Author: admin

Luke 19_11-27 A king’s treasury

I had to go to the dentist the other day.  I hate going to the dentist for a number of reasons, but one reason sticks out more than any others.  All your hidden sins of eating sugary foods when no one was looking, and then not cleaning your teeth, are all revealed in the moment when the dentist opens you moth and takes a look!  There I am, sitting in the waiting room, waiting.  Waiting for my time of reckoning when the dentist will see what I have been hiding from the world.  And while I’m waiting, I see a plaque on the wall (no pun intended) that caught my attention; it read “You don’t have to clean every tooth, just the ones you want to keep!”  As if I wasn’t feeling guilty enough!  These dentists sure know how to lay it on.

You don’t have to clean every tooth, just the ones you want to keep!  How true is that!  No one can force you to stop eating bad foods, no one can stop you from being lazy and make you clean your teeth, its just that if you don’t, well, you will lose what was given to you.

Jesus intends to give a similar message in telling the parable of the minas; a parable about a great noble man who has many subjects and who is going away to become king.  Before he leaves however, he entrusts 10 slaves, each with a mina, to do business until he returns.  The time of reckoning comes, when the noble man returns now as king.  He demands an accounting of each salve’s mina, asking what they have done to increase the gift they were given by him.  Like a dentist asking you to open your mouth, and demanding a look, the slaves had to open their wallets so the king could take a look.

To those who had used the mina given to them to make more, the king entrusts them with even more, doubling their use of the kingdom’s wealth, but to the one who did nothing, even the gift was taken away and given to those who had been given more.  As Jesus says “I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away.”  Like the plaque on the wall of the dentist waiting room that read ‘You don’t have to clean every tooth, just the ones you want to keep!’  You don’t have to use every gift of the king, just the ones you want to keep!

There are two themes to the parable that are running consecutively.  The first and primarily theme is, that the noble man goes away and becomes king, and secondly, that he gives gifts to be used and returns to call for an account from his servants.  Jesus tells the parable as he is entering Jerusalem to be betrayed by Judas, crucified, and buried.  He tells the parable to all who had gathered, because he can see that they were planning to make him king now, through an insurrection.  Yes, Jesus fitted the criteria, he was of noble birth, in the family linage of King David, but as Jesus said to Pilate just days later “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

In the parable, Jesus is picturing himself as a noble man who is to be crowned king, and his kingdom which is heaven, is the faraway place that he must go to and then return.  St Paul, in Philippians chapter 2 speaks of Jesus’ kingdom and how it is not of this world ‘For [God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,’ and how Jesus is king above all other kings, ‘God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,’ 

This is the context from which we can begin to understand and apply the parable to our life.  We need to know that Jesus has been crowned with glory and all authority has been given over to him.  He has been crowned king through his going away; his travel to the far away land; through his birth as a man, his death for our sins, and his resurrection for our justification.  And now his kingdom reigns in grace and forgiveness.   We gladly hear and believe this, not so we can lord it over others, demanding submission and surrender to Jesus, demanding that Jesus rules as king in our hearts through new laws and commands, as though Moses didn’t quite get the 10 commandments right. 

No, we need to know that Jesus’ kingship is good news, the gospel, because as King, Jesus now gives us his kingdom, so we can rule together with him in grace and forgiveness, love and servant hood, as St Paul in Romans 14:17 says “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”  We need to know this so that we are not disciples of Jesus like the third slave who said “I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.”

What the final slave said was true, God is to be feared, as the prophet Nahum declares “The mountains quake before him and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it.  Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before him.”  His wrath and anger against our sins has already been poured out upon his Son Jesus; the prophet Nahum calls out “who can endure God’s fierce anger”…Jesus did.  His death was a result of God’s anger; the sun was blacked because of his anger; the earth quaked and the Temple stones shattered before him, because of his anger.  But what shattered the devil and shook hell was the final word of good news from the cross “it is finished.”

