Pentecost 3C (LSB – 1 Year Trinity 1 Lessons)

“A Text About Whom?”

St. Luke 16:19-31

June 10, 2007

Bethel Lutheran Church – Du Quoin, IL 

Intro:  Have you ever heard one of those stories that you have heard so many times, you know exactly what happens and exactly what the story is about?  Many of these are moral tales in a sense.  For example:  “The Three Little Pigs,” “Little Red Ridding Hood,” “The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf,” and the like.  Our text, though a parable of our Lord and not a mere moral fable, is one such story where it seems we have all heard it and know what it means and who it is about, or do we? 

    1. There is the standard interpretation – A Retelling of the text, with application.
      1. It is a good and sound interpretation of the text.
        1. It is well rooted in the Words of our Lord.
        2. Any well catechized Lutheran would say it was sound Law and Gospel preaching.
      2. The parable is told to the Pharisees.
      3. Jesus speaks of an unnamed rich man.
        1. It is not his richness that is condemned but his selfishness that is condemned.
        2. He is punished for having put all his trust in his possessions and not in faith in the Lord.
        3. At his death, the text says he is buried, condemned to hell.
      4. Lazarus (not the same Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, whom Jesus would later raise from the dead).
        1. A poor sick beggar, looking for even crumbs to eat.
        2. So humiliated that even the dogs lick his sores.
        3. He too dies, but is taken to the bosom of Abraham, in heaven.
      5. There is a discourse that takes place.
        1. Even in death the rich man looks to his own needs.
        2. Abraham says, “NO.”
        3. Then the rich man cries for Lazarus to go back to his family, still thinking of his own interests, but at least not himself specifically.
        4. Abraham responds telling the rich man that his family has Moses and the Prophets to testify to them.
        5. Finally, he acknowledges his family needs to repent and that someone from the dead returning would convince them to do this very thing.
        6. Abraham informs the rich man that if his family is unwilling to hear Moses and the Prophets, even someone coming back from the dead will not be effective in turning them to repentance.
      6. The text applied to us today.
        1. In our sin we are like the rich man.
        1. We ought to take heed that we do not get caught up in the selfish materialism of this world.
        2. Indeed in our sinful lives it is easy for us to let money and lavish living, or many other false gods take center stage in our lives.
        3. When these things become our focus we are in danger of not hearing Moses and the Prophets calling us to repentance.
        4. We are in danger of ending up like the rich man in hell, with no hope for crossing the vast chasm fixed between hell and eternal life in heaven.
        5. We are in danger of receiving exactly what we deserve for our sin.
        1. Through faith in Christ we are like Lazarus.
        1. Though we suffer in our sin we will be blessed in eternity.
        2. Though we have many problems, God will gather us unto himself.
        3. In faith we are called to cling to God’s promises and so we are included in the book of life.
      1. The standard interpretation of the text is no doubt helpful and has numerous beneficial applications – however it has at least one serious flaw – it stops too soon.
        1. It leaves u with the text about Lazarus and a rich man.
        2. It leaves us applying each man’s situation to our own lives.
        3. There is more, a much fuller interpretation – that awaits us.
    1. The text is not so much a text about these men, Lazarus and the rich man, but one about our Lord – Jesus the Christ.  The text is a study in contrasts.
     
      1. In our sin we lie sick and diseased.
        1. We are mere beggars at the table looking for crumbs falling down to us.
        2. Like Lazarus, we can do nothing to help our wretched selves.
        3. We can’t even fend off the dogs that come to like upon our sores – we can’t fight off the evil that surrounds us and prevent its advances.
        4. We are helpless and left alone to die.
        5. Deserving only the fate of the rich man in hell.
      2. But thanks be to God that this text is about Jesus the Christ.
        1. Jesus too is a rich man – The exalted creator of the world.
        2. Yet He is not selfish, but rather has compassion upon us.
        3. So He comes to where we are at – to the outside of the His gate of Heaven – into this hellish world.
        4. He picks us up and cleanses our sinful sores.
        5. He cleanses us not with soap and water, not even with antiseptic cleansers, but rather with the blood flowing out from His own sores.
        6. Not from His sores of sin, but rather from the sores of our sin which He took upon Himself on Calvary’s bloody cross.
        7. He becomes for us, the sick and infirmed, the One who dies in sin.
        8. But He does not remain dead – No!  He rises again to new life that we might receive life in Him.
        9. He opens our minds that we might understand the Scriptures – Just as the rich man wanted Lazarus to do for his family.
        1. He does so through Moses and the Prophets – as He did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus on Easter evening.
        2. It was until the Emmaus disciples beheld the bread broken that they knew it was the Risen Lord.
        3. The disciples minds were opened Luke tells us in chapter 24, to understand the scriptures – Moses and the Prophets.
        4. For the disciples it isn’t until the Holy Spirit is poured out upon them at Pentecost that they being to preach – but notice what they preach – Moses and the Prophets fulfilled in Christ and Him crucified and raised from the dead!
      1. Through faith in the Christ, we too will sit at His bosom at His high table.
        1. We also learn through Moses and the Prophets – and not also through the Apostles teaching.
        2. It is only through the Word by the power of the Holy Spirit that our minds are opened to understand the Scriptures.
        3. Only then are we enabled to recognize the Risen Lord and repent of our sin.
        4. Only through faith by God’s grace are we enabled to sin at the heavenly banquet – the great Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom – where we receive far more than mere crumbs.
        5. This faith is begun in us in our washing in Holy Baptism – the cleansing of our sin sickened sores.
        6. It is continued through His Holy Word and the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood.
      1. Yes the story is familiar, and so it is meaning, but with a little deeper investigation it is for us fresh and new.
        1. It is just about two men – some unnamed rich man and a Lazarus.
        2. It isn’t just about selfishness and repentance.
        3. But rather is about the Lord Jesus and His forgiveness for us.
 

Conc:  Indeed Jesus has redeemed us and opened our minds to understand the Scriptures.  In repentance and faith – His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation are poured out upon us.  To Him be the glory forever and ever.  Amen.