We live in a world that loves money. I think that’s fairly self-evident, but here is one little illustration of that. Consider this phrase, and what someone is most likely to mean when it’s used: “John is better off than other people.” What do we mean by that? It probably refers to the fact that John has more money than other people. Or if we describe somebody as not quite so well off, we mean they have a little less money than some other people do.
This attitude to money is not new to the modern era. Don’t think that it’s just in the West, just in the twenty-first century, that money has had this grip on our sense of value in life. It’s been true all through human history, and it was true in Jesus’ day.
Now, as we open this theme up, please don’t mishear what Jesus is saying. Jesus is not saying that money itself is a bad thing, that you should aim to have as little as possible. That’s not what he’s saying. Indeed, the Bible as a whole makes the point that actually money is a useful thing to have. If you earn it rightly and use it responsibly, it’s actually a good thing. It opens doors for you. For example, here’s Proverbs 19 verse 6: “Many curry favour with a ruler, and everyone is the friend of one who gives gifts.” Or Proverbs 10:15: “The wealth of the rich is their fortified city, but poverty is the ruin of the poor.” Now, Jesus is not saying money is bad, get rid of it.
Neither is Jesus belittling what it’s like not to have enough. Some of you, I’m sure, know all too well just how painful and hard it is, really, genuinely, truly, not to have enough to get by. The stress, the pain, the shame, the fear — this is a lived experience for some of you. Maybe right now, in this season in your life, you know that. And Jesus is not saying that that doesn’t really matter. No, he has compassion. He understands. In fact, if that is your position, actually what Jesus has to say today is just beautiful and wonderful, and I hope you will hear real words of comfort and encouragement from him this morning.
So no, don’t mishear him — but he is talking about money, and he wants to change the way that we see it. Let’s see that from the context of where this little parable comes in Luke’s Gospel.
So Jesus is talking to the Pharisees. That might not be obvious to you, so let me just show you that. Go back to the beginning of chapter 16, chapter 16 verse 1: “Jesus told his disciples: There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.” And then Jesus goes on to tell one of the most intriguing parables in Luke’s Gospel. Okay, go and read that later and ponder that one — that’s great fun, that story. That’s the story he then tells his disciples. And he finishes with this punchline, chapter 16 verse 13: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” End of parable, to Jesus’ disciples.
But then look what happens. Verse 14: “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, ‘You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.’” So he’s addressing the Pharisees. At no point then through the rest of chapter 16 does his audience change. He’s still talking to the Pharisees in response to them snickering at his negative comments about money. And it’s only when we get to chapter 17 verse 1, “Jesus said to his disciples,” that he’s back on his original teaching programme with his own disciples.
So Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, an extremely devout religious group in the first century, and that’s his audience for this parable. And Luke tells us two things about the Pharisees in verses 14 and 15. They’re the only two things we need to know about them. I’m sure you could read lots of other stuff on Wikipedia or wherever you get your information about the Pharisees, but you only need to know two facts about the Pharisees, Luke says.
Number one, from verse 14: they loved money. And number two: they wanted to justify themselves in the eyes of others. That is to say, they wanted to establish, in other people’s view, that everything between them and God is just fine. They loved money, and they wanted people to know that everything between them and God is just fine. And what Jesus has just said in verse 13 — you cannot serve both God and money — cuts across both of those. The Pharisees loved money, so Jesus said, well, that means you can’t love God. The Pharisees wanted to establish that they were fine with God, but Jesus just said that that’s not true for anyone who loves money. So you see why the Pharisees didn’t like what he was saying. And so he tells the story that we just heard read.
So we’re going to look at that story together. We’re going to look at the two main characters in the story — those two characters face two very different futures, so we’ll look at that. And then we’ll look at the two requests that are made by the rich man in the story. So that’s where we’re going. We’ll start by looking at the characters — start with the rich man.
