“Why Didn’t Anybody Tell
Me?”
Luke 16:19-31
Listen to these words from
Isaiah, Micah, and Amos, prophets of the Lord: … cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the
oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. …let
justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. …what
does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to
walk humbly with your God?”
God has always demanded
righteousness of his people. What is
righteousness? Being in a right
relationship with God. The proof of this
righteousness is our relationships with one another. There can be no right relationships between
people if there is no justice. Being
just involves avoiding what is evil and doing what is good. Major components of justice include kindness
toward others and humility before the Lord God.
It involves certain obligations toward the weak and helpless members of
society: widows, orphans, anyone who is oppressed. All this is part of God’s covenant law for
Jesus came to fulfill the
law and the prophets. Hear some of his
teachings from the sixth chapter of Luke: Blessed
are you who are poor, for yours is the
Lazarus, the poor man in
today’s parable, was one of his society’s weakest and most helpless
people. In accordance with the law and
the prophets he was due kindness and compassion. Those with the means to do so were to help
him in tangible ways: food, shelter, and medical care. But there was no justice for Lazarus. He was left to live and die in the dirt,
competing with stray dogs for scraps from the rich man’s table. No one fed him, clothed him, or housed
him. The sores covering his body were
left untreated. In terms of the law and
prophets the treatment he received from those around him was a sin.
Or more correctly, the
treatment he didn’t receive. In the
Parable of the Last Judgment found in Matthew 25, those on the left hand of God
had no clue as to why they’d been eternally condemned. They could not comprehend that their sin was
not in what they had done but in what they had failed to do. Furthermore, it wasn’t as if they had abused
or misused the poor, hungry, and homeless.
They hadn’t. They had simply
ignored and overlooked them. They had
been so self-absorbed that they hadn’t even noticed the needs of those around
them.
Let it be noted that those
on the left hand of God had been on the right hand of the world. The rich man in today’s parable was very much
on the right hand of the world. He was
super rich, easily able to afford a life of idleness, indolence, and
self-indulgence. Someone like him today
would be Madison Avenue’s poster boy for conspicuous consumption. In his own day and time his wealth was a
supposed sign of God’s favor. He was
rich; therefore he had to be righteous.
In the words of Lee Corso, “Not so fast, my friend.” His wealth, in itself neutral, was not
the blessing he assumed it to be. It was
a curse. It isolated and insulated him
from the world around him to such a degree that he was totally oblivious to
what was going on just outside his front door.
Although he never mistreated, made fun of, or consciously humiliated
Lazarus and those like him, he was still unjust in his treatment toward
them. Numbed by his money, his was a
soul lacking in kindness and compassion.
He never chased Lazarus away.
Neither did he ever invite him in.
Essentially the rich man was unaware of Lazarus.
That is, until they both
died. Then the rich man became very
aware that Lazarus was in heaven while he was in hell. Lazarus was blessed. The rich man was cursed. But even then the rich man didn’t get
it. As he looked across the great gulf
separating heaven from hell, and finally saw Lazarus, he only saw him as
someone to his bidding. Essentially he
wanted Lazarus to fetch him a drink of water.
That being impossible he next wanted Lazarus to be his errand boy,
taking a warning message to his brothers.
Lazarus was still a non-person to the rich man. On earth Lazarus had been an object to step
over or around. In heaven the rich man
saw him as a tool: a thing to be used at his leisure.
As I said, he still didn’t
get it. He did not understand that he
was in hell because of is unjust treatment of Lazarus. He was totally oblivious to the law and the
prophets. In his mind he probably
thought that such things didn’t apply to him, that he was above the laws of
God. He had definitely never taken the
words of Micah to heart. He didn’t do
justice. He didn’t love kindness. Humility before God was a foreign
concept. Assuming, from the context of
Abraham’s remarks to the rich man, that he had been brought up to be a good
Jew, it was obvious that the Word of God had never taken root in his soul. He had been exposed to it, maybe even
immersed in it, but it had never become a part of who he was. It had not been written on his heart.
And he did not want to take
responsibility for that. His request
that Lazarus go and warn his brothers was, in essence, his indirect way of
blaming others for his fate. The mindset
underlying that request was one of rationalization. It was if he was saying, “If I’d only known, I would have done better. Why didn’t anybody tell me?” Well, someone had. Through the law and the prophets – through
God’s very own Word – God’s requirements for justice and righteousness were
made crystal clear. The man had been
told what he needed to do; he just hadn’t done it. Thus he ended up in the hell he deserved.
We, too, know what God is
calling us to do. First and foremost, if
we have not availed ourselves of the righteousness made possible for us through
Christ – if Jesus is not our Lord and Savior, we need to surrender our hearts
to him. Then we are to take seriously
what God’s Word tells us about dealing with one another in a just and righteous
manner. We are to pay close attention to
the very law and prophets our Lord Jesus came, not to abolish, but
fulfill. Moved by the Holy Spirit we
need to open ourselves to the plight of those around us, especially the poor,
the helpless, and the weak who cannot fend for themselves.
Children, born and unborn,
need our protection. Victims of spousal
and other kinds of abuse need for us to provide places of safety. Victims of our society’s callousness and
indifference need someone to champion their cause. We must address issues like poverty, homelessness,
and hunger in the name of Jesus.
Injustice of any kind must be named for what it is. The lonely need friends. The rejected need acceptance. The hurt need healing. Sinners need forgiveness. The lost need a place where they can be
found. The unrepentant need to hear the
Gospel.
We cannot allow ourselves to
be unaware of or indifferent toward those around us. We cannot turn a blind eye toward their
needs. We dare not use our relative
wealth as American Christians to insulate us from the pain in the world. We who have dare not isolate ourselves from
those who have not. Nor should we ever
view any other person as an object we can use to further our own purposes. And we most definitely cannot ever come to
see ourselves as being above the law of God or immune to the consequences of
our sinfulness.
In Matthew’s Parable of the
Last Judgment, those on the left hand of God simply cannot understand how they
ended up there. The rich man in today’s
parable is unrepentant even in hell. All
of them are probably trying to rationalize away their own sins, using the
excuse that nobody ever told them what God required. God had told them, just as God has told
us. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your Lord. Amen.