Lazarus Has a Name
Sermon by Rev. Mary Alice Mulligan, Ph.D.
Scripture: Luke 16:19-31
What a surprise it was last week when I was running a fever on Saturday and I realized I could not take a chance on sharing an illness with anyone at St. Andrew on Sunday. However I safely worshipped with you online. What a meaningful service. A huge thank you to Margaret and all the leaders. I am so happy to be back among you today.
Luke moves from reporting Jesus’ telling one of the most difficult parables of the unjust steward, which Margaret unpacked last week, to one that sounds simpler to us, the rich man and Lazarus. Jesus is frequently pictured teaching about money and our love of it. But let’s stretch a bit to see that Jesus is calling us to pay attention beyond how we over-value money to learn also about how we under-value people. It’s one of God’s big ideas: healing humanity’s prejudices and divisions. If you read the verses following last week’s parable, Jesus is ridiculed by religious leaders for his teachings about not being a slave to money. Seeing that these religious types focus more on impressing others than on pleasing God, Jesus tells them, “God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.” Then he tells this very sharp parable, sticking his finger right into one of our most sinful habits: our desire to divide people into “us” and “them.” In the case of this parable, the divide is between rich and poor, but we know the tendency is also to divide between races, genders, identities, abilities, those who have advanced degrees and those who are less formally educated. And lots of other ways we divide people, which usually boils down to dividing between those who are like “us” and those who are “them.” Pause now and read Luke 16: 19-31.
Jesus is calling us to see differently. His parable says we need to change our viewpoint; stop evaluating people. Let’s look a little closer. Jesus is telling a parable, so he is not offering an actual description of the afterlife. The parable is not a theological explanation of what exactly happens after death. Jesus wants us to imagine 2 fictional characters, to learn something from their story, which is right in line with the rest of Luke’s Gospel. Time and again Luke shows that God is flipping society’s rules on their head, starting with Mary’s song before Jesus is born. In bringing forth the child, Mary sings, God brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; the hungry are filled and the rich are sent away empty. (1:52-53) Jesus repeats those ideas in Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Plain: those who are poor are blessed, for they possess the Kingdom of God; those who are hungry are blessed, for they will be filled…But woe to those who are rich, woe to those who are full now for they will be hungry. (6:20f)
In today’s parable, Jesus doesn’t speak in generalities. He tells a story of two people, although they do not interact in either of the two settings, this life or the afterlife. He shows Lazarus as just miserably poor and then gloriously at peace and the rich man is gloriously comfortable and then miserably tortured. They are divided from each other, just like we all are. Jesus painted the rich man as powerful and socially influential, because he wore purple, which signified royal connection. Lazarus, however someone points out, “is the polar opposite of influential.” (1) We are supposed to see them, and learn that how we behave matters – not because ignoring the needy sends us to hell, but because ignoring the needy is wrong. We are responsible for how we see other people. What we do with our possessions matters. Those who languish at our gates (the gates we set up so we don’t have to see them) matter to God. We need to open our eyes. The parable calls us to see differently.
So, as we listen to this parable of Lazarus and the rich man, here are some of the big ideas. First, every person is precious. We hear “every person is precious” from me all the time, because the preciousness of each person is a crucial Christian understanding. Every person is of infinite value to God, so each person should seem exceptional to us. We stress the idea time and time again to counteract how society drives home every day that some people are very valuable, while others are less than valuable. They are expendable. We must teach ourselves that no one is expendable. Every person matters.
Let’s look at Lazarus. Our society would consider him absolutely worthless. Yet he is the only person in all of Jesus’ parable who gets a name. I love that. His name, Lazarus means “God has helped.” (2) When Jesus gives him a name he is affirming his personhood, his value. Meanwhile, the rich man is not named. Funny because in their society, everyone would have known his name. Like we know Warren Buffett or Beyoncé. The unnamed rich man does not see Lazarus as a person. Doesn’t notice him at the gate in life. Even in death, when the rich man is in torment, he doesn’t see Lazarus as a person. Lazarus is only an object for his purpose. He doesn’t speak to him. He tries to order Abraham to order Lazarus to bring him water. “Send the servant to do my bidding.”
Many of us are like the rich man. We treat others by their roles – that homeless guy, that Muslim woman nursing home worker. Ignoring the personhood of each. Yet Jesus is clear. The poorest man is a person. He has a name, a life. He matters. Like those seeking a safe life for their children, who are put on planes and dropped off in some unknown part of the United States, where Friday’s nighttime low was in the 40s. These are not illegal aliens. They are people. Valuable. God made them worthy of being treated as beloved people. Every person is precious.
The corollary to this idea is: We are enriched by each other. By which I mean, we are changed for the better by each other. Our different cultures; our different traditions; our different personalities rub off on each other and make us fuller human beings.
Some of us have committed to stopping saying that St. Andrew is an older congregation. Many of us are older; but a good number are not. Some of us are early in our careers; some of us are still in school. So, we commit to saying, “St Andrew is a mixed congregation; a diverse group of folks.” Our differences make us stronger. Every time a new person comes into the congregation, we become a slightly different body of Christ. We cannot expect a person to come in and be just like us. Instead, we each bring gifts, so we are enriched when someone new attends, just as they become something new by worshipping here.
Think of just the leadership gifts among us. In the past year or so, Roger has preached, so has Rev, Joelle, and Rev. Fred, Pastor Greg, and Rev. Joe. And last Sunday we got to share the gift of Margaret’s preaching. Such rich, diverse, and enriching gifts among us, just in the area of preaching. And beyond preaching, people bring rich gifts of organizing, singing, caring for others, praying, leading, detail finishing, new idea planning. Thank God for these diverse gifts. What a boring congregation we would be if everyone were the same. We are enriched by every single person here. And Jesus says, every person brings something different into the world.
A professor gave a pop quiz to his class midway through the semester. The final question was: “What is the name of the woman who cleans the school?” One student asked if the final question would actually count towards their grades. “Absolutely,” said the professor. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care.” (3) Those students learned an important lesson about the value of… Marilyn. The gifts she brought to the school were not only her cleaning skills, but her every morning greeting and supportive presence. But they also learned an important lesson from the professor; we should notice the gifts of every person. We are changed for the better by each other. Each person’s gifts enrich us.
Do these seem like simple ideas? Every person is precious and we are enriched by each other? They are simple. They are absolutely basic in God’s social order. No one is supposed to languish by the gate, dreaming of not being hungry. No one is supposed to work 2 jobs and still have to live in a place with rats. No one is supposed to cry in loneliness because they’ve been tucked away into an old people’s warehouse nursing home. Our job as Christians is to work to help every person we come in contact with be treated with respect. Every person is valuable. And we need to be open to being changed whenever a new person comes into our lives.
1 Noelle Damico, “Proper 21,” Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, Year C (2012), 405.
2 David Buttrick, Speaking Parables, 217.
3 Forwarded email story, received September 20, 2016 from Bob Mulligan.