God’s anger has been dished out.  The kingdom of his Son now reigns in peace, as Jesus said after his resurrection ‘peace be with you.’  Jesus now bespeaks to us the gifts of his kingdom, which is his righteousness.  We are declared righteous, spoken righteous, or given righteousness as a gift through the proclamation of the gospel and through the receiving of baptism and Holy Communion, and we take hold of this by faith, trusting God at his word.  God’s word and sacraments, our righteousness and even faith, are the gifts of Jesus’ kingdom, or the mina given to each servant, as Jesus alluded to in the parable.  St Paul says this very thing in 2 Corinthians 5:21 21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

In Australian’s iconic movie ‘The Castle”, Darryl Kerrigan, played by Michael Caton, is a proud dad.  Every time he is given a gift by his children, he says… “This is going straight to the pool room.”  In other words, the gift is too good to be used, it might get damaged, or lost; its best left only for display.  The gifts of Jesus are not to be treated in the same way, as Jesus explains in the parable; “he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. ‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.” 

The gifts of the kingdom, God’s word, the sacraments, forgiveness, mercy and peace are to be put to work.  They are not dust collecting relics to be on display in some archaic Cathedral.  Nor is our righteousness in Christ to be hidden away, like a mina in a handkerchief, for fear that God will be angry with us if we mix with the wrong crowd, or dare to do what Jesus did ‘eat and drink with sinners.

 God is reckless with his gifts.  “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.”  And in the parable of the vineyard workers, the owner replies to complaints about his generosity by saying “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”  We are called to be salt and light of the earth; gift givers, slaves to righteousness, as Paul encourages us “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”  This is what Jesus means in the parable by asking his slaves to put the gift of the mina to work.  The gift is God’s to give, and the gift is what does the work, we are simply asked to put it to work.  So when Christ returns, we too will hear our king say to us “Well done, my good servant!‘ 

Amen

Luke 21_5-19 I got a plan

Begin by showing a video clip (or slides) of people who said “I got a plan”

Just because we got a plan, doesn’t mean we will get the results we expected.  It is said that “those who fail to plan, plan to fail.”  And yes, that is true in many ways.  However, as you saw on the power point, our plans often come undone by unexpected results! In fact the opposite of what we expected can happen, and when they do, we think all is lost.

The disciples were marvelling at the great Temple in Jerusalem.  They would have been impressed by how each giant stone was intricately placed, one upon another, layer upon layer, just as planned.  Each stone a testimony to the detail that went into its planning and how all this great work was all dedicated to God.  Things were also going to plan for the disciples.  Their plan to leave everything and follow Jesus, were going well.  They were becoming well known, Jesus was having an impact upon the established religious orders, and many others were dedicating their lives to Jesus as their Messiah.  Surely, you do your best and God will do the rest.

God did indeed do the rest, but God does not stick to our plan.  In fact, he does it all.  The Temple which the disciples admired so greatly, saying how it was all dedicated to God, was destroyed only a few years later, as Jesus foretold “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”  The disciple’s plans for Jesus also soon tumbled.  When Peter witnessed Jesus being whipped and beaten, his plan “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”, fell in a heap, denying knowing him three times.  And the rest of the disciples ran in fear of their lives from the garden of Gethsemane. 

Their plans backfired and came to nothing, because Jesus had other plans.  In the middle of everything falling apart, they must have been wondering what could come of all this; where is God in all this; how could God be working to plan through their crucified and dying Lord?  We now know and believe, and have the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the very words of those disciples who endured their plans being destroyed, as Jesus hung on the cross, that God, through the cross and suffering of his Son Jesus, was indeed working according to plan.  In the midst of their confusion, the prophetic words of Isaiah were being fulfilled “the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

In the very midst of our unravelling plans and hopes, God works wonders, and not only that, he also thrusts us into his plan of salvation, as Jesus did for the criminal in the midst of his failed plans “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” 

