What parable would make a man with three doctoral degrees (one in medicine, one in theology, one in philosophy) leave civilization with all of its culture and amenities and depart for the jungles of darkest Africa? What parable could induce a man, who was recognized as one of the best concert organists in all of Europe, go to a place where there were no organs to play. What parable would so intensely motivate a man that he would give up a teaching position in Vienna, Austria to go and deal with people who were so deprived that they were still living in the superstitions of the dark ages for all practical purposes. The man who I am talking about, of course, is Dr. Albert Schweitzer. And the single parable that so radically altered his life, according to him, was our text for this morning. It was the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

The Rich Man and Lazarus were neighbors you know. They saw each other every day. Oh, not socially you understand, but there was contact. Every day the Rich Man saw this beggar at his front gate. Who were these men?

We shall call the Rich Man Dives [pronounced ‘Dive-ees’: it’s Latin for “Rich Man” as he has been called for centuries] Dives would have felt very comfortable living in our present time. He was a progressive kind of a guy. He was self-indulgent and this is the age of self-indulgency. The contrasting life-styles of these two men is so obvious that you can’t miss it. Dives was a connoisseur, a lover of the arts, one who knows and appreciates fine living, four star restaurants.

We are told in vs. 19 that he habitually dressed in purple. Purple was known as the color of royalty because it was the most expensive dye in the ancient world. Only the upper echelon and the high priest could afford it. We are also told that his undergarments were made of fine linen. Linen, the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

The other man in the story is Lazarus. How can we describe Lazarus? Lararus is homeless. We are told in vs. 20 that he was a cripple. Lazarus barely made it from day to day, living off the leftovers thrown to him by Dives as he daily passed him. He is just a survivor, that’s all you can say of him.

One day, said Jesus, both men died. Death after all is the great equalizer. Death does not care about your social standing, your color, or your standing in the community. Lazarus, said Jesus, was carried away by the angel of death unto heaven, where he occupied the seat of honor next to Abraham. About Dives, the rich man, all that Jesus says is that he was buried. Isn’t that strange that that is all that he says. After all, Dives funeral must having been something that the community would remember for years to come. Apparently, however, that fact failed to impress Jesus. Oh, Jesus did add one additional fact about Dives death that may be of interest to you. His soul was sent to hell.

This is an unnerving story. I can well see why this was the irritating grain of sand in Albert Schweitzer’s oyster. Why is this story so bothersome? For a few moments this morning I would like to share exactly why. It is bothersome because….

I

First, it shows how God reverses the standards of the world. We call this the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Notice that the rich man in Jesus' story is never actually named. It is the church that has given him the name of Dives, a Latin derivative meaning rich. In the parable only the poor man has a name. That is exactly the opposite of how the world does it. We all know the names of the rich. We know the Donald Trumps, the Sam Waltons, the Warren Buffets. We all know about, and many long for, the lifestyle of the rich. With the poor it is exactly the opposite. They are not named. We refer to them collectively as “the poor”, “the homeless,” “the third world,” “the welfare cases.” They are the neighbors we never met.

For generations in the South blacks who worked as domestics in white homes were known only by their first names. They were “Betty” or “Sally.” No one ever knew their last names. That is the standard of the world. Did you know that in many places in this country there are potters fields, grave yards where the poor are buried for nothing. It is interesting that one of the rules is that there can be no markers. Only small numbers mark each grave. No names allowed. That is indicative of how we view the poor.

Let me tell you friends, in heaven that will all be reversed. God will know the name of every poor suffering person who ever walked this earth. There is a special place in his heart for the poor. I hope he knows my name when I get there, but I know he will know their name. You can be poor in the eyes of the world, but fabulously wealthy in the eyes of God. That is what Jesus is suggesting here. In heaven everything will be reversed. Maybe that is what troubled Albert Switzer.

II

Secondly, this story is troubling because Dives was not a mean man. We could somehow justify in our minds his eternal outcome if he were. But, in fact, Dives never mistreated Lazarus. He never kicked him. He never chased him away. He never lectured him about getting up and getting a job. Still, that was not enough to put him into heaven and that bothers us.

Why? What did he do that was so horrible that he should deserve such a terrible fate. I'll tell you. He acted as though it was all supposed to be that way in life. He accepted it all without question. It never occurred to him that the fate of Lazarus’ birth and the fate of his birth could be changed. Lazarus, therefore, became not a part of suffering humanity but just a part of he landscape. In a word the rich man was indifferent: Indifferent to his plight, indifferent to his hunger, indifferent to his needs. They were the neighbors who never met.

