Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, September 28, 2025
You cannot serve God and wealth. That's what Jesus has just said to his disciples in our passage last week. Hopefully something that you've heard us say at Vine Street before, but at those times and to those ears, and in a lot of times and to a lot of ears today, that's a pretty tough message to hear. You cannot serve God and wealth. And then Jesus looks away from his disciples in our passage this morning and looks to the people that have kind of been eavesdropping—the Pharisees. And in verse 14, we learn that the Pharisees, they're many things, but in today's passage, they are the lovers of money. The Pharisees, the lovers of money, find themselves eavesdropping a lot on what Jesus is saying to folks, which is really interesting. Like they can't—they want to hear, they don't not want to hear what Jesus is up to, right? And so he turns to them. And we've been walking through the Gospel of Luke for quite some time now, church. And we know that this Gospel is hard. I don't know what y'all have been reflecting on in your Sunday school class. But when I sit down and look at another text I have to preach, I just kind of go, "Uh, this Gospel is hard, y'all." We've talked about hating your mother and father. We've talked about not bringing peace but division. We've talked about the fact that you can't serve God and love money. And this is another hard text today. Jesus is a bringer of hard truths.
So he turns to the eavesdroppers, the ones that in verse 17 are ridiculing him. And in true Jesus way, he tells a story. He tells a parable. And this parable is actually sort of a parallel of how ancient Egyptian folk tales would have been told. So he tells this parable and this is how it goes. You've got a rich guy and he's wearing really, really fancy clothes. He's wearing purple, which we know was the sign of royalty—not the TCU purple that Dominic is wearing, but a different kind of ancient purple. And it says that he's dressed in fine linens. You get the picture. It says that he—and I love this word—it says that he feasted sumptuously every day. He had more than enough. He had what he needed. We learn that he's situated in his house and that there's a gate. And we don't know his name. Jesus doesn't give the rich man a name in our story. Hold on to that. And then Jesus says, "You've got a poor guy." And this poor guy is the only character in any parable that Jesus tells that gets a name. And I could sit down right now, 'cause that's the sermon, ain't it? That this poor man who went unnoticed and unloved, his name is Lazarus. That's the only named person in a parable that you're going to get.
So Lazarus, we learn, is laying outside of the gates of this rich man's house. He is starving. He is waiting to receive even just a scrap of food from the rich man's table. And he's seen as little more than an animal. I mean, even the dogs think so. They are licking his sores. So we know that he is in a great deal of physical pain. We know that he is hungry. And we know that he is going unnoticed. And weirdly, this parable doesn't stay in the lives of these two men. This is a very odd story, is it not? What we learn next is that both men die and this becomes a story about what happens in their deaths.
So, first we learn that Lazarus dies and he doesn't get a funeral and he doesn't get a proper burial. What he gets is he gets to be carried away by the angels to Abraham. And then the rich man dies and he does get a proper burial. His death goes noticed. And I'm sure it was a really special and extravagant day. And this is why theologians call this parable the parable of reversal. We have the rich and the poor and they make their way to Hades. And that's for another day. That's for a day when the whole rapture thing didn't happen this week. And then we'll talk about that, okay. But they find themselves in Hades and all of the sudden the top becomes the bottom and up becomes down and the script is flipped just like the Gospel loves to do. The rich man is being tormented in Hades, and he looks up and really, really far away from him, he sees Abraham and he sees Lazarus, which would have been a little bit confusing for him, I'm sure. He sees Abraham and Lazarus. He notices Lazarus, maybe for the first time ever, and he calls out to Abraham—and so frustrating, even after death, he refers to Lazarus in the third person. Did you notice that? As if he's not really there. He says, "Abraham, can you send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames." The hope of water on a fingerprint, as one theologian said. I love that. The hope of water on a fingerprint.
And yet, the rich man still sees Lazarus as someone who should be doing labor for him, right? Abraham shows him a little mercy. He calls him child. He says, "Child, you know, in your lifetime, you got the good things. And in Lazarus's lifetime, he got the evil things. So now you are going to experience agony. And he is going to experience comfort." Anybody—I'm a little itchy in these robes reading that part. Where is God's mercy? And then he says, "Besides all this, between you and us, there's a really great chasm, and it's pretty fixed at this point. So that those who might want to pass from here to you can't do so. And if you want to pass from there to us, you can't do that anymore. A great chasm has been fixed."
And so in desperation, which I would have done the same thing, the rich man asks Abraham, "Can you get a message back to my family then? Like if I'm going to be living in Hades in agony, in these flames, can you at least get a message back to my five brothers?" Does anybody have five brothers? Okay, I have four, but I just wondered. All right. In ancient folk tales, if you were dead and you wanted to get a message back to someone who was alive, the messenger would make sure that it happened. But this is the Gospel. And sometimes things don't always work out that way. In this story, Abraham says, "Ah, I don't know." The rich man says, "I beg you, please, can you send Lazarus to my father's house? Can you warn my five brothers because I don't want them to come to this place of torment like I'm in?" Maybe we call that the awakening of compassion in the rich man. He's thinking about his family. Maybe we call that manipulation. I don't know what we call that yet. But in any case, he wants his brothers to be warned. Abraham says, "Dude, they've got Moses. They've got the prophets. They should listen to them." And the rich man says, "No, I need someone to go from the dead because then they'll repent." And Abraham says to him, "If they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, I don't think they're going to be convinced by someone who rises from the dead." We're going to call that foreshadowing. If they're not listening to the prophets, they're not going to be convinced by someone rising from the dead. And that's the end of the story. Mic drop, deafening silence. That is the end of this parable.
