An old man died in a Manhattan brownstone some years ago. No one in the neighborhood knew much about him. Some neighbors thought he was odd and eccentric. Most ignored him altogther. Just a silly recluse, they said. When he died the newspapers sent a reporter to his brownstone home. Inside they found newspapers and magazines stacked to the ceilings. Narrow corridors wound in a maze throughout the house. When the papers and magazines were removed, furniture of all kinds, including 17 grand pianos were found buried in that labyrinth of debris. Langley Collier had acquired a great fortune but he lived as a recluse in his home, buried in canyons of newspapers and debris.

The rich man in today's gospel lesson was not like Langley Collier. He did not live in a canyon of debris. Nor did he spend his life like a recluse. The poor man in today's gospel was like Langley Collier, for the word we translate as "poor man" means one who hides himself from other people.

Langley Collier chose to live hidden in that brownstone with his 17 grand pianos and all those magazines. Like him the poor man in the gospel hid himself. He was afraid. He was so afraid of other people that he would not ask for anything. He would not even go to the rich man's table where he could get something to eat. His friends had to bring him there. He was afraid to go by himself.

The poor man did have one thing going for him, however. The poor man had desires. Great desires. The same longings and desires the prodigal son felt. When he watched the swine he was feeding stuff themselves with corn husks, he desired to feed on them as well. This the poor man desired -- to feed on the bread that fell from the rich man's table.

Then something happened to both the poor man and the rich man in this story. They both died. Death brought the poor man with desires to the bosom of Abraham. It brought the rich man, with no desires, to hades -- or to hell.

The New Testament word for hell means "not to see anything," especially not to see anything that our fears and our feelings lead us to see. That's what death did to the rich man. It opened his eyes to see that he had been living in a world where he respected neither his feelings nor his fears. He lived only as the elder brother of the prodigal son -- enslaved to duty and resentful of his brother's deep desires. "Father Abraham," he cried out, "have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am anguished in this flame."

Did he die physically? Is that what brought this change to his life? Or did he die emotionally? Did something happen in his life where suddenly he was no longer comfortable feasting sumptuously day by day? Was hell really a new place for him -- or just a new perspective on the old familiar places?

The point of this story is not "after-life." The point of the gospel is "now-life." Now -- where the kingdom of God is, in and among us. God brought some kind of death to the rich man and to the poor man alike. They both needed some kind of radical separation in their lives: the poor man to stop being such a recluse and to enjoy the intimacy of life in the bosom of Abraham; the rich man to stop living a life that had only a full belly but no desires!

The rich man says, "I am in this place of torment." He does not want his brothers to come to this place. The word indicates that the rich man now experiences life as a head wind into which he must sail or as a sea that tosses him about. That's why God brought this death experience, this sense of loss into his life -- precisely so he would start living like a ship sailing into the wind, tossed to and fro on the sea. Life in the banquet hall is no life at all from God's perspective; life on the high seas is.

Some years ago a man's youngest son died at the age of 18. The boy had been retarded and his father had devoted his entire life to the care of his son. After he died, the father grew morose and dejected. "I have nothing to live for," he said. He died himself, very young, a few years later. A man without desires is already dead. That's why God will bring him to the place of torment, where the winds blow and the seas toss -- to bring desires back into his life.

Neither the rich man nor the poor man is the hero in this story. God is. The poor man is a frightened rabbit. The rich man is a strutting peacock. They both need God. They both need Moses and the prophets. They both need to listen.

Significant changes in our lives come only when we experience a great sense of loss and then start to listen to Moses and the prophets again. Then God fans the flames of desire in our hearts again.

Many years ago a missionary returned from India. He noted a big difference between the Jewish-Christian religious tradition and that of the Hindus. The Hindu scriptures encourage the stifling of all desire. The god Krishna says, "Kill the enemy menacing you in the form of desire. Desire obscures knowledge like dirt in a mirror."

In our Judaeo-Christian tradition desire holds a high place. The poor man desires intimacy and the nourishment that it brings, but he cannot create intimacy himself. God has to drag him through the needle of a death first. Then he can rest in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man has no desires. God drags him, too, through the same needle and then his wishes begin.

God wants us neither to be rich men with no desires nor poor men afraid to seek what we desire. He wants us to have ears straining to hear his word and hearts longing for his love.

Much of the steam for the reformation in the days of Martin Luther came from his burning desire to open the ears and hearts of Europe once again to God's Word and love. In Luther's day, too, many Christians were either surfeited with their own good works and therefore did not listen, or they were living like frightened rabbits and therefore did not love. God, by raising up Luther, drew the whole of European Christianity through the needle of death to the old ways so that the priority of God's Word and love could be established again.

God's Word penetrates our hearts like a two-edged sword to keep us from living as isolates, hidden under the rubble of our fears, and to stir up in us a deep and endless desire for his abiding love.