God’s plan and vision to redeem the world of sin, death and the devil was originally cast in the midst of Adam and Eve’s toppled plan to be like God.  It was right in the middle of their hopelessness and confusion, that God thrust Adam and Eve into his plan and said to the devil “the child of the woman will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”  God’s plan of salvation was recast when Joseph’s brother’s plan to kill him by selling him as a salve toppled.  God, through Joseph explains, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”    

We like Adam and Eve, like Joseph’s brothers, and like the disciples, all have plans for our life and plans for others; plans for the way we think God can and should work in our life and in the life of others.  How often have your plans worked out just as you anticipated, and prayed for?  Whose walk with the Lord has workout exactly as you thought the day of your confirmation?  What about the plans you had or still have for your children…have they grown up and made the choices and lived the lives just as you wanted?  What about you own life, would you say “yep!  Just as I planned.”  

And the plans we have for our church.  We could almost say, “what haven’t we planned and tried?” Surely God wants to work through our ministry and bring about his purposes of salvation through our plans and visions.  Yet right at this point, I together with you, am thinking “We had a plan Lord, why is it seem like it is toppling, why has it changed?”  

Wouldn’t things work out better if only God stuck to our plans?

This is the problem we have with God…he seems to say one thing and do another.  To us, he is a God of paradoxes, of contradictions.  God says one thing in Jeremiah 29: 11 “I have plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  Yet many who heard that message died in exile, never to see a future.  And even today this promise is spoken to Christians being persecuted, tortured and even killed for their faith in Jesus…yet where is their hope and future?  Stephen was chosen by God to be a herald to the good news of Jesus, that he died and rose again to pay for the sins of the world, yet he was only days into his ministry when some men stoned him to death during his maiden speech.

(Video if works) Martin Luther King, after a famous speech about his plan for equality between blacks and whites, was assassinated the next day.  Many black people in America at that time would have been calling to God, asking “why…how can this be, we had plans.”  Yet, look what has happened, look what God has achieved in the midst of death and toppled plans.   

In today’s gospel reading Jesus reveals how God’s plan to prosper us, and to bring hope to others through the gospel of Jesus Christ, is often enacted in the midst of our failed and toppling plans.  The disciples are planning for glory, admiring the Temple, however, Jesus warns them saying “the time will come when not one stone will be left on another.”  God’s salvation comes through another way and the cross of Jesus shows this, when he made satisfaction for the sins of the world, then rose in glory on the third day. 

It is often in and through our own suffering and the toppling down of our selfish plans and desires that God brings change, hope and salvation to us, and others we never even imagined.  It is in the breaking down of our plans that God’s plan is enacted and we are thrust into his plan of salvation, as witnessed throughout the bible.   Jonah had a plan.  There was no way he was going to call the Ninevites to repentance.  Even when he was cast over board in the storm, did you know that Jonah’s admission that God was to blame for all the trouble, the sailors then repented and believed?  “At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.”

The gospel speaks most clearly into our lives and to the lives of others when we are embroiled in the unexpected.  Have you thought about this?  John the Baptist got it, when his disciples complained that everyone was suddenly going over to Jesus, John said “He must become greater; I must become less.” 

The writer of Hebrews says “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  And there is no better time to have faith than when we do not see how our plans can work, when we do not see how God could be at work; there is no better time to expect God‘s plan of salvation to be working in and through our lives, than in the midst of our own tumbling down plans.  For right in the midst of what we think is a disaster and an end, God thrusts us into his plan, giving us, as Jesus promises, the words to say at this time  “For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.”  Jesus says he will give us his words, when our own have failed; that he will give us his wisdom when our own wisdom has failed.

He has a plan when our plans fail.

Amen

Luke 18_9-14 Polishing or being renewed.

Who loves shiny chrome?  I went to the “Show and shine” car show here in Dubbo yesterday, and yes, there was plenty of chrome on display.  Here are two ornaments that used to look shiny and bright, but are now tarnished. 
Their appeal and beauty have faded as the metal beneath the chrome breaks down due to the effects of rust.  It is simply dying from the inside out.  Being the precious objects they are, we want to save don’t we?  There are two options we have.  Firstly, we could polish the outer chrome like this (polish), there!  To everyone this now looks great.  I can even see my face beaming in the Holden badge!  But is polishing the outside chrome really the solution?  What is going on underneath?  Yes, the metal is still being eaten away by the rust.  It looks good, but underneath, it is rotten.