You have to wonder if you're the Pharisees. You think they were just like, "Okay, I don't know what to make of that." It's not really a hopeful text. And I don't know about you, but for me, I'm looking for some hope in scripture these days. But I do want to argue, church, that there is hope in this text because there's possibility and because there's challenge and because I want to call it a text of second chances. And I want to call it a text of there is still time. Because this isn't just a story about good versus evil. Jesus is never that simple. Thank God. It's a story about apathy and it's a story about compassion and the chasm that exists between those two things.
The rich man, let's go back to the beginning. He's not depicted as this inherently wicked guy. We don't hear about him persecuting Lazarus. We don't hear about him refusing Lazarus food. We don't hear about him sponsoring legislation to rid the gates of poor people like Lazarus. He just doesn't see him. He just doesn't see him. Perhaps the rich man worked really hard for his home. Maybe he built the gate outside of that home with his two strong hands. Maybe he donated frequently to various charities. Maybe he kept up with the happenings of the global news. Maybe he took in so much of the suffering of the world that his overwhelm about what was happening right in front of him grew and grew to the point of just deep and numbing apathy. Maybe he felt like there was too much going on out there. How could he look at the pain happening right here on his doorstep and really do something about it and really make a difference? What did it matter? He felt sorrow. I'm sure he did, but maybe he didn't feel moved to offer to help.
I sympathize with this guy. I've got a house. It has a gate. I don't really have fine linens. I don't have a purple TCU shirt, but I have more than enough. I have more than I need. And often from my place of comfort, even my desire to be aware of the poverty and injustice and suffering in this world, especially lately, I take in so much of it that I leave my doorstep completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the pain and despair occurring out there. And it makes me want to get in my car. Makes me want to keep the windows rolled up when I pass someone in need. Makes me want to walk faster by a family on the street. Makes me want to look at my phone when someone is asking for money for a charity again. 'Cause how could any of it make a difference at this point? I've grown bitter. I have grown numb at times. I have grown resigned to this chasm between the rich and the poor. And maybe you've been there, too.
Or maybe you haven't. Maybe you relate more to Lazarus who's wondering when people are going to give him the scraps of dignity and wealth and abundance. He's outside of the gate asking, "When will you see me? When will you see me?" Maybe you are the one finding hope in this story that there's comfort of the angels in Abraham for Lazarus, even if he's not buried properly. The rich man and the poor man. But it's never that simple with the Gospel, is it? Because church, there are two more characters in this cast. And both of them are characters that can still listen. The first is the Pharisees. The people who are eavesdropping, the people who are listening. The people who are skeptical and weary but are still wondering. Whose hearts and minds still could be transformed and changed by the stories of Jesus Christ. Yeah. I haven't given up on the Pharisees.
And the other group. The other group that is still living, the other group that is still listening, the other group who might still be able to make a difference is who? I know y'all got this. Come on. The five. The five brothers, y'all. It was tip of the tongue. I saw it. The five brothers who are still alive, where it is still possible for compassion and mercy to fill their hearts, who may, yes, meet Lazarus in this moment of utter and bewildered grace, who might say, "Wow, we see you. Gosh, thank you. Thank you for shaking us out of this numbed out apathy we've been in." There is still time to change. There is still time to listen. There is still time to think about our ancestors, Moses and the prophets, and follow in their footsteps. When they stood up to injustice, when they served the oppressed, when they visited the prisoner, when they fed the hungry, these five brothers, maybe they're showing us the way. Maybe they're showing us what it might look like to share our wealth. And not to just share our wealth—that's one side of it—but to see the people suffering not over there but right here in front of us at our gate, on our doorstep, on this street, on that street corner.
Five brothers and a group of Pharisees for whom this story is not yet over. Wealth in all of its forms can make us so blind to our neighbors. It makes me so blind to my neighbors. And it can give me a false sense of comfort in which I slowly forget about the suffering of those at my gate. And I can even find myself speaking in third person about them as if they're not there right in front of me. As if I don't need the hope of that fingerprint. So, this is a warning cry. This is an uncomfortable text. This is a convicting and challenging one. And it's pretty clear. The rich man's apathy—it brought him agony. And Jesus only names the one who was seen as poor. And Jesus left this story open-ended, inviting us to decide for ourselves. Will we move past our apathy? Will we peer beyond the gate? Will we close the chasm? Will we be part of that work? Or will we not?