Faith and love in the rich and poor

Sermon for Trinity 1

1 John 4:16-21  +  Luke 16:19-31

We began the Trinity season last week seeing that the only solution for the problems of mankind is found in the new birth into God’s kingdom that is worked by the blessed Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives new birth through water and the Word. He creates Christians. He creates new people, with new attitudes, thoughts, perspectives, and desires.

Now what? Today’s Gospel about the rich man and poor Lazarus is a fitting continuation to last week’s Gospel. How does the Spirit teach and guide the New Man to live? Very simply He emphasizes two things: faith and love. Both are taught positively in our Gospel through the example of Lazarus; and both are taught negatively in the example of the rich man. But it could have easily been the other way around. So no matter where you fall on the economic spectrum, learn the Gospel’s lesson today about faith and love in the rich and poor.

Consider first the faith of Lazarus. Now, we aren’t told much about Lazarus. The fact that we’re told his name at all (and not the rich man’s name) says something. This man mattered to God. Everyone “matters,” of course, and God knows everyone’s name. But this man’s name was special to God as a son’s name is precious to his father. His life mattered.

How can you tell that Lazarus’ life mattered to God? Not by looking at external things. There are two ways. First—and this is always the main way to know what God thinks and what God wills—you can tell that Lazarus’ life mattered because the Holy Scriptures said that it mattered, and God does not lie. Where do they say that his life mattered? Let’s focus on just one verse from Genesis 17, where God ratified His covenant with Abraham, sealed with the sign of circumcision, God said, And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. There’s a reason why Jesus says that Lazarus was carried by the angels to “Abraham’s bosom.” Because he was a son of Abraham, a Jew, living in Israel, circumcised on the eighth day like all baby boys in Israel. That brought him into the covenant God made with Abraham two millennia earlier, including all the promises God made to Abraham’s descendants to love them, to be their God, and to save them through faith in the coming Christ.

Second, you can tell that Lazarus mattered to God because of what happened to him after he died. That’s not something we can usually know about someone with this degree of certainty, but here Jesus reveals it. Lazarus was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. Not only had Lazarus been circumcised externally, but he also persevered in faith until the end, even through all the earthly trials and scarcity he had to endure. How do we know he held onto faith in God? Because it is by faith alone that anyone enters the kingdom of God. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. The righteous will live by faith, Scripture says. Faith united Lazarus to Christ, and whether or not Lazarus had heard about Jesus as the Christ, he clearly had faith in God’s promise to send the Christ as the One who would make atonement for the sins of all. Faith in Christ, the true Seed of Abraham, made Lazarus a spiritual descendant of Abraham, who had a faith like Abraham’s. Faith made Lazarus a precious, adopted child of God.

But you couldn’t tell that from Lazarus’ circumstances, could you? He was poor, and not just poor, but unemployed, with no money at all, a beggar, and a sick beggar on top of it, full of sores. And as we consider the fact that God never rescued him during his earthly life from that miserable lot in life, we learn an important lesson about God: He can care very much about a person, without giving that person a comfortable life on earth. We all live in a world that remains under His curse because of sin, which means there will always be inequality among people, there will always be suffering, there will always be death, and it isn’t necessarily the fault of anyone except for the devil, except for the common fault we all bear of being sinners, who must live out our earthly life in a world that has been justly cursed by God.

Now, Lazarus could have grown bitter about his miserable lot in life. He could have cursed God for it, could have blamed God for it, could have blamed the rich man for it or resented the rich man for it, could have tried to steal from the rich man or bring him harm. But he didn’t do any of those things. Instead, even as he longed for a better life, longed to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table, he avoided or at least fought against the deadly sins of covetousness and bitterness and hatred. He persevered in faith toward God and in love toward his neighbor, the rich man.

And in the end, he died, as all people eventually die, both the rich and the poor, the hungry and the well-fed, the chronically ill and the generally healthy. All die. So did he. But then all the sorrow and suffering of this relatively short life was over, and the peace and love and comfort of Paradise began for Lazarus, where Abraham says that he is comforted. And that’s a comfort and joy and peace that never ends, where all the momentary sufferings here are replaced with everlasting happiness. As Paul wrote to the Romans, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

So much for the poor man’s faith and love and end result. Now let’s look at the unnamed rich man.

The rich man in the Gospel did not have faith. And that is also clearly shown in two ways. First, by where he ended up when he died, being tormented in the flames of hell. That is and will be the fate of everyone, rich or poor, who does not flee for refuge to the cross of Christ, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

But the rich man’s unbelief is also clear from his own words to Abraham, spoken from amidst the flames. What is his cry? Does he say, “O God, I trusted in you! Why am I suffering here?” No. He doesn’t even try to pray to God. He prays to Abraham, and not for forgiveness—it’s too late to pray for forgiveness after this life—but just for a little comfort from Lazarus, for a few drops of cool water to lessen the torment. And later, when he shows some concern for his brothers who are still on earth and Abraham says that Moses and the Prophets are all they need, he shows his disregard for the Word of God. “No, they won’t listen to those outdated, dull, irrelevant words. But if someone were to go to them from the dead, they would repent.” What a horrible belief! “The Word of God is worthless for saving sinners. Only impressive miracles will work!” Of course, Abraham upholds and praises the Word of God instead. If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, then they will not be persuaded, even if someone were to rise from the dead. And so the rich man’s lack of faith is exposed.

His lack of love during his earthly life also reveals his lack of faith. We have to be careful there, because we never know anyone’s complete story, or the motivations of their heart, or the reasons behind their actions. But here we’re safe to make that judgment because of all that’s revealed in the rest of the account. If the rich man had had faith, if he had known the love of God, he would not have thoroughly ignored the beggar who lay right there at his gate. While he lived luxuriously every day—not very different from how you and I live every day in America—He offered no comfort for Lazarus at all, his fellow countryman, his fellow Jew, his fellow church member, his neighbor in every sense of the word. Remember, your neighbor is the person “next to” you, the one whom God has placed in your path to help. That doesn’t include everyone on earth. You’re in no position to help everyone or even to care about everyone on earth in a meaningful way. The rich  man could not have been expected to help every poor beggar in Israel. But this one was unquestionably his neighbor. Yet he showed no concern for Lazarus whatsoever, not even having one of his servants carry the crumbs from his table out to the poor man at his gate. As John said in today’s Epistle, If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar. For whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? You don’t have to passionately hate your brother in order to hate your brother. Failing to show love to him is a form of hating him, as God judges things.

Now, it could have easily gone differently for the rich man; he had God’s Word. He had the Spirit through the Word calling him to faith and then to love. But being well off and not having to face many earthly struggles led him away from God and away from caring about his neighbor, as being well off often does. In the same way, it could have gone differently for the poor man; he could have grown bitter about his circumstances and fallen away from faith and from love. That often happens, too, among people who face many earthly struggles.

So learn from these two men in our Gospel. Learn positively from the poor man; learn negatively from the rich man. Learn to hear Moses and the Prophets, and the Apostles, too. Learn to recognize where you have fallen short in faith or love and repent daily, no matter what your position in life. Learn to turn to Christ for forgiveness that is full and free. And then learn to watch out for the temptations that are common to the different stations in life, so that, whether rich or poor or somewhere in between, you may continue to look away from yourself, looking instead to Christ Jesus in faith, and looking toward your neighbor in love. Amen.