"Don't Be That Guy"

 

Luke 16:19-31

September 28, 2025

 

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.

And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,

who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.

The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.

In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.

He called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.'

But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.

Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.'

He said, 'Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house--

for I have five brothers--that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.'

Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.'

He said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"

*********************

 

            Some passages from the Bible are hard to preach on because they are complicated.  This one is hard to preach on because it’s straightforward and – to add to that – Jesus says at the end of the parable that a lot of people aren’t going to take it to heart anyway.

            In the parable, the rich man says to Abraham,

“'Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house--

for I have five brothers--that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.'

Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.'

He said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"

By the way, there are two Lazaruses (Lazari?) in the New Testament.  One of them was Jesus’ friend, whom he raises from the dead.  The other is the man in this parable, the only parable where anyone is given a name.  (I once heard a sermon where the preacher observed that “Lazarus” is the Greek version of the Hebrew “Eleazar”, which means “God is my help”.) 

And, of course, there is one other person in all of this who was telling the story and who himself would rise from the dead, and he is the one who is telling us, his sisters and brothers, “Don’t be like the rich man!”  Anything anyone else adds to that is just commentary.  The message itself is not to ignore the person in need who is lying right there on your doorstep.

Of course, we’ve already heard it from the Old Testament – the Law and the Prophets.  Deuteronomy 24:17-21 says,

“You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.

 When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings.  When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.

When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.  Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this.”

When people failed to do things like this, the prophets had a few things to say.  Amos, for instance, was especially upset about people who could sit back (like the rich man and his brothers in the parable) and forget or ignore the fact that their own people had been carried off into slavery.

“Woe to those who are at ease in Zion and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria.

Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and lounge on their couches and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the stall,

who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David improvise on instruments of music,

who drink wine from bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!

Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.” [Amos 6:1a, 4-7]

How much clearer can that be?

            No, it is not possible to do something about every single injustice or every single need in the world.  It is not possible even within our own families or the circle of our closest friends to hold every hardship, illness, or heartache at bay.  That can hurt.  That should hurt, which is part of what Jesus is getting at in this story.  He layers on the details so that we see things from the perspective of the person whose experience we want to hold at arm’s length, in this case

“a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.”  [Luke 16:20]

I had a beagle named Rosie.  One time I had a really bad cold that had taken everything out of me, and I laid down on the floor to watch TV.  She came over and laid down beside me.  I fell asleep there on the floor and only woke up hours and hours later, and there she was, wide awake and facing the door to make sure no predator or danger would sneak up on me while I slept.  Lazarus was being cared for not even by a pet but by sympathetic animals who saw him and offered him comfort even when they didn’t understand the whole situation.  Meanwhile the party went on on the other side of the gate.

            Don’t be that guy inside, Jesus teaches.  It’s better to be a dog on the street who has a heart than a human being who has closed their heart to the people they see every day and even (as the rich man did) know them by name.

            And, to complicate the story in a way, maybe someone like that has closed themself off for reasons that no one ever knows.  Maybe they need some sort of compassion, too.  It’s not the Bible, but it’s a good story – remember in A Christmas Carol, that starts with Marley rising from the grave to warn Scrooge not to be such a Scrooge, how everyone is ready to write the old grouch off except for two people?  One is Bob Cratchit and the other is Scrooge’s nephew Fred, who insists on inviting his uncle to Christmas dinner every year even though he knows he’s going to say, “No.”  He couldn’t force help on him, especially when life had led him to insist he didn’t need it.  But he could and did let him know the door was open when he was ready. It’s to those two men’s households that Scrooge goes when he sees the light, and there is nobody happier to see him.  Who is the rich man and who is the poor man?  We don’t always know.  We’re probably all a little bit of each.

            What we do know, however, is another incident in Jesus’ ministry that Luke tells us about:

“An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’  He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.’  And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’” [Luke 10:25-28]

 

"One Tune, Two Songs"

 

I Timothy 1:12-17

September 14, 2025

 

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost.  But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience as an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life.  To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.  Amen.

********************************

            A lot of people use their own lives to tell other people what not to do.  For example, even though we have no idea who wrote this song, a lot of singers have recorded it and we’ve all heard it:

“There is a house in New Orleans

they call the Rising Sun;

It’s been the ruin of many poor boys,

and, God, I know I’m one.

 

My mother was a tailor;

she sewed my new blue jeans.

My father was a gambling man

down in New Orleans.

 

Now the only thing a gambler needs

is a suitcase and a trunk.

And the only time he’s satisfied

is when he’s on a drunk.

 

Mothers, tell your children

not to do what I have done,

Spend your lives in sin and misery

in the House of the Rising Sun.

 

Well, I’ve got one foot on the platform,

the other foot on the train,

And I’m going back to New Orleans

to wear that ball and chain.

 

There is a house in New Orleans

they call the Rising Sun;

It’s been the ruin of many poor boys,

and, God, I know I’m one.”

 

The first Letter to Timothy, whether written by Paul himself or by someone close to him, took for granted that people had heard him tell of the way that he persecuted the believers before he became one of them:

“though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” [I Timothy 1:13-14]

Paul was not the first to do that, nor the last.  There is nothing more compelling than the telling and the hearing of personal experience to convey what is most important and to invite others to the rich feast that is life in the kingdom of God.

            In the books of the prophets, you have someone like Isaiah recalling his shock and confusion when God revealed himself as a mighty ruler and named Isaiah to act as his ambassador:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.  The seraph touched my mouth with it and said, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”  Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!” [Isaiah 6:1-8]

There’s that same awareness of God’s holiness, human sin and weakness, God’s forgiveness, and the commission to go and share the message.  All of those appear, in different combinations and degrees, in any faithful witness.

            It doesn’t mean we all have to dwell on whatever skeletons we may have in our closets.  Sometimes, in fact, there are people who, as they tell their own stories, recall them in such detail that you begin to wonder whether they are missing the things they have turned away from.  There can be a kind of pride that attaches to how bad they once were.  It’s the shadow side of “Look how good I am now!”  Or it can become that.

            On the other hand, it’s possible to be honest about the difference that Jesus makes in our lives and about how the Holy Spirit works on us every day to bring us into better alignment with God’s will.  The English novelist Evelyn Waugh was well known for being kind of a crank and for having a sharp tongue.  Nevertheless, after he had a conversion experience he became an unofficial advocate for his faith, and especially for the Roman