This parable is unlike any other parable in the New Testament.
One of the two key figures in the story, Lazarus, has a name.
Characters in proper parables are identified by their station
in life: the vineyard owner, the sinner, the tax collector,
the manager, and so on, but not by their names. What makes a
parable a parable is that the people in them are types and the
events are fictional. Moreover, parables are usually created
to convey one primary point; not many varied points but generally,
just one.
The
fact that one of the characters in the story of Lazarus and
the Rich Man is named and that the story deals with a variety
of issues rather than just one could mean that the story is
not really a parable. It could be that Jesus is passing on a
true story, history. In fact, Calvin, in his commentary on this
story refers to it as a "history", something that
really happened in the past.
If so, Jesus, God the Son, has opened a window into the afterlife
so that you and I can see what happens when people die. Even
if this is just a parable, it’s clear that Jesus intends
to pass on real information about what lies on the other side
of this life. The story is given, at least partly, as a warning
about the end, a warning that that there will be an accounting.
But the warning would have no bite if the conditions described
here, heaven and hell, were not real. So whether it’s
a true story or a real parable, Jesus, reveals truths about
what happens when we die and since everyone here is going to
die it requires our careful attention.
Let’s start by noticing the context. Every passage you
read is set within the framework of the passages that precede
and follow it. Throughout chapter 16, we’ve been getting
parables and stories about the difference between external wealth
and external status and external righteousness and a righteousness
of the heart, wealth of the spirit and status before God. If
you look up to verses 14-15, you’ll see that these stories
offended the Pharisees in particular because they especially
were guilty of focusing on external things and neglecting the
heart. “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all of this
and were sneering at Jesus. ‘You are the ones who justify
yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What
is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight…”
This is one of the best and worst things about being a Christian.
Jesus sees right through me. He knows me as I am. The great
thing about that is that he loves me, the real me, just as I
am. The bad thing is that I can’t put anything by him.
God knows my heart. He sees right through me. You can fool everyone
else but God knows the truth about you. The problem Jesus had
with the Pharisees was that they were concerned to be seen by
men. They wanted people to think of them as holy, as righteous,
as blessed by God. But they were more concerned to be "seen"
than to actually "be." They worked hard so that people
would recognize their holiness rather than actually seeking
holiness. They wanted people to see their wealth, prosperity
and importance; to see their rich flowing robes and step back
and say, “well now, this man must be truly blessed. God’s
hand must be on him. Look at his robes and his house and all
of his servants, God must be very pleased…Oh and look
he’s tithing, he’s washing his hands in the proper
way, he’s bringing his sacrifices to the temple; he must
be very holy.”
Human beings are social creatures. It naturally matters to us
what other people think. Anyone who says differently is lying
through his teeth. When I was a youth minister it was popular
then for kids to wear their pants down around their knees. I
used to ask the kids in my youth group why. And they’d
say, “I don’t care what anyone thinks. I dress the
way I want to dress.” But then you look around the room,
you see that this free thinker, this rebel without a cause,
is dressed exactly like all of his friends. Why? Because he
cares about what people think…not his parents or his youth
pastor, but his friends. The truth is that we all care. We all
want to be liked and respected.
The problem comes when “what others think” becomes
a driving force in your life. You begin to make decisions to
win approval from others. You don’ ask: what does God
think about this or is this right or is this in keeping with
God’s Word, but what will my friends think or what will
people say about me if I do this. When that happens, you lose
something. You hollow out. You become an empty shell with nothing
inside, a full time actor who’s never offstage. You lose
yourself. You lose your integrity. That was precisely what Jesus
says the Pharisees had begun to do. They were seeking worldy
acclaim and wordly status and wealth and they were destroying
their souls in the process.
The story of the rich man and Lazarus has been portrayed as
a tale about the virtue of poverty and wickedness of wealth,
but that’s not it. This is a story about the God who sees
straight through you, who sees straight through all the facades,
sees directly into the core of your being and knows you as you
are. God is not a man to be fooled by outward appearances. God
is not deceived by titles or large houses or cars. God sees
you fully, completely, perfectly, every thought and disposition
of your heart is laid bear before him. That’s what happens
in this story. Two men are laid bear.