The rich man
This man was exceedingly wealthy. That might not be obvious to us when it just says “there was a rich man.” You might think he was a guy who just had a slight promotion at work and he’s got himself a new lawnmower. No, this is more than that.
Look at his clothes. He was dressed in purple and fine linen. Now, in that era, most people would make their clothes out of natural fibres of some kind, and they would simply wear the clothes with the colour that was naturally in those fibres. So lots of browns — beige was in, big time. If you liked beige, you would be good in the first century. Beige was the number one colour on the street. And only the wealthy could afford to put their fabric through the bleaching process to take all the colour out and get you pure white linen. And only the extra, extra wealthy could then take the clothes they had bleached and apply the extremely costly purple dye — which was very expensive to obtain — to turn that white garment into something purple. And this man was dressed in purple and fine linen. That’s his clothes.
Then look at his food. We’re told that he lived in luxury every day. Now that phrase, “lived in luxury,” is a description of his food. This man would eat the kind of food — living in luxury is your Christmas dinner. It’s the royal banquet for the state visit. When you have seventy-one courses of food and so many bits of cutlery that you give up trying to work out what you’re supposed to use for what. The finest of everything, served in limitless quantity. A real special-occasion menu. What did this man do? He lived in luxury every day. That was his daily diet.
And then here’s the third detail: he has a gate. This is one of those things that may not impress you. I have a gate. You may have a gate. They need painting, the hinges creak. Not that kind of gate. A gate back then was a kind of entrance area. It would have been surrounded by large, ornate pillars. It would have had a canopy covering over the top. A huge, grand opening to his house, with steps leading up to the entrance. Think Buckingham Palace. Think a stately home with a really grand entranceway. The man dressed in purple and fine linen, he lived in luxury every day, and he had a gate. This man was not just rich — he was filthy rich.
Now, please don’t think that the problem with this man was that he was rich. That is not his problem. You have to read the whole of verses 19 to 21: “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.”
God repeatedly told his people in the Old Testament scriptures to care deeply and especially for the poor amongst them. That was what was close to God’s heart. And indeed, here was the real, painful irony of this. Gates weren’t normally something people’s houses had — gates were what cities had. You see this sometimes in ancient walled cities — you may see it in TV dramas — where you have a physical gate that lets you into the city, and then another gate a bit further in, and there is this whole entrance area between the two gates, near the walls, which is a public square. And here is the irony: in the Old Testament, God told the poor to go to the city gate to receive the help they would need. What has this man got at his own little personal city gate that he built for himself? Lazarus. He has to step over the guy every time he goes out to buy himself a newspaper. And he did absolutely nothing to help. In fact, if you look closely, we discover later in the story that he even knew the guy’s name — “Abraham, send Lazarus” — oh, so you did know him then? Just stepped over him.
The problem was not that this man was rich. The problem was that he had no time for God. Money mattered to him. Lazarus did not matter to him. Therefore God did not matter to him. That’s character number one, the rich man.
Lazarus
Now let’s look at Lazarus, the other one. He is, in every possible way, a complete contrast to our rich man. One was rich, the other was described as a beggar. One was clothed in the most amazing outfits, the other was clothed in open wounds. One feasted sumptuously every day, the other longed to rifle through the guy’s bins and wasn’t even allowed to do so. They could not be more different from one another.
When it says that Lazarus was laid at his gate, that is slightly polite English. The actual word is “thrown” at his gate. He was chucked there, like he was just on the rubbish heap. And we are told that the dogs came and licked his sores. Some commentators get a bit sentimental about the dogs at this point — they say, well, the rich man didn’t help, but at least the dogs came and cleaned him up. That’s not what the dogs were doing. These were the town strays. They were drawn to the guy’s smell, and licking — as only dogs can do — anything that is just disgusting to the rest of us. But the best way to sniff something, apparently, is to taste it.
