Did you read about that Arab sheik out in California who has a limousine that is 66 ½ feet long? True story. It's a white Lincoln Town Car that can carry 36 passengers. It's in two pieces with a hitch in the middle like a tractortrailer so it can bend around corners. It has five axles. A normal Town Car is 18 feet long; most city buses are only 40 feet but this baby is 66 ½ feet long. It has two fax machines, cellular telephones, TV sets, love seats and a microwave. It's going to get a satellite navigation system. The furnishings include Waterford crystal and imported china. The sheik uses the limousine when he visits the United States. The rest of the time he leases it out. What would it be like to be that rich? What would it be like to be part of a family that rich?
Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles cites a characteristic he found to be common among the children of the rich. He calls it a sense of entitlement. Most children, he said, when asked what they will do when they grow up, will say something like: "I want to be a doctor," or "I'd like to be a firefighter." They don't add: "If things work out, if the money can be found, if I can pass the test," but those phrases are implied. The children of the rich, Coles said, tend to answer the same question: "I'm going to be a doctor." "I'm going to be a nuclear physicist." The implication here is: "Whatever I want, I'll get." Along with that sense of feeling everything is possible for them, may go the feeling that they are entitled to take personal credit for things they get only because of their money and connections. It may remind us of that devastating barb hurled by Ann Richards at George Bush at the Democratic convention years ago: "He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." (1)
We live in a time of entitlement. Years ago Charles W. Bray III, former Deputy Director of the U.S. Internal Communication Agency, put it this way: " ˜We have come to a time where we say, ˜You deserve a break today.' Too many of us believe that. If we're poor, we deserve welfare. If we're rich, we deserve a tax break; if we are workers, we deserve better fringe benefits; if we own Chrysler, we deserve a bailout; if we are a special interest, we deserve a special hearing." (2)
Entitlement. "There was a certain rich man," Jesus said, "who was splendidly clothed and lived each day in mirth and luxury." One day Lazarus, a diseased beggar, was laid at the rich man's door. As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores. Finally Lazarus died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham in the place of the righteous dead. The rich man also died and was buried, and his soul went into hell. There, in torment, the rich man saw Lazarus in the far distance with Abraham.
"Father Abraham," the rich man shouted, "have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in these flames." But Abraham said to him, "Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted and you are in anguish. And besides, there is a great chasm separating us, and anyone wanting to come to you from here is stopped at its edge; and no one over there can cross to us."
Then the rich man said, "O Father Abraham, then please send him to my father's home for I have five brothers to warn them about this place of torment lest they come here when they die." But Abraham said, "The Scriptures have warned them again and again. Your brothers can read them any time they want to." The rich man replied, "No, Father Abraham, they won't bother to read them. But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will turn from their sins." But Abraham said, "If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even though someone rises from the dead."
Entitlement. Can you see the picture? The rich man thinks if he wants something, Lazarus ought to fetch it. "Father Abraham," the rich man shouted, "have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. . . O Father Abraham. . . please send [Lazarus] to my father's home. . ." What arrogance. The rich man thinks even in hell he's entitled to have somebody serve him. Entitlement.
Let's use this parable of the rich man and Lazarus to set the record straight. What are some of the things to which you and I are entitled? The Scriptures are very plain about our entitlements, but you may be surprised at what it says.
FIRST OF ALL, WE ARE ENTITLED TO REAP WHAT WE SOW. Is that fair enough? If we sow good things, we reap good things. If we sow spiritual things, we reap spiritual things.
I turn to an astute philosopher on this point Rick Pitino, the amazingly successful coach of the Boston Celtics professional basketball team. In his recent book, SUCCESS IS A CHOICE, Pitino notes that Winston Churchill's rallying cry for the British people during WWII was simple and succinct: hoping and praying for victory was fine, but deserving it was what really mattered. "What does it mean to deserve victory?" asks Pitino. "According to Churchill, victory comes only to those who work long and hard, who are willing to pay the price in blood, sweat, and tears. Hard work is also the basic building block of every kind of achievement: Without it, everything else is pointless. You can start with a dream or an idea or a goal, but before any of your hopes can be realized, you truly must deserve your success. This may sound oldfashioned in this age of instant gratification, but from the Sistine Chapel to the first transcontinental railroad to today's space shuttle, there's no mystery as to how these things of wonder were created. They were created by people who worked incredibly hard over a long period of time.
"If you look closely at all great organizations, all great teams, all great people, the one common denominator that runs through them is a secondtonone work ethic. The intense effort to achieve is always there. This is the one given if you want to be successful. When it comes to work ethic there can be no compromises. Any other promise of achievement is fools' gold." (3)
Pitino goes on to comment about his college championship teams at the University of Kentucky. He says that they went into every game believing that they deserved to win. Why? Not because they had more talent, but because they had worked harder than their opponent. You and I deserve to reap what we sow. The rich man sowed the seeds for a life rich in material things and that's what he got. He lived sumptuously. For a while. Meanwhile, at his gate lay a beggar. The beggar gave the rich man many opportunities to sow a different kind of seed to develop another part of his life the spiritual side the caring, humane, loving side. But the rich man never did. And thus the only seed the rich man sowed was material. Of course, when death comes, you can't take material fruit with you. It has to be left behind. Only spiritual fruit can be taken with us. And that brings us to the second thing to which we are entitled.
