What is the Problem?

Luke 16: 19-31 
September 25, 2022

 

It’s easy to understand why Jesus shares this parable.

The Rich Man and Lazarus
James Jangknect

The Pharisees, religious leaders, it says, are lovers of the law.

They use it to their own ends and to their own benefits.

It also says that they are lovers of money.

They enjoyed the finer things in life

and gave no thought to the throngs of poor people around them.

This parable shows them how the law would convict them.

 

To be clear, this parable is not Jesus full-blown theology

of what happens after death and how salvation works.

If it was, we would all be in a lot of trouble.

It is a parable that says if you only had the law to rely on,

here is what the law would do to you.

 

So we have an unnamed rich man. He ate well, and he dressed well.

I think he is unnamed because he could be any one of us hearing.

We might say, in our defense, “well I don’t have a life

of obvious consumption, so this parable doesn’t apply to me.”

But expensive food and flashy dressing is not

in itself the problem.

 

What is the problem is that a poor man –

Lazarus, who does have a name –

has been laying at the unnamed rich man’s gate.

He’s sick, covered in sores and

the best part of Lazarus day was when the dogs

would come and lick them.

 

Lazarus wished that he could have

some of the rich man’s leftovers,

but obviously, the rich man didn’t care to share.

He didn’t care at all actually, it seems like

he didn’t even notice Lazarus, so he  

didn’t think that this poor man was his problem.

Maybe the unnamed rich man thought that he

was better than the poor people around him.

Maybe he thought his comfort was a blessing from God.

And the poor people, they all made bad choices,

they didn’t work as hard, they weren’t as smart,

they must have done something wrong

or they wouldn’t be in this position.

“Not my problem”, says the unnamed rich man.

 

And this is actually the problem.

“Not my problem” is the problem.

And we don’t have to be rich to have it.

So whether we consider ourselves rich,

or well off, or comfortable, or just getting by

it doesn’t matter, this parable is speaking to us.

 

So after he died, the unnamed rich man was sent to live in torment

and Lazarus was with the angels and father Abraham.

Which gives everyone else a good clue that

wealth is not a God given blessing and a license of superiority at all.

Everyone understands this, that is, except the unnamed man.

Because even after death he’s still arrogantly oblivious.

 

And just to prove that he still doesn’t get it,

the man calls over to Father Abraham and actually tells

him to send Lazarus over to serve him and bring him a cold drink.

Abraham tells them man, “No, we can’t do that.”
And the reason is that

“a huge chasm exists between Lazarus and the man.”

A chasm.

A great gap that can’t be crossed.

That is the problem here.

The chasm between people.

 
We know about this chasm in our world.

The chasm between people.

The chasm that we inherit, the chasm that we make even larger.

We have chasms of wealth, and income levels, debt levels,

we have chasms of age and generation,

we have chasms of zip codes and location.

We have created chasms of race and culture

in our country that determine so many other things.

We have people who are privileged by their circumstance

and people who are penalized by their circumstance.

 

Even if we’re not one of the conspicuously rich

like this unnamed man, we have reinforced this 

chasm between us and others. 

Especially those with less: less money, less security,

less privilege, less anything than we have.

 

We put physical distance between us,

and we put spiritual and mental distance between us too.

“At least we are not like them over there.” We say.

And when we keep others at a distance, we make the chasm larger.

We support or ignore systems and laws that

keep people in lives of debt and fear

and always on the brink of disaster.

We support laws and development that take away housing,

tax breaks and credits, debt relief,

and prevent people from earning a livable wage.

 

And then we look down on them for their suffering,

for a whole myriad of reasons:

They’re not as sophisticated as us, or as smart as us,

they’re not working as hard, or making as good choices,

they don’t use good grammar, or speak the language

they don’t healthy foods, they don’t look very professional.

Whatever the reason, we act as if their lives don’t matter as much.

Like the Pharisees, we love to use the law on others.

Not so crazy about it when it convicts us.

With our action and inaction, with our apathy

and ignorance, we have created a great chasm.

No matter what our financial status,

we are familiar with the chasm that exists between

Lazarus and this unnamed man.

 

-We have people spending billions of dollars on 10 minute

rocket rides while other people can’t afford medical care.

-A friend told a story how her husband works in a gourmet

food shop in New York City and a woman came 

in and bought $140 a pound goose liver pate that she was going to feed to her dog.

Meanwhile there are people who go to bed hungry.

-I’m spending $40 on throw pillows for my porch

while other people don’t have a place to live.

 

The problem isn’t the privilege in itself, it’s the chasm.

Each generation, each nation, each place

has created and grown their own chasms,

it can’t be blamed on one person, it’s not one person’s fault,

it’s taken years to build these chasms between people.

But this chasm is the problem. “Not my problem” is the problem.

 

The point of Jesus parable is to point out this problem.

And the point of this parable is also to say the time

to close our chasms is not later in God’s Kingdom, it’s now.

 

The unnamed man gets another idea,

he’ll do a good deed –  or his version of a good deed anyway.

He tells Abraham to send Lazarus,

(again Lazarus has to serve the rich man)

to go knocking on the doors of his family and warn them

of the consequences of this chasm.

  

Abraham says, “umm. Let me think about that for a minute.

NO.

You had all the information,

you should have fixed this chasm before.”

 

It’s not enough to say now, it doesn’t affect me,

I’m not going to get involved,

or this is too difficult to deal with ,

I’ll just let God sort the whole thing out.

This chasm is ours to sort out, here.

This is for those five brothers to figure out.

We all have been given the guidance of Moses and the prophets.

Now is the time to listen and understand those we look down on.

Those we think we’re better than.

 

Jesus has basically show us the choice,

we can be stiff necked and tough,

and cling to our self-righteousness and say,

“not my problem” and just ignore the whole thing.

Or we can realize now that and any problem

of my brothers and sisters is my problem.

 

For those of us who are not in Lazarus position,

it’s hard to find any good news for us in this parable.

It’s easy to find the bad news.

 

The challenge of this parable is that

The chasms that exist in our world are our problem.

For those of us with any status or wealth or privilege,

the chasm is ours to cross and heal in this world.

 

And this chasm is not something we can just throw money at

and have it go away, Like Jesus, we empty ourselves by,

eating with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners,

be seen with the wrong people, listening to the cries of sick,

bringing good news to the poor.

 

And if we have access to the banquet,

we are inviting everyone into the banquet.

Time, understanding, compassion, vulnerability.

Those are the things that heal chasms.

Our job as Christians to close those chasms.

 

And the good news of this story is that

this parable is not Jesus full-blown theology

of what happens after death and how salvation happens.

We don’t only have the law to rely on.

 

Through the cross, Jesus has closed the chasm

between heaven and humanity.

We can rely on God’s abundance and

there is grace enough for everyone,

even those of us who have privilege here on earth.

God’s grace is for everyone equally.

There is no such thing as “not my problem”.

 

In God’s kingdom, we are all God’s problem.