So it seems that in every possible way the rich man is, quote, “better off” than Lazarus. Except he’s not. Here’s one tiny little detail: Lazarus has a name. In all the parables that Jesus told, and there are many of them, Lazarus is the only character in any of the parables to be given a name. Furthermore, his name means “God helps.” Lazarus is the Greek version of the Jewish name Eliezer. Some of you know the name Ebenezer — “stone of help.” Well, this man is called Eliezer — “God of help.” This man has a name, and it might sound like no one cares for him, but actually God is on his side. And God would be his helper, as we will see.
Two futures
Two men, with two very different futures. They both die. The beggar goes to Abraham’s side, we are told. Now, the people of that day thought of heaven as being like a banquet, and they thought that at that banquet all the greats of Old Testament history would be there — Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the prophets, Samuel, Moses, Isaiah, King David, Solomon. It was the banquet at which the whole cast of greats was present. And they weren’t just making that up — they got that from the Old Testament. That was one of the pictures the Old Testament painted for what heaven would be like. And do you see where Lazarus is? He’s not just at the banquet — he’s at Abraham’s side. So, as the seating plan for the heavenly banquet is laid out, there is a little card that says “Abraham” — that’s your seat. And right next to him: “I want to sit you,” says God, “next to Lazarus.” Wow!
Well, that’s our beggar, Lazarus. The rich man — well, we’re told he died and was buried. That’s a start. There was great dignity in those days in receiving a proper burial. We’re not told that of Lazarus — he was probably literally thrown on the rubbish heap when he died. But if this man received a burial, that is all that can be said of him. The only good thing.
This man is in a place called Hades. This is from the realm of Greek mythology. Hades was the waiting room that you went to after you died, if your final destination was eternal punishment and torment. Hades was the waiting room for hell. It’s where you went to wait for everlasting punishment. You could not have two more different destinations.
And the rich man looks up, and he can see Lazarus and Abraham. And he has two requests for Abraham.
Request 1: Ease my agony
Request number one: ease my agony. Ease my agony. Verse 24: “So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’”
The rich man still thinks Lazarus might be his servant — run an errand for him, bless. But there’s his request: ease my agony. And the answer is no. And Abraham says no for two reasons.
The first reason is that what is happening now is a matter of justice. This is verse 25: “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.” It’s not that there is a kind of fixed amount of good stuff that everybody will get during life and eternity, and the rich man has kind of had his quota, so has nothing left, while the poorer man Lazarus has still got everything remaining. It’s not like two children who are given a bag of sweets each, and one eats them all straight away while the other saves them and has plenty the next day. Now, that’s not how it works. It’s not true, simplistically, to say that the poorer you are now, the richer you will be then. It can’t be that, because Abraham is there — and at the end of Abraham’s life he was an exceedingly wealthy man. In fact, he was exceedingly wealthy as early as Genesis 14. Abraham was one of the great rich figures of history. And we already know, don’t we, that this man was not in Hades because he was rich, but because he had no time for God.
No, there’s something else going on with the justice here. What’s going on is that God is treating these people according to how they treated him. The rich man had no time for God, and therefore the future that he deserves is a future of torment. Whereas Lazarus leaned only on God for sustenance and for support, and so his future, given to him by God, but therefore justly his, is a future of great comfort. And Jesus’ point is that in eternity the realities experienced are scaled up, and they are forever. So, as Lazarus is there with Abraham at his heavenly banquet, what he’s enjoying is way, way better than the rich feast that the rich man had. And as the rich man is in torment, well, a damp finger just touching his tongue would be absolute bliss — that is way worse than being covered in sores at the rich man’s gate. So not only have they swapped, but the dials for both have been turned up to eleven.
It’s about justice — but the other reason why Abraham says no is that these futures are forever. They are sealed. Verse 26: “Besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” Notice the rich man doesn’t even ask if he can join Lazarus — “Can I change places, please? I’m in the wrong place, there’s some misunderstanding.” He doesn’t even ask for that. All he asks for is Lazarus to cross over briefly for a little temporary relief. And even that is refused. So changing places permanently — well, that’s most certainly not possible.