Look at verse 19. Judging by external or worldly standards Lazarus
and the rich man are worlds apart. The rich man is dressed in
purple. Purple dye was, at the time, extremely expensive. Only
the very wealthy could afford it. The white togas of Roman senators
were rimmed with purple to set them apart as rulers of the people.
The rich man doesn’t just wear purple rimmed garments,
but garments completely dyed in purple and he dresses not in
common wool or cotton or coarse linen, but the finest of linens.
And, Jesus says he, “lives in luxury every day.”
He lives in comfort, in luxury, without any trouble or hardship.
He lives the life we’re all told we should want to live.
I was in the New Orleans airport this weekend and I was sitting
next to a man dressed in expensive cowboy boots and wearing
a nice Stetson hat. I know about these things, I'm from Texas.
The man was talking to his business partner on his phone and
he was excited about a new product they were going to sell.
He said. “We’ll be able to retire before we’re
fifty and we'll go live on the Islands” That’s the
dream isn't it? Make money, retire early, live well. The rich
man in this story is living the dream. People look at him and
see his clothes and the parties he throws and the big gated
house and they say, “That guy’s got it. If only
I could have his life.” And that’s what he wants.
The purple and the big gate, they’re not just for him.
He wants people to know that he has it. That he’s made
it. That he’s important.
Contrast the rich man with Lazarus. Lazarus doesn’t live
in luxury. He has to beg for his food. Lazarus does not have
fine clothes. He’s clothed with sores. The words uses
to describe these sores indicate a skin disease that would have
made Lazarus ceremonially unclean. He would’ve been unable
to go to the Temple or live in the community and when he walked
the streets according to Leviticus 14:45, he would’ve
had to yell “Unclean, Unclean” to let people know
he was coming. And anyone who came into contact with him would’ve
become unclean as well. The rich man was living the dream, Lazarus
lived a nightmare.
Now God gave purity laws to point to the fact that every aspect
of this world, all parts of the created order have been twisted
and marred by sin. Skin diseases, all disease, is a manifestation
of the fact that this world is fallen and not how God intended
it to be. But while God gave laws restricting diseased people
from coming into the temple, he made provision for them. First,
touching someone with a skin disease would make you unclean,
but not irreperably so. It was possible and relatively simple
to be made clean again. There was no call to utterly avoid all
contact with people like Lazarus. Second, in Deuteronomy 15,
you see the following command with regard to the poor that is
repeated throughout the scriptures, “there should be no
poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving
you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you
(4)…If there is a poor man among your brothers in any
of the towns of the Land that the Lord is giving you, do not
be hardhearted or tightfisted (7)…I command you to be
openhearted toward your brothers and toward the poor and the
needy in the land (11).”
So God while gave his purity laws to point to the cleansing
blood of Christ, he did not intend them to provide a rationale
for neglecting those with diseases. No one in Israel was supposed
to be poor.
Lazarus should not be sitting outside the gates with the dogs
“longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.”
The rich man was obligated to take from his abundance and his
blessing and give it to the poor man. Lazarus should have had
shelter and food and love provided by his brothers and sisters.
But the rich man, the man who had the ability to help him, despised
him. Lazarus sat at his gate. The rich man passed him by. Every
time he went out, there was Lazarus begging for food, longing
to eat, covered in sores.
What a contrast. One man commands respect and honor, the other
derision. One man does not know discomfort, the other lives
in abject misery. One man is self-assured, confident, established,
the other a beggar.
But the conditions are not real. They’re real in the sense
that the rich man is truly wealthy and the beggar is truly a
beggar, but the spiritual reality underlying the material reality
is very different. The rich man is impoverished. He’s
a shell. He has all the trappings of life on the outside, but
on the inside he’s dead. The rich man’s luxurious
living serves only to highlight the poverty, the destitution,
in his heart. He is a whitewashed tomb.
What about you? What’s the truth about your heart? Do
the words you say on Sunday morning reflect the inner workings
of your heart? Is this a lie? Jesus uses this story to call
people to get honest with God and honest with themselves now,
here, before death.
Next week we’ll see what happens when the façade
is destroyed and both Lazarus and the rich man are laid bear
before God. We’ll all face that. We’ll all be laid
bare before God.
