The Unavoidable Topic

Since I preached about money last week, I had hoped to escape the topic today. Perhaps you noticed. There is no escape. Not in the Old Testament lesson, which involves a very public purchase of real estate by the prophet Jeremiah, or in the Epistle lesson, which is a lengthy discourse on the danger wealth poses to Christians, or in the Gospel lesson, which is that extremely troubling story of the rich man and Lazarus.

You’d think the committee that put the lectionary together would build in some kind of escape route. No. Everywhere we turn, the issue of money confronts us. If we didn’t know better, we might get the idea that this issue is of paramount importance to God as well. Of course we know better than that, don’t we? God is only interested in spiritual matters.

I just can’t understand how the prophet Jeremiah, the Apostle Paul, and the Gospel writer Luke got so far off track. If they had just spent a bit more time in the garden alone with God, they might not have developed this strange idea that God cares deeply about what you and I do with our possessions.

Take Jeremiah, for instance. He buys a plot of land from his cousin as an investment in the future. The distant future. The land in question is not going to yield a crop anytime soon due to the fact that the Babylonian army is camped upon it, preparing to lay siege to Jerusalem. It won’t be long before the Babylonians break through the city walls, kill a large portion of the population, and haul its most prominent citizens off to exile in Babylon.

Jeremiah knows this is about to happen. He spent his career warning the people that this is just the kind of thing that was bound to happen if they didn’t clean up their act. So what is his final prophetic action? He buys that plot of land to keep it in his family, makes a big show of signing the deed, and puts the deed in a good, thick earthenware jar, so that it will last for a very long time.

Despite his many Jeremiad’s, despite his confidence in the wrath of God that is about to come down upon God’s people, Jeremiah is willing to bet his last few shekels that God’s mercy will win out in the end. He won’t live to see it, but it will happen. The people of Israel will someday return to Jerusalem, plant fields, and reap harvests. Though God is just, God’s compassion is without end. Jeremiah puts his money where his faith is, and the investment eventually pays off.

Humm . . . Perhaps we should reconsider. Perhaps money is a spiritual matter after all.

The writer of the letters to Timothy thinks so. The Apostle Paul (or the writer who is using his name) writes to his young colleague Timothy to warn him about the havoc money plays with followers of Christ.

For one thing, it corrupts sound teaching. Right there in Timothy’s church there are people who are willing to spout of all sorts of nonsense if only they can get a paying crowd to hear them. Back then, it appears, there were false teachers who actually got rich peddling a distortion of the gospel.

Imagine that! It’s a good thing we don’t have that kind of thing now. I mean, with television and direct mailing and so many people in the world longing to live like rich Americans, an entrepreneurial false teacher might come along and make a killing. Aren’t you glad that’s not happening.

It’s not money itself that’s the problem, writes Timothy’s mentor, but "the love of money." "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil," he reminds Timothy (I Tim. 6:19). (That saying didn’t originate with Paul, by the way. He’s quoting the ancient philosopher Menander. But back then preachers didn’t bother with footnotes. That was before parishioners started feeding their pastors’ best lines into Google to see if they’ve been "borrowing" good stuff without attribution.)

If you’ve got rich folks in your congregation, Paul advises, "command them not be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share . . . so that they may take hold of the life that really is life" (I Tim. 6:17-19).

Clearly, Paul was a church planter, not a long-time pastor. I can just imagine what would have happened to Timothy if he had gone to the richest members of his church and said, "I command you not to be haughty!"

I know a pastor who took that approach to the rich folks in his congregation. I saw him just the other day at Wal-Mart. He was wearing a red vest and greeting people at the doorway.

You see, a lot of people think that wealth is proof that God is pleased with them. The more you have, the more evidence there is that you’re on the right track, so far as God is concerned. In simple terms, that was the theological position taken by the Pharisees back in Jesus’ day. They came to it by ignoring prophets such as Jeremiah, Micah, and Amos. Instead they focused on what is called "Deuteronomic" theology.

Deuteronomy was the Pharisee’s favorite book of the Bible. Flip through its pages sometime. You’ll find a lot of this kind of thing: King So-And-So did right in the eyes of God and prospered. King What’s-His-Name, son of So-And-So did wrong in the eyes of God and went bankrupt. Unless you read more broadly than that, you’ll soon get the idea that wealth and faithfulness go hand in hand.

No surprise, then, that in Luke’s Gospel the Pharisees hate the message that Jesus is spreading. He keeps talking about the rich becoming poor when the kingdom arrives – about the rich toppling off thrones, and being shut out of dinner parties, and having to wait at the end of the line while beggars and sinners and all manner of trailer trash go in ahead of them. This is dangerous theology. Unwholesome. Impractical. Socially disruptive.

And, as you no doubt noticed, it is toward the Pharisees that Jesus directs this devastating tale of Lazarus and the rich man.

Don’t you just hate this story? As a rule, characters in Jesus’ parables don’t have names, but in this story one person does have a name: Lazarus.

The other character is just called "a rich man." This should be a big hint about where this story is headed.

Well, Lazarus dies. No surprise there. And so does the rich man. Must have been the high-cholesterol diet. That line from I Timothy comes to mind: "We brought nothing into the world, so that we will take nothing out of it" (I Tim. 6:7).

But here’s the kicker for the Pharisees hearing this story. Lazarus ends up in heaven, in the bosom of Abraham, and the rich man ends up in Hades, where it is as hot as . . . well, Hades. This is not consistent with Deuteronomic theology.

The rich man looks up to heaven and sees Lazarus hanging out with Abraham. "Father Abraham," he shouts, "I’m dying of thirst down here. Send that boy Lazarus to fetch me some water." Obviously, the rich man does not fully appreciate his situation. He doesn’t call the shots anymore, and Lazarus is not his water boy.

"No can do, my child," Abraham replies. "There’s a huge ditch between where we are and where you are, and there’s no going back and forth."

"Well then, I’ve got five brothers back home. Please, Father Abraham, send Lazarus back to warn them about this situation. This isn’t anything like what that preacher on TV told us to expect. But if someone comes back from the dead, my relatives will listen."

"Well now," says Abraham. "Funny you should mention that. They’ve got the law and the prophets. They’ve got Moses, Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, and all the rest. If they won’t listen to the Bible, they won’t listen to Lazarus, even if he should come back from the dead."

You can hear Mary singing her Magnificat in the background.

He has scattered the proud in the imaginations of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich he has sent empty away. (Luke 1:51a-53)

How you hear this story depends very much on which side of the ditch you are standing. And where you stand right now depends on how you read the Bible. The problem with wealth is what it does to your eyesight. It can cause you not to see folks like Lazarus, even if you have to step over them on your way to get the mail. And wealth can make you a very, very selective reader of Scripture.

We have the Scriptures. We have Jesus who, we all know, comes back from the dead. And we have this parable. They don’t tell us, in precise terms, how to handle our money. But they do tell us where God’s sympathies lie and where, in God’s good time, the world is heading.

"Pastor Timothy," Paul says, "Try to get the rich folks in your church not to be haughty, and get them to do good, to be generous, to be ready to share, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life."

Perhaps Timothy wrote back: "I’m trying, brother Paul. But it isn’t easy. Being wealthy and Christian is harder than you might think, but as Jesus said, "With God, all things are possible."