The other option is to strip off the chrome, rub back the metal, so that all the rust is taken out (rub the metal back to reveal the new metal).  This is a more difficult solution, its messy, it looks like we are wrecking the ornament, but it is the best option.  We are removing the source of the rot, and we can then resurface the metal and it will last a lifetime. 

Luke writes, Jesus observed people “were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else.”  We are not told by Luke where Jesus saw such displays, but going by his parable, he most likely witnessed it within the context of worship.  Jesus must have observed how some, when gathered together for worship, treated this time in the presence of God, as an opportunity to show and shine; to parade their polished religious lives for all to see and admire; to show and shine before God and others, just how morally good religion has made them.  Jesus is angered by such polished behaviour, particularly in the temple, for it is his Father’s house, and as Jesus said a little later, while overturning the tables of the money changers, “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer.’ ” 

He begins a spiritual cleansing of his temple by telling a parable about a polished Pharisee praying in the temple for all to see.  Note the amount of references to himself “God, I thank you that I am not like other men– robbers, evildoers, adulterers– or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”  Yes, he was a super shiny, sleek religious man, so much so, he could see himself reflected in everything he did.

Then Jesus turns the parable away from the bright and shiny, to a dull looking man, a tax collector, a sinner, whose life was far from polished, in fact you could say it was very religiously rusty.  “The tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  Yet, Jesus concludes that this man went away from God’s presence forgiven, while the Pharisee, even though he led a good life, went away unforgiven.

Both men desired to be accepted by God, but only one man, the rusty sinner, went away forgiven; Why?  Why was Abel’s offering to God accepted, yet Cain’s wasn’t?  Why was Peter forgiven for denying Jesus, but Judas wasn’t?  Is God at fault for this abnormality, or does God simply arbitrarily predestine some to eternal damnation and others to eternal life?  No, the problem is not with God, it is with us.  Jesus tells this parable to show that being religiously nice and shiny, well-polished on the outside does not cover the rot that is going on in the inside; it is the rot that needs to be dealt with, and that can only happen by God’s doing.   

The problem lies with us because we confuse law and gospel.  We make the law into something that can save us and the gospel, that Christ died for our sins, into something we must do.  Jesus’ depiction of the Pharisee praying about his polished obedience to God’s commandments, as something that would earn him favour before God, is a good example of how we wrongly use God’s commandments.  He uses the commandments, particularly “you shall not steal, you shall not murder” and the sixth commandment “you shall not commit adultery”, to polish himself up, to make himself look squeaky clean before God and other worshippers. Like me polishing the outside of this ornament, it looks good, but underneath is where the problem really lies; it is the rusting metal causing the tarnish. 

We are the same, we can look good by polishing ourselves with keeping the commandments, doing good and holy things, but underneath, our sinful nature taints all we do; everything, we do apart from Christ, God still sees as sinful, as King David declares “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”  And as Jesus says, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”  Simply using the commandments to polish up on our morals, thinking our religious life merits God’s approval, only exacerbates our problem, only causes our sin to rage all the more under the guise of good deeds.

Had the Pharisee used the commandments as a tool to reveal the rot of sin underneath, like the tax collector obviously did, then he would have joined him, beating his breast, pleading ‘‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  He would have known that underneath his polished life was a robber, an evil doer and an adulterer.  Had he have been humbled by the law, like the tax collector, he would have realised he was really the robber.  What was he robbing?  By boasting in his own glory, he was robbing God of all the glory that is due to him!

Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, shows us the right way to use the commandment, not to polish our works, but to reveal sin.  Jesus applies the commandments in such a way that none of us could ever keep them. “”You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Luther called the unachievable demands of God, the proper use of the law, or the spiritual use and taught that rather than making us shining Christians, the law always accuses us.  Applying the commandments to ourselves in this way, is the right way, because it cuts back our glossy exterior to reveal the rot inside; it causes us to cry out, as we do in the liturgy “Lord have mercy.”  We should feel more sinful than ever before, and that’s good!  Luther in his commentary on Galatians writes “But you say ‘How can I be holy when I have sin and am aware of it?’  “That you feel and acknowledge sin – this is good.  Thank God, and do not despair.  It is one step toward health when a sick man admits and confesses his disease.”  “But how will I be liberated from sin?”  Run to Christ, the Physician, who heals the contrite heart and saves sinners.”

The tax collector, beating his chest, ashamed of his sin, is the one who went home justified that day.  He placed all hope on Christ who said “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”  He knew that only the gospel of Jesus can save, the law has no place and no part in the justification of sinners before God.  He knew that faith alone in Christ alone saves.  The good news is that we now are in the right place.  That Christ is hear, bidding us to come to him, to place our faith in these little words “your sins are forgiven.”  No more is needed for salvation, if there was, it would not be the gospel, but the law.

The right distinction between law and gospel is of utmost importance for the comfort of our soul; to have the assurance of salvation and the certainty that we will be welcomed into heaven when we die.  Yet to understand and to remember the right use of the commandments and the gospel is as easy as remembering the distinction between polishing and stripping.  To polish ourselves with keeping the commandment, is only to cover up sin, and that is the wrong use, just as it is wrong to polish a rusting hubcap.  To strip ourselves of all pride, by letting the commandments accuse us to reveal our sinful nature, is the right way; just as it is right to strip back a rusting cap to reveal the bare metal.

When this is done, then the ointment that cures the rust can be added.  In the same way, once the law has done its work on us, Jesus pours on the healing ointment of the gospel, which cures us of the guilt of our sin.   Jesus beckons you to hear and believe the ointment of his word, that heals, forgives and restores “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”

Luke 17.11-19  A study on the text

 

Today we are going to do something a little different.  Sometimes it is good to do some ‘theology’; today you will be theologians.  It means the study of God through the study of his word.

Luke begins with “Now on his way to Jerusalem”.  This is very important for the understanding of the healing of the leper.  Jesus was travelling, walking, or journeying towards Jerusalem.  Does anyone know why?  He was coming to the end of his ministry time on earth and Luke records how Jesus as now making his way to Jerusalem to be crucified; to be a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

The most important building is Jerusalem was what?  The Temple.  Every Jew knew that the Temple was where God dwelt.  It was a holy place where the Levi priests and the high priest sacrificed birds and animals to atone for the sins of all the people.

Next Luke notes: “As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance.” and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

Using one of the dirty lamps, explain the purpose for the temple.

 The dirt on the glass represents sin or some form of disease, like leprosy which is ‘unclean’.  In order to be healed or cleansed of sin, the person would go to the temple in Jerusalem. 

God is holy – clean:  Like this white cloth. 

We are sinners, or sick, like this dirty lamp.

God in his holiness dwelt in the holy of holies.

The book of Leviticus is all about the cleanliness laws.  How, through sacrifice and blood presented to God, the people of Israel are cleansed from un-cleanliness.

The priests would sacrifice a lamb, bring the blood of the lamb into the holy of holies to be made clean, then brought out of God’s presence and sprinkled upon the sinner or unclean person to ‘make them clean again’ (wipe clean the glass)

If the person is healed the priest would announce this and welcome the person back into the community.  If not, the person had to live in an ‘unclean’ colony outside of Jerusalem.

When Jesus sees the lepers, he knows they are unclean, like this second lamp.  What does he do?  Does he heal them?  No, “When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

Jesus is saying to go to the temple, to go where you are made clean because it is where God dwells in his holiness.  The 10 lepers, by simply going, would be presuming that by going to the temple, going to where God dwells, he would cleanse them, and when they turn up to show the priests, cleansed, then receive the forgiveness of their sins.

