A Sneak Peek
Pentecost 19 (September 30, 2007)
Luke 16:19-31
19 "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' 25 "But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.' 27 "He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' 29 "Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' 30 "'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' 31 "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"
Grace, peace and mercy from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen.
Well, here they go again. They’re still at it! Who am I talking about? The Pharisees. They’re trying to trap Jesus in His words. Just verses before our text today Jesus tells them that "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money" (Luke 16:13). The Pharisees loved money and they claimed to love the Law of God. Both gave them power, they loved having power. What they couldn’t buy with money they would gain by bending the Law. They were experts at quoting and bending the Law. We have a bunch of fancy names for this like, “Intent of the Law or heart of the Law.” These Pharisees, who proclaim they are experts at the Law, are trying to use the Law to control Jesus. But Jesus doesn’t fall into their traps. In Luke 16:17 Jesus says: “it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.” Forget about the intent of the Law, forget about the heart of the Law, we are talking about the letter of the Law. The letter of the Law is black and white. The intent or heart of the law is gray, full of supposition and personal interpretation. Jesus has just turned the Law back around on them. And what the Law requires is perfect obedience. As long as there is a heaven and earth the law requires perfect obedience. No one can face the Law of God without fear and trepidation. No one can live it perfectly.
I want to mention a couple important things we can learn from the Pharisees. Whatever we claim to be an expert in, whatever we think we are most skilled at, this usually becomes the object of our greatest temptation. We are more likely to succumb to pride in these areas. They become the thing that we are most likely have used against us, especially if become filled with pride. Jesus simply turned the sin of the Pharisees back on them. They claimed to be experts at the law, so He gave them proper understanding of how the Law was to be used, undiluted. Jesus wasn’t trying to put down the Pharisees; He was trying to get them to understand so they might be saved. But please note that when pride is not reproved and corrected it leads to more pride which leads to haughtiness and egocentrism. It becomes the thing by which the devil takes control of our lives. It’s alright to have the knowledge but it needs to be accompanied with humility less we fall.
Secondly, why did the Pharisees so vehemently want to convert or sway Jesus in His thoughts? Why were they so uncomfortable with what He was saying? Was Jesus so different from they? And this is where we need to check our western, 21st Century mindset at the door. What pictures do we have of Jesus? I was raised in Southern California back in the surfer era. I remember one of the common pictures of Jesus that hung on walls in those days. A friend and I fondly referred them as the surfer Jesus - white skin, blond hair, shag haircut, nice tan. But I’m not talking about that type of picture. What do we see in here (our minds) as to who Jesus is? Don’t we tend to think of the Jesus as one was somewhat antisocial like John the baptizer? He spent His time traveling around teaching and preaching, right? He had long hair, a thick beard, rugged backwoodsman, nothing like a Pharisee. After all wouldn’t we be uncomfortable with someone like that in our midst, someone different than ourselves? Imagine for a moment a person sitting in the pew next to you with hair down to their knees, multiple sets of ear rings, a nose stud, maybe platform shoes and a studded necklace. Oh and a beautiful singing voice, bass singing voice. Wouldn’t you feel uncomfortable? Maybe that’s why the Pharisees were uncomfortable with Jesus.
But Jesus wasn’t like John. Jesus never took a Nazarene vow. The Nazarene vow was to never cut your hair or shave, never drink wine and to never touch a dead person. What about Pharisees, what did they believe? The Pharisees were devout adherents of the law, both as found in the Torah and in the oral tradition known as the Mishnah. The Pharisees opposed Greek and Roman rule of their country; and the Pharisees held a number of beliefs – such as the existence of hell, angels, and demons, the resurrection of the dead, and the future coming of the Messiah. It was the Pharisees in the 3rd Century B.C. that had saved a faithful remnant of Judaism from Hellenism, which had started to cause a blending of heathen practices into the Jewish faith. It was the Pharisees who had preserved God’s Law and the hope of the Messiah to come. Perhaps you might now see why Jesus seemed so patient with the Pharisees at times. The fact is that Jesus was raised with Pharisaic beliefs. And rather than being outsider Jesus was in the loop. When we read about how many times he ate with the Pharisees we realize He was actually quite the socialite. Why? Because while eating was the way to share the Good News in those days. That’s how people communicated.
So why did the Pharisees so vehemently want to convert or sway Jesus in His thoughts? Because was of them. He was from their order, their society. This brings the second point. Those that want to control us or change us are usually close to us. People going to the church down the street don’t want change us, it’s the ones in the pew next to us. It’s easier to accept uniqueness from a stranger than from our child, our spouse, our parents, our pastor. The Pharisees erred because they had allowed themselves to determine what was right and wrong, rather than the word of God. They wanted to be the source of determining what was right or wrong.