Many people like to think that after we die there are still further opportunities to change your final and eternal destiny — that you can choose to follow Jesus in this life and to receive from him, as a gift, a wonderful future with God forever, but if you don’t do that in this life that’s okay, because after you die there will be further opportunities. This parable blows that out of the water. Once we reach death, our destinies are sealed, and no one can cross from one side to the other — not even for a weekend visit. When Lazarus was at the rich man’s gate, there was a little gap between the two of them — he stepped over him every time he went outside, the door was there, Lazarus was kind of there. There was a gap that could have been bridged at any point. But now there is this chasm that cannot be bridged. The rich man’s torment is forever. Lazarus’s joy is forever.
So we think that having a little bit more money makes you a little bit better off. The reality is that even if you have loads more money, all it does is make you a tiny bit better off for maybe eighty years. And that is nothing compared to the contrast of eternity — either enjoying the best life imaginable, or the worst torment. And so a little bit more money, and the benefits that brings you, count for nothing. The only thing that counts is this: do you know Jesus? Because the consequences of that question are vast, and they are forever.
Request 2: Save my family
Well, that was the rich man’s first request — ease my agony. Here is number two: save my family. Save my family. Verse 27: “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’” Okay, I accept it finally — it is too late for me. Maybe it is not too late for my five brothers.
And once again Abraham refuses. Verse 29: “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.” Moses and the Prophets — simply a way of referring to the authors of the Old Testament. There were many other authors, but those two categories tend to capture most of the Old Testament. Abraham says: your brothers have all they need to make the right decisions. They have the Bible. They can listen to that.
But the rich man knows — he knows that having the Bible is not enough to bring his brothers to repentance. He knows that, because he had that, and it didn’t do it for him. So he tries again, one more time. Verse 30: “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’” Abraham refuses again. He says to him: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” The problem your brothers have, says Abraham, is not lack of evidence. They have plenty of evidence.
At this point, Jesus steps out of the parable. In fact, some people even say this isn’t really a parable — the parable is becoming the real world. Because someone will rise from the dead. Jesus himself will rise from the dead. What will the Pharisees do when that happens? Some follow him. But for the most part, they covered up the evidence rather than worship and follow Jesus. They were not convinced, even though someone rose from the dead.
That means we’ve just located the Pharisees in the story. The Pharisees he’s speaking to are the five brothers. It’s too late for the rich man in the story — it’s not too late for the Pharisees he’s speaking to. Which means we’ve found where we fit in the story: we are the five brothers. And Jesus is saying: it might be too late for that rich man. It’s not too late for you, because you’re still alive. You have the Scriptures. You have someone who rose from the dead. Listen to them.
Here’s one of the lovely little ironic twists in this story. It’s the story of the rich man who longs to find a way to get a message from beyond the grave to other people. But he’s not able to speak from beyond the grave. Except — he does. Because when you read the story, he’s getting that message out. So actually the message that the five brothers were not allowed to hear, you’re all hearing this morning. Because he is speaking to warn you where things end up if you reject God for the rest of your life.
So here is the man’s message: if you would avoid an eternity in torment, and if you want to instead receive a wonderful eternity with God and with his people, then do not wait for more evidence. Because your problem is not lack of evidence. Jesus says to you: if you’re not going to respond to him with the evidence you’ve got, well, you’re just going to find other excuses when you get more evidence, aren’t you? You’ve got plenty of evidence. The evidence we need is in the Bible. So Jesus says: read this, be convinced, and repent. Turn around.
And that means we will then turn from a life that is lived all for money, from a life that is lived for comfort, a life that is lived for pleasure, a life that is lived for leisure. And we will turn to live for God, and in response we will start to treat others the way that God wants, including the most needy amongst us.
And here’s what we will find: those who follow Jesus are in store for a future that is more amazing than anything you ever dreamed of, than anything money could buy. And that future is a pure gift from the Lord Jesus. You want to be better off? Know him. And that future goes on forever.