Instead of this, something amazing happens on their way…what? They are cleansed “

What does this miracle tell us about Jesus?

Jesus is God in human flesh.

In Jesus, rather than in the temple is where God is found.

Use the second dirty lamp to demonstrate the healing of the leper.

By healing the 10 lepers, Jesus takes upon himself the sin and sickness of the lepers, like the blackness that is now on the white rag, but not on the glass.

How would you feel if your son, got his ‘Sunday whites’ and wiped clean dirty black lamps?  Yes, you would be angry and would take the clothes and wash them clean to get rid of the dirt.

In the same way, God’s anger against the dirt of sin that now clung to Jesus, the blackness of sin for all people, rids the world of sin by having his Son crucified.

Jesus goes to the cross to die for our sin

He goes to the cross so that his blood atones for our sin

He goes to the cross to that by his blood we are cleansed

The healing of the lepers demonstrated before time, why Jesus was heading to Jerusalem.  His death and the shedding of his blood now bring healing and cleansing, and not in the continual sacrifices of the temple.

What happened when Jesus died?  The temple curtain, that separated God from humans, was torn in two.  It no longer had any use, God no longer dwelt in the temple by in the man Jesus Christ.

The once for all sacrifice of Jesus, the blood of the Lamb of God, now cleanses.

Luke writes: “One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.  He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him– and he was a Samaritan.”

The Samaritan recognised that God now dwelt in Jesus and thanked and praised him.

Jesus is still healing us

His very same way Jesus’ blood still cleanses us

His word pronounces us cleansed and his blood cleanses us.

This is why we must still confess that Jesus is truly present here for us, under the guise of the bread and wine.  Only Jesus’ blood can cleans us of sin and make us clean, as St Paul urges us “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Remembers, by his wounds we are healed! 

Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

In the church, in the liturgy of the worship service, God cleanses us by the blood of his Son Jesus, and by the absolution of your sins, you are also made clean.  We are lepers of sin who are made clean, like the cleaning of the lamp.  So let us give thanks to God and praise him for our healing.

Luke 16_19-31 Entertainment

 

Things are different today, here in Australia.  We are a far more compassionate, educated and a civil society than in Jesus day.   Wouldn’t you agree?  The average Aussie is now far more socially aware of the suffering of the poor, of the down trodden and the protection of the rights of the vulnerable, than when Jesus told this parable.   Christianity, with its core values and teachings of love for God and loving service for all, and that all humans are created in the image of God, has greatly influenced the way we now value the sanctity of every human life. 

Consider Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar.  A rich man is so ignorant to the  inequality and the right to life for all people, that Lazarus lay dying at his front gate, while he continues to be ‘dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.’   The contrast from that day to this could not be starker…its chalk and cheese; it wouldn’t happen today.  So much so, the parable makes little sense to us here in Australia.

Who here regularly sees or reverses out of their driveway past a totally destitute, sore infested, near death beggar, dumped out the front of our house?  What rich man today would risk the media and public backlash of being accused of leaving a poor man to die at their front gate?  Of course no one in our community, you me, rich or poor, would stand for social inequality…everyone has a right to life; to a fair go!  We have the society we do, because our social conscience is built on and around our Christian roots.  We get it from what Jesus says of himself in Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed.”  He urges us to do like wise, saying ‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”  

It makes us wonder how the rich man got the point where he refuses to give Lazarus even a crumb that fell from his table. It puzzles us as to how a religious Jew, who was a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Israel, could come to the point where he is totally indifferent to God, to sin, to heaven, or whether there was a hell.  It troubles us as to what convinced this once religious man, to be so consumed with the philosophy common in that day, to ‘Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry“, that Lazarus was not worth his time, money and effort; that the commandment ‘thou shall not kill’, did not apply to Lazarus, as his life was worth less than his own.

