The Poor at our Doorstep
The 17th Sunday after Pentecost The Church of the Good Shepherd
Text: Luke 16:19-31 The Rev. Ross M. Wright
Poverty is not pretty a pretty sight. And Jesus makes no attempt to romanticize it. Lazarus, the poor man, is a mass of ulcers, and the dogs lick his sores. If you find this description slightly revolting, this is probably just the reaction Jesus intended. So our parable this morning presents us with something we would rather not see. That is why the poor are usually segregated from the rest of the population. When is the last time you had a meaningful conversation with someone who is really indigent? If you have, is it probably because you went out of your way to do so. You participate in the Freedom House feeding ministry or a soup kitchen. It is easy to go for long periods of time without seeing the poor or having much interaction with them.
This is the problem with the rich man in the parable. Jesus does not say that he is a bad rich man, that he is unscrupulous or dishonest. The problem is that he is oblivious of Lazarus. Even though the poor man is placed at his door step every day, he manages to avoid him. His wealth insulates him from the poor.
The world is divided between Haves and Have-nots. Having insulates us from the Have-nots. This is one of the unavoidable consequences of wealth. The first scene of our parable, therefore, reflects life as we know it; life here and now.
In the second scene, the rich man sees his life from the terrifying perspective of Hades. He sees everything differently. He notices Lazarus for the first time, at the bosom of Abraham. But notice – even in hell, he continues to regard the poor man as his lackey: “Send him to dip his finger in the water and moisten my tongue. . . . Send him to my father’s house.” Nevertheless, he does see the shallowness of his former life, the emptiness of it all. He realizes that by ignoring the poor man, he was ignoring God’s word to him. The word of God came to him in the form of the poor man, who was lying at his doorstep. But he refused to listen.
Lazarus is symbolic for the poor, in the special sense that the Bible defines the term. When the Bible speaks of “the poor,” the term refers to those who are indigent and therefore know that God alone is their helper, that God alone is their strength. Poverty in this sense combines both the reality of humiliation and humility. This can be seen in the different ways that Luke and Matthew record Jesus’ opening words in the Sermon on the Mount. Luke has “Blessed are the poor,” while Matthew, the more familiar version, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” The difference between the two versions captures the dual meaning of the biblical poor.
God has special concern for the poor. He protects them, because they cannot help themselves. In fact, the name, “Lazarus,” means, “God helps.” God sees things exactly opposite of that way that do. We are impressed with wealth and repelled by poverty. But with God, it is the other way around. He has special concern for the poor and is not the least bit impressed with our wealth. What is highly esteemed by men is of no value to God. And what is detestable in man’s eyes is of great value to God. We see this most clearly in Jesus, who is the Poor One. He never owned a house. He was completely dependent on the generosity of others. He entrusted himself to God. And he, the Poor One, is the one about whom God the Father says: “This is my son, my beloved; I delight in him.” In him, God has drawn near to us.
The biblical poor point beyond themselves to Jesus Christ – not because being poor makes a person righteous, but because the state of the poor person points to Jesus who was poor for our sakes. In the poor, we can see concretely what is despised by men but precious to God.
God draws near to us in the presence of the poor. Mother Theresa referred to the poor as Jesus in disguise; they are Jesus Christ in “the terrible disguise of poverty.” Dietrich Bonheoffer wrote an important circular letter to pastors and theologians shortly after the Finkenwalde seminary was shut down by the Nazis. Nearly all of them were removed from their official positions, no longer to enjoy the protection of the state. In Germany, theologians and pastors were official public servants. Bonheoffer realized that before long, many of them would also be imprisoned. He said: We have learned to see reality “from the underside,” that is, from the point of view of those who live on the margins of society. For Bonheoffer, this was a significant gain, because it taught them to hear the voice of God in an under the cries of the poor. Where is God, where is he speaking to us, he asked? In the Bible? In worship? In and under the voices of the poor! The way we respond to the poor is how we respond to God himself.
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not simply a story about the reversal of fortunes, as if to say: in the next life, the rich will be poor and the poor enjoy God’s favor. God will set things right. If that is all that the parable said, then it would not be that different from wisdom stories or morality stories which are present in every culture. During Jesus’ lifetime, Jewish literature abounded with such stores. No, the parable ends with a scene about Lazarus’ brothers, whom the rich man is obviously concerned about. It is in them that we see ourselves most clearly. For the rich man, it is too late. But for the brothers, there is still time.
“Father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, because I have five brothers, so that he may warn them lest they too come to this place of torment.” But Abraham said to him, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them.” And he said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead went to them, they will repent.” But he said, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded even if someone were to rise from the dead.”
So the parable ends by confronting us with this question: Are we listening to God’s voice about the poor? Warnings about wealth and its power to render us oblivious of the poor are everywhere in the Old Testament, once you begin to listen for them. Our reading from Amos is just such a passage. Throughout the Pentateuch, it is clear that the Lord intends Israel to order her economic life so that everyone has enough.
There has been an unfortunate tendency for evangelical Christians in the United States to associate concern for social justice with liberal theology, in contrast to the emphasis on the authority of Scripture and the atonement, which are prominent themes in more conservative theology. But this is a false dichotomy. A concern for social justice is on almost every page of the Bible, both Old Testament and New. John Stott has been a great example to the evangelical community in this regard. Stott is considered by many to be the dean of evangelical Anglicanism in the world. Some years ago, I had the privilege of spending an evening at his flat in London, along with some other Americans present for his clergy school. One of our group asked him: What has been the single greatest change in your ministry over the years? He said: Recognition of the importance which the Bible places on social justice -- warnings against treating the poor unfairly and about unequal distribution of wealth. I have never forgotten Stott’s comment. We cannot leave these matters to the liberal theologians, the government, or the UN. There is no simple solution, but to quote Stott again, the unfair distribution of wealth, particularly the discrepancy between the wealthy North and the developing South, “should weigh heavily on our consciences; it is something to which the Christian conscience can never be reconciled.”
The climax of our parable is the end, when the rich man suggests that his brothers will believe if someone returns from the dead. The idea of someone coming back from the dead to warn the living is a perennial theme in literature. We think of Dickens’ Christmas Carol or of Homer’s description of Odysseus visiting the dead, asking for guidance from Tiresias. But for the believer, this is no mere fable. In the Risen Christ, we catch a glimpse of our eschatological existence, that is, our life as members of God’s coming kingdom. The dead will be raised, and we will have resurrection bodies, “like unto his glorious body” as Paul says. To see our life now in light of our future existence sheds light on what is important, on what lasts. And it reminds us that all human wealth is passing away.
More the point for now, the Risen Christ is standing here among us. And he asks: Do you recognize my voice in the presence of the poor at your doorstep?