but you are God’s own child, bearing His Divine Name upon your brows. Therefore,
you are emissaries of His love; you are the hands, heart, and voice of His love
in Jesus Christ to your brother, your neighbor, and the Lazarus God lays before
you. And, you are never alone, but your God and Lord is with you to feed you
and to keep you, to lead you and to protect you, to nurture you and to
discipline you when you go astray. This is how the Father loves His children.
This is how your God loves you.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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