As I said earlier, it doesn’t happen in our society, in our day…or does it?  Perhaps we also are part of the rich man’s story?  What are we indifferent about today?  While we are not as barbaric as publically leaving people to die on our doorsteps, and while we are not outwardly flaunting the philosophy ‘Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”, as the rich man did, we are, as a society, perhaps even as Christians, dangerously indifferent.  Indifferent to God, to faith and right theology, indifferent to whether there really is a heaven or a hell; indifferent to wether Jesus really is the only way, truth and life, and apart from him we can do nothing.  And this indifferent attitude towards God has had social consequences that have now crept slowly, like a noxious weed, into our society.

The right to life, and the sanctity of life for all people, especially the vulnerable, is being eroded away by our self interest in enjoying life.  We don’t leave a terminally ill man like Lazarus lying on the front path to die, but we are now open to debating the right to euthanize the terminally ill…with their supposed consent of course.  We as a society, like the rich man, are prepared to turn a blind eye to the suffering and loneliness of the sick and elderly, encouraging them to end their life, so we can “eat drink and be merry.”

We are all guilty of being too busy today, and indifferent ‘dressed in purple and fine linen and living in luxury every day, to spare even a crumb of our time for God and the sick and dying, which might fall from our busy ‘timetables’.  We are all infected with the rich man’s terminal disease called ‘indifference.’   

Sin is indifference to God, not caring that he is angry and offended by our not loving him with our whole heart, mind and soul, as he commands.  Sin is to eat, drink and be merry, while having no regard for the life and welfare of others.  Sin is to be indifferent to Jesus call to “go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” And as the rich man in the parable found out, St Paul’s words ring true for us “the wages of sin is death.”  We may be indifferent, not really comprehending the depth and nature of our sin, and the decadence and indifference of our society, but God is not, and in this parable, Jesus warns us of the fires of hell are ready for those who live in this manner.

Like dead men walking, there is nothing in this world we can do to change our fate, as Jesus says in Revelation 20: 15 “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”  Yet there is good news imbedded in the parable, there is grace to be found.  Did you notice from the start, Jesus gives a name to the beggar, Lazarus? 

The rich man has no name.  Even though many of his friends would have known him, God does not know him.  His name may have been written in all the social columns of the newspapers, but his name was not written in the book of heaven.  He may have been an upright and moral gentleman, but because his name is not known by God, he was thrown into the lake of fire.  

Lazarus was given a name, though he did nothing, had nothing, and was an outcast and beggar; his name didn’t even get a mention in the death notices…he was not buried, but left for the angels to take him away.  Yet because his name is written in the book of life he enters heaven, as Jesus tells, “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.”  Jesus names him because he is one of his own.   

Lazarus may have suffered while still living, and we don’t know what caused it.  Perhaps it was his fault, perhaps he had squandered his money like the prodical son, perhaps he was struggling with the results of years of alcoholism, and that’s why the rich man didn’t help, but the stunning fact of God grace in this story, is Lazarus’ name was written in the book of life, and he was taken into heaven. 

Lazarus’ name was know by God, and the rich man’s wasn’t, not because he was a better bloke, but because Lazarus heard and believed in Jesus, the promised saviour spoken about in ‘Moses and the Prophets’; that Isaiah spoke of “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”  Jesus went to the cross, suffered and died for us, who are hopelessly caught up in the riches and indifference of sin. Isaiah says “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death” 

But God raised him from the grave that he may live forever.  Death could not hold him, and now death and hell has no power, no sting for us who are named in Christ.  This is the grace that is announced in the parable; the grace that is now poured out upon us through the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments.  What we hear today, what we eat and drink today, are the very grace giving words of Jesus, who was anointed to preach to the poor and to bring freedom to us who are prisoners to sin.  In baptism, we are named as a child of God. 

God makes us his own, giving us his Spirit and putting our name into the book of life, as St Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:22 says “He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”  Since we are God’s children, and have our names in heaven, let us now be attuned and attentive to God’s word, and to give more than just crumbs and token efforts to the suffering people of this world.  Let us no longer entertain ourselves, but rather hear the words of Hebrews 13:2 “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.”