Some years ago before the death of Mother Theresa, a television special depicted the grim human conditions that were a part of her daily life. It showed all the horror of the slums of Calcutta and her love for these destitute people. The producer interviewed her as she made her rounds in that dreadful place. Throughout the program commercials interrupted the flow of the discussion. Here is the sequence of the topics and commercials: lepers (bikinis for sale); mass starvation (designer jeans); agonizing poverty (fur coats); abandoned babies (ice cream sundaes) the dying (diamond watches).

The irony was so apparent. Two different worlds were on display--the world of the poor and the world of the affluent. It seems that our very culture here in the United States, and any other place that has a great deal of commercialization to it, is teaching us to live as the Rich Man in the story of Lazarus. We are occasionally presented with the images of the poor man Lazarus at our gate but we are immediately reminded of the next car we ought to by and the next meal we should eat. We are slowly and methodically told it is O.K. to live our life of luxury while others live their life of poverty. But alas, it is not so! Heaven's reversal of fortune shall one day awaken us to the fact that we have separated ourselves from the agonies of others. That we did not care about others who suffered.

This parable invites us to sit along side of Lazarus and see the world from his point of view. That is troubling because when I do that I look a lot more like the rich man in this story than I do the poor man. And I know what eventually happened to the rich man in this story and I don’t want that to happen to me.

The great thing about having small children is you have a great excuse to watch cartoons again. Well, I’ll own up here. I watched them even before I had children. One cartoon that I am particularly fond of is Garfield the Cat. There is a great humor in those sarcastic witticisms of his. One cold winter night Garfield looks out the window and sees Odie the Dog peering through the window. Garfield thinks to himself: This is horrible. Here I am in the comfort of a warm house, well fed, and there is Odie outside begging to get in, cold and hungry. I can’t stand it anymore. I just can’t stand it. So at that he goes over to the window…and closes the curtains.

Friends, that is what you and I have done to the poor. Rather than dealing with them, we have simply closed the curtains. We drive by people holding those signs: “Will work for food,” and we have seen it so much we don t even give it a second thought any more.

It’s not our badness that will send us to hell friends; it’s our lack of goodness. It is how we close the curtains on those who represent suffering humanity. Maybe we do suffer from compassion fatigue as some have suggested. I don’t know. But I do know that this story is saying to us that in the end we will be judged from the viewpoint of love.

I will tell you something wise that makes me uncomfortable about this story. The church is in the position of Dives. Well, you say, we don’t run the poor off. We give to missions and relief work. We even do work once a year at the soup kitchen. Dives could have said all of those things. There is a warning here. The poor and the disenfranchised are God’s special people and they dare not simply become a part of the landscape to us.

III

Third, we are told that Dives begs to come back to earth to warn his brothers. We get the impression that they are on the same path as he was. He had five brothers we are told, but for our purposes we are going to assume that this was act ally 3 brothers and 2 sisters. WE don’t want to leave the women out. The point is that he wants to warn his family about their impending fate. Yet, he is denied that privilege.

Now why couldn’t Jesus have let the story end like Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”? In that story Morley, Scrooge’s business partner, comes to him with a stern warning of what will be if he continues his present path. And, in Scrooge’s case, it worked. He is frightened into changing. But Jesus doesn’t end his story that way. The request is flatly denied. Now Jesus shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have done that because he knows how we all love happy endings and this story has no happy ending. In his story Abraham says that they (Dives family) have the word of God to warn them and if they ignore the word of God then the walking dead would not convince him.

Besides, says Abraham, there is a big gulf, or as some translations word it, big chasm, that cannot be bridged. What is that gulf that cannot be bridged? I’ll tell you what it is. It is an attitude. It is a way of looking at people as them and us. It’s the false philosophy that says that we can give our food baskets at Christmas and we have done enough to relate to the poor. That is the gap that keeps us in hell. You see, Dives didn’t simply die and go to hell. Oh no. He also created his own hell on earth by closing his eyes to suffering humanity. What he experienced in the afterlife was merely a continuation of what he started for himself in this life. Since he did not respond to people in this life, then he will not be allowed to respond to people in the after life. Maybe that is a good definition of hell. Being unable to respond.

Well, the point of the story is that because Dives was insensitive to the needs of suffering humanity, he missed the Kingdom of God. By seeing Lazarus as merely a part of the landscape, he missed his very key to heaven. Oh, he lived sumptuously. He had the best of everything. He added to the economy in a significant way. But he missed the Kingdom of God.

And what about the homeless person at our gate? What will happen to him? According to this text, one day he will die. And on that day he will be greeted in the waiting arms of a loving God who will speak to him the words: Home, at last.

I hope this parable by our Lord bothers you as much as it bothers me. And in the name of Christ you make the neighbor you haven’t met the neighbor you know.