WE ARE ENTITLED TO ETERNAL LIFE. Hey, that's cool, isn't it? What more could you ask for? We deserve to reap what we sow, and we deserve to live forever. Notice I did not say we deserve to live abundantly in the world to come. We are promised simply that life goes on beyond the grave. That is the clear testimony of the New Testament. Whether that is good news or not depends. It was good news to Lazarus. It was not good news to the rich man.
Now some of you may be asking: Is our pastor preaching fire and brimstone? Is he finally getting around to hellfire and damnation?
There is a town in Norway named Hell. A couple of Lutherans from the U.S. visited Hell, Norway sometime back and then sent a postcard to their pastor back home. He read it at a meeting of the ministerial association, and it broke up the group. "Dear Pastor," it said, "We passed through Hell today, and we're concerned. Almost everyone here seems to be Lutheran." (4)
That's like the old tale of the enterprising Arnica Salve salesman. Years ago Arnica Salve was a medical preparation that was regarded as a sure cure for all kinds of external miseries. A religious zealot had painted in massive letters on an enormous rock plainly visible from a nearby highway this inquiry: "What are you going to do in the next world?" As he passed by and observed the inquiry, the enterprising salesman painted this advice in massive letters under the inquiry: "Use Arnica Salve. It's good for burns." (5)
But I believe my favorite story about Hell comes from Nell Mohney, author and lecturer. On a plane Mohney was studying her Sunday School lesson, when a curious, energetic, 7yearold seatmate said, "That book you're reading is about Christianity." Mohney, surprised that she could read so well, said, "My, you can read big words."
"Well, I am in the second grade," the little girl replied with some disdain. "Is that book about heaven and hell?" "Sort of," Mohney replied. The little girl said, "I know what heaven is. It is where people go when they die if they love Jesus. Hell is where people go when they have done bad things, and I know how people get to hell."
Now Nell Mohney was the curious one, "How do people get to hell?"
Her seat mate said rather matteroffactly, "They go by helicopter." (6) So now you know. Make sure that the Grim Reaper doesn't pick you up in a helicopter.
Now some of you will say that the story of the rich man and Lazarus is but a parable. And scholars tell us that parables need not be literal in their details. All that matters is the single point they are making. All this business about heaven and hell is peripheral to Jesus' point. I certainly would not argue with that. All I am doing is reporting a central truth of the Gospel: You and I are entitled to live forever. How you prepare for life, whether it be life tomorrow or life in old age, or life in the hereafter is between you and your Maker. We are entitled to reap what we sow. We are entitled to life eternal. And one last thing we are entitled to.
WE ARE ENTITLED TO THE CHANCE TO START OVER. Here is the Good News for the day. We are entitled to begin again. Would you want to reap every thing you sow? Do you remember the old adage about the person who sows wild oats then prays for a crop failure? We don't want to reap everything we sow. We sometimes do stupid things. We act impulsively. We leap before we look, talk before we think, give in to the worst that's in us rather than the best that's in us, blow it big time. At such times we would like to suspend the law of sowing and reaping. That's what grace is all about.
Even more damning is the good seed we neglect to sow seeds of compassion, seeds of kindness, seeds of love, seeds that will live on after we are gone seeds that may accompany us when we leave this world.
At any point in his life the rich man could have changed his priorities. At any point he could have taken his eyes off his money and let them fall on the man at his door. But he waited too late. Even in the afterlife he did not see Lazarus as a fellow child of God only as a servant, a convenience, an object. This is insensitivity at its worst. But it came out of a lifetime of spiritual neglect.
Everyone is entitled to a chance to start over, but it is possible to wait until it is too late. Life habits can grow so strong that they are like chains upon our soul.
And so the haunting cry of the prophet and the evangelist comes to us: "Repent now. Repent now before it is too late."
Is there someone to whom you are insensitive, someone you are neglecting? It need not be a beggar on the streets. It may be someone in your own family. A neighbor, a coworker, even a spouse. Everyone is entitled to a second chance, but it is possible to wait until it is too late.
1. Dr. Arthur Freeman and Rose DeWolf, the Ten Dumbest Mistakes That Smart People Make . . . . (HarperCollins Publishers, 1992).
2. Bruce Larson, The Communicator's Commentary: Luke (Dallas: Word, Inc., 1983), 236-237.
3. Rick Pitino and Bill Reynolds Success Is a Choice : Ten Steps to Overachieving in Business and Life, 1997.
4. Leonard R.N. Ashley, The Amazing World of Superstition . . . (New York: Bell Publishing Co., 1988).
5. Sam J. Ervin, Jr., Humor of a Country Lawyer (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1983).
6. Nell Mohney, "We Can Often Find Hell in the Here and Now," Kingsport TimesNews, March 24, 1995, p. 10D. Contributed by Dr. John Bardsley.