But Jesus doesn’t give up on them. So He shares another story to try to get them to understand. He tells them of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus is poor. He lives day by day and finally dies and is in heaven. He has nothing and being in heaven is a gift from God.
The rich man believed in salvation by comfort. In other words, it seems that God must favor him because of his prosperity. Even in hell, he is still preoccupied with his own comfort. Tormented by the flames of hell, he asks Abraham to send Lazarus over with a drink of water; rather than repent of his selfishness and self-righteousness, he still expects someone to come and serve him.
Secondly, the rich man appears to believe in salvation by label. He calls Abraham “Father Abraham.” It would seem that he shares the same bad thinking of the Pharisees, who declared to Jesus, “We have Abraham as our father” (John 8:39; Luke 3:8), believing God loved them because of their bloodline. Faith didn’t matter; genetics did. For the rich man, whatever he believes doesn’t matter; he believes Abraham will help him—even in hell—because he wears the label, “descendant of Abraham.”
Thirdly, the rich man believes in salvation by wonders, not the Word. Although he still shows no repentance for his own sin, the rich man asks that Lazarus be sent to testify to his five brothers still alive, so that they may avoid the torments of hell. Abraham declares that such isn’t necessary because the brothers have Moses and the prophets—they have the Word. But this isn’t good enough for the rich man. He doesn’t believe that the Word will give faith; rather, he believes that the miraculous return of a dead man will convince his brothers to believe. To this, Abraham replies, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.” Abraham isn’t really talking about the resurrection of Lazarus, but the resurrection of Jesus. Even when He rises from the dead three days after the crucifixion, his enemies still refuse to believe. Because they have rejected the Word of God, they also reject the Word made flesh.
Remember Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees. He wants them to believe. But the 3 sins of the rich man stand in their way, salvation by comfort, salvation by label and salvation by wonder. All three of these sins have a common theme: each was designed to reject the Word of God. Because the rich man measured God’s favor by his comfort, clothes and food, he did not listen to the Word about his lack of true riches—faith and salvation. Because he was a descendant of Abraham, he saw no need to believe the Word that Abraham believed. And when Abraham told him that the Scriptures (the Law and the Prophets) could save his brothers, the rich man wanted a miraculous sign instead. All three sins resulted in his condemnation. All three sins seek your loss,
too.
The last thing that the devil, the world and your own sinful flesh want you to do is to hear and believe the Scriptures. Therefore, they have devised some clever false gods to make you think you are confessing the truth, when you’re not.
Like the rich man, we can be tempted by the doctrine of prosperity or “salvation by comfort,” to believe that comfort is a sign of faith and God’s approval. If God is happy with me then He will bless me. If He doesn’t then He must hate me.
Or like the rich man we can be tempted by the doctrine salvation by label. Maybe you won’t say, “I’m child of Abraham.” But maybe your hope is built in being a Lutheran or a Christian. Well if you look at what some Lutheran Churches or Synods teach today you may want to change your tune. One synod just passed a resolution allowing practicing homosexual with partners to be ordained. Churches endorsing abortion, same sex marriage, enrollment in cultic groups. It was once said that what separated Lutherans from other Christian churches was that we practiced Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone for all doctrine. Not anymore. The label Lutheran is claimed by all sorts of people these days.
You may be tempted to like the rich man to salvation by wonders. the desire to look for God’s presence and help in what you see, not the Word of God. The comfort level that we spoke of before fits in here, but there are other temptations. Many will judge their faith, and the correctness of their church, by financial gain, numerical growth, health status, and other tangible measures. But once again, such signs are no proof of the Lord’s blessing and approval. There are plenty of people who are blessed abundantly by God with material things, and who still do not believe that Christ is risen from the dead.
Time and time again, this text warns us of sins that would distract us from the Word. It warns us not to trust in our comfort level, label or what we see. It bids us to hear the Word of God and believe it, like the Law that we have heard thus far. It does this for your good, because all of these temptations will fail you, and the Word points you to your Savior who shall never fail you.
The Lord gives us a sneak peek at what is. We see heaven and we also see hell. If one were to rise from the dead and tell them. Jesus is telling us of His time to come. Jesus is telling us of His death and resurrection, giving us a sneak peek at our salvation. Not by comfort, nor by label, nor by wonder, but salvation by the work of Jesus Christ. He alone did all that is necessary. He alone paid the price for our salvation. Because of what He did, you are saved not by works but by the blood of the Lamb. By Jesus Christ and Him alone, in Jesus name, Amen and Amen!