Jesus and the Religious Elite always had an interesting relationship. He kept insulting them, and they wanted to kill him. Overreact much, Pharisees?
Luke 16:19-31; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Psalm 146; Amos 6:1-7
This is likely one of my favorite Gospel texts out of Luke. Now granted, the reason I like it so much isn’t really because it imparts some important theological truth, or even some great teaching of Jesus. No I like it because it is one of Jesus’ most obvious digs at the Pharisees and scribes. Yea I know; I’m a little weird.
This text comes from the same dinner party as last week’s gospel. Jesus is eating with the tax collectors and sinners, and Jesus is being sneered at by the Pharisees. He just finished teaching about not being able to serve God and money, and then starts talking about the importance of the Law, meaning what we now call the Old Testament. Jesus says, “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John [the Baptist]. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.” (Luke 16:16-17) Then he gives an example, and tells the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
Jesus begins talking about this rich man. He dressed in expensive clothes, and lived in luxury. This guy had more money than he knew what to do with. There was no bigger contrast to this rich man than Lazarus, the beggar who lay at the rich man’s gate. He was covered in sores, and was hungry, and would give anything to get a chance at the leftovers from the rich man’s table. After some time, both men died. Lazarus went to paradise, and sat at Abraham’s side. The rich man, on the other hand, found himself in hell. Now we’ve kind of lost the understand of these places that would have had in the 1st Century. Abraham’s side and Hades (what our translation calls ‘hell’) were separated by an impassable chasm. Hades was where the wicked dead went to suffer, whereas Abraham’s side was where the righteous dead went to await an unspecified future event.
Anyways, the rich man finds himself in torment, and on one occasion looked and saw Lazarus and Abraham. He called out to Abraham for mercy, saying, “Abraham! Have pity on me! Send Lazarus to drip a little water on my tongue to ease this agony.” But Abraham said to him, “In your lifetime you received good things, but Lazarus received bad things. Now he is being comforted, and you’re in agony. And besides, there just happens to be a huge chasm between us and there’s absolutely no way to go from one side to another.
Then the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers, so that they could avoid the same torment that he is in. Abraham gave a sensible answer, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.” The rich man responds, “They’ve never listened to Moses and the Prophets, but if someone comes back from the dead, they’ll pay attention.” Then Abraham says the key line in the whole parable, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
It’s an interesting statement, that even someone coming back from the dead won’t convince someone who, essentially, doesn’t care. It kind of makes sense in our heads though. I mean look at the Pharisee’s response after the resurrection. They bribed the guards of the tomb, who knew full well that Jesus came back from the dead, to say that the disciples stole the body while the guards were asleep. Never-mind the ridiculousness of guards falling asleep, they just didn’t want to accept what had happened — even though someone came back from the dead, they still weren’t convinced.
This has a lot to say about how to tell people about Jesus. Oftentimes we find ourselves thinking, “We just need to throw Bible verses at them and then they’ll get it.” But we forget one important point: on their own, people want absolutely nothing to do with God. Let that sink in. Martin Luther talks about a thing called the “bondage of the will”. It’s why in our confession we say, “We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.” The short version is, we’d rather sin than follow God. It’s somewhat more complicated than that, but I think it’s easy enough to say it that way. Now, thankfully, God knows this, so he sends the Holy Spirit to work on us. That’s not to say God forces us to follow Him, more like God helps us see that there is a choice other than to sin. There are a number of ways this can happen, sometimes it’s through a friend, or parents, or even just reading the Bible.
But it’s always important to remember that the “native” response of a person is to go their own way. Look at the Pharisees; these were the people who were supposed to know the scriptures, but they were too caught up in their own desires to look for God. But look at who followed, it was the tax collectors and sinners — the ones open to the leadings of the Holy Spirit.