‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’
Today’s readings and Gospel are an exercise in direct contrasts. They are also an exposition of God’s great love and mercy.
The first part of that statement is easy to see. We have the contrast between the people Amos was speaking to and the people Paul spoke to.
Amos prophesied against the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
As you may recall, Israel proper consisted of all twelve tribes.
The tribes were united under King David into the Kingdom of Israel. Eventually the kingdom broke down into two separate kingdoms .
In the south we find the Kingdom of Judah with Jerusalem as its capital and in the north the Kingdom of Israel.
Judah consisted of two tribes and Israel consisted of ten tribes, with most of the territory in Israel belonging to the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim.
Amos spoke to the people of Judah and pointed out their idolatry, their complacency. They were living the good life. Listen to the list:
Lying upon beds of ivory,
stretched comfortably on their couches,
they eat lambs taken from the flock,
and calves from the stall!
Improvising to the music of the harp,
like David, they devise their own accompaniment.
They drink wine from bowls
and anoint themselves with the best oils
Then Amos says:
Yet they are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph!
The largest chunk of the Northern Kingdom was in collapse. The two largest tribes, with the largest territory, Manasseh and Ephraim were captured by the Assyrians. Anyone who escaped the sword was carried into captivity. Manasseh and Ephraim were the sons of Joseph. Joseph had fallen, a few days journey north of Judah, yet Judah was throwing one big party.
Judah wasn’t just throwing a party, they were living a party. Judah forgot God, His commandments, what He had done for Israel.
Paul is telling Timothy and all Christians:
But you, man of God, pursue righteousness,
devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.
Compete well for the faith.
Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called
when you made the noble confession in the presence of many witnesses.
Brothers and sisters,
Two extremes, but one key point; it is about how we live.
Now we enter the Gospel of St. Luke, and we see the wages of the life we choose to live. The way we live has costs.
When the poor man died,
he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.
The rich man also died and was buried,
and from the netherworld, where he was in torment,
he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off
and Lazarus at his side.
Oh, but deacon, are you saying I must live in the streets, beg, and be covered in sores.
Now a deacon or pastor in a wealthy parish would be quick to say, oh, no, that’s not it.
But let’s pause.
What is the kingdom of God worth to me? Where do I draw the line? Where do I buy justification for the way I live? If I had to choose between A and B, which choice would I make?
We all pray that we would choose God over any other choice —“ but I have the distinct feeling that it wouldn’t be that easy. Say I believe in God and die? Say I believe in God and lose my job? Say I believe in God and lose my spouse and children? Jesus told us in the garden:
Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
He told us that the choice wouldn’t be easy.
Brothers and sisters,
The rich man forgot to stay awake. He forgot about Moses and the prophets. He forgot the lessons he learned at shul —“ the lessons read from Amos.
Jesus compares the rich man to the dogs. The dogs had better sense:
Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.
The rich man couldn’t even throw Lazarus a scrap of bread.
The rich man, the people of Judah all forgot how to live. The Pharisees didn’t get the message either. Jesus says of them:
…practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.
They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger.
They do all their deeds to be seen by men.
Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, but did they change their way of living? No.
My friends,
The questions for any thinking Christian are: Will I make it to the Kingdom? Am I in any way different from the Pharisees? Will I get to heaven?
To ask that question we must contemplate the terrible possibility of hell.
In all Christian truth we must admit that hell exists. We must also admit that going there is a terrible and fearsome possibility.
While admitting that we are not forbidden to believe that, by the mercy of God, hell is empty. That even Satan himself, crushed under the heel of Jesus Christ, could come to his senses and repent. After all, Satan, Hitler, bin Laden could all reach out to God, repent, and return. They are the children of God, given the desire for God by their very nature.
For you and I that is the hard part. We want absolutes. He or she —“ they’re on the highway to hell. That guy over there, he’s ok, he’ll make it. The rich man will certainly go to hell and its torments, Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom.
The vast un-crossable chasm Jesus speaks of is a chasm of our own making. It is only literal because we make it so.
Did the rich man look up and wonder —“ much less say: Lazarus, forgive me.
No, the rich man could not cross because he failed to recognize Lazarus lying outside his door. He failed to recognize him in Abraham’s bosom. He saw Lazarus as an annoyance in life and as a tool to bring him water, or a tool to save his family in death.
As in the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, the rich man fashioned his chain, link by link, by the way he lived.
That is why we must start today. We must make the choices that need to be made —“ a live life in accord with and for God, or for an unconquerable, self-imposed distance from God.
In life or death the distance is never finally unconquerable —“ but oh how hard it will be if we forget God and the image of God in each and every human being.
God’s mercy is great, but we must recognize it. No one will come back to tell us how we must live, for, neither will [we] be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.
Jesus Christ did, yet so many remain unconvinced.
Amen.
