Dives and Lazarus
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Dives and Lazarus: 26 September 2010: am: The Very Revd Frank Nelson
- Psalm 91: 1 - 7
- Jeremiah 32: 1 – 3, 6 - 15
- 1Timothy 6: 6 - 19
- Luke 16: 19 - 31
St Luke sure comes up with some tricky passages to deal with. The parable of the rich man, sometimes called Dives, and Lazarus is one of those stories most of us would probably rather not hear too often. Yet few of us are likely to indentify too closely with either man. The handful of words said about the rich man suggest he was inordinately rich – dressed in purple, the colour of royalty and hugely costly to produce in Jesus’ day, and fine linen, as opposed to homespun wool, and able to feast sumptuously not just occasionally, but every day. In stark contrast is Lazarus – so poor that the dogs licked at the sores on his skin. I’m reminded of a lady in Johannesburg we used to call the trolley lady. All her worldly goods were stashed in supermarket bags in a trolley which she pushed around the city streets. I once found her washing the filthy bandages from her ulcerated legs in the cathedral washrooms. She was as poor as can be.
As so often in the stories of Jesus, we have two contrasting characters. In the story the rich man is oblivious to the poor man sitting at his gate. The story continues and the tables are turned. The rich man finds himself in Hades, tormented and on fire. The poor man, Lazarus, finds himself in heaven. Now, finally, the rich man notices Lazarus and calls out to his protector, Abraham. Send Lazarus to dip just the tip of his finger in cold water to cool his burning tongue. It’s not to be. There is an unbridgeable chasm between the two men – quite as big as that when they were alive. Finally aware of other people, the rich man thinks to warn his family of their fate, but it’s too late. They have Moses and the prophets. If they haven’t paid attention to them they won’t pay attention even if Lazarus comes back from the dead. There is a subtle suggestion too that they won’t pay attention to the one who did rise from the dead, Jesus the Christ.
St Luke has a particular interest in the rich and the poor. Each Sunday evening we sing a canticle known as the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, in which these lines are found: “He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away.” It’s just one instance where God does something surprising, uncomfortable, challenging. The applecart is upset. The ‘proper’ order of things is overturned. Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan? It was not the priest or the Levite who helped the man in trouble, but the unexpected, feared and hated, Samaritan. Remember the parable of the Prodigal Son? The boy’s father was so overjoyed to see his boy home, that he forgave all and threw a party. The older brother had his nose really put out. He couldn’t cope with what he saw as the injustice of his father’s love and forgiveness.
In the story of Dives and Lazarus it is not that the rich man was rich – but that he was quite unaware of Lazarus. He was in fact blind. Perhaps this is what St Paul was on about in writing to Timothy in the snippet we heard this morning. There are familiar words about money being a root of all kinds of evil. But it is the temptation of those who want to be rich to wander away from God, to become blind to the needs of those around them, that is the real problem.
The awareness of those in need is the key to the reference to Moses and the prophets. Make sure you spell that word correctly – we are not talking here about proFITS. The Hebrew people understood that the God they worshipped was an ethical God. God, so the teaching of Moses and prophets such as Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah went, is a God who demands that people care for each other. Over and over again there is the injunction to care for the poor, the widow and orphan, and the stranger, the immigrant, the visitor, the outsider. Love your neighbour as you love yourself, said the Law of Moses. It took Jesus to burst open the concept of neighbour and remind his listeners that neighbour means any and every fellow human being.
There’s always been some tension when talking about wealth and money. There are those who say that if one truly worships God one will be materially blessed. For some this becomes little more than a prosperity Gospel. Worship God, and God will pour out abundant blessings. In a strange way this is often true – not because God can be manipulated to give us what we want, but because people who undergo a radical conversion change their way of life. Money previously spent, for example, on cigarettes and alcohol, is now available to pay off a mortgage, or take the family on holiday. They are indeed blessed. It’s another matter altogether when, as sometimes happens, a preacher manipulates people for his or her own financial gain.
There is the incident in the Gospels of the rich young man who had to choose between his wealth and Jesus, and went with his money. The rich are not condemned because they are wealthy, but because they trust money rather than God. The wealthy are encouraged to use their resources for the greater good of society and the individuals in it. Some recent examples come to mind. In yesterday’s paper there is a short report about Sam Morgan and John Todd, among others, picking up on the so-called Giving Pledge. Of course those of us who struggle along on a ‘normal’ sort of income – whether from salary, superannuation or the sheer hard work of being a sailor – may be slightly skeptical at Bill Gates’s challenge to billionaires to give away half their wealth. When you have a billion dollars, even half is still a hang of a lot of money!
In late June I met with six other clergy. We live and work in capital cities and financial centres. Our host, the vicar of St Mary le Bow Church, literally under the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, took us to meet with some high powered financiers in the City of London. We were introduced to various micro-financing projects. People invest some of their money in helping people in the poorest countries help themselves by providing small loans – loans which most banks regard as too risky or simply not worth while. The idea behind the Fair Trade movement is similar. Encourage people to become self-sufficient by providing the necessary wherewithal, not simply giving handouts.
Canon Giles Fraser, chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, tells about taking the choristers from the Cathedral to Canary Warf. On the 18th floor of a vast tower block he led prayers and the choristers sang Mendelsohn’s “Lift thine eyes.” He writes: as the phones kept ringing and the intercom blurted out messages from Hong Kong, hundreds of traders stood at their desks with bowed heads. Each year company directors and hard-nosed traders raise money for a variety of charities – by giving up a day’s salary. The now annual tradition started after 9/11 in 2001. On that day the company lost 658 staff working on the five floors immediately above the strike sight of the first plane to plow into the World Trade Centre at 8.46am.
The rich man Dives simply could not see Lazarus sitting at his gate. His wealth inured him, blinded him, to the need around him. If nothing else, today’s Gospel invites us to open our eyes to the familiar and see the suffering, the poor, the less well off, in our midst.
This is precisely what our Cathedral young adults are encouraging us to do in throwing the Spring Ball next Friday. Behind all the organization, the hard work, and the sheer fun of transforming this wonderful cathedral into an elegant ball room for one night, is the opportunity to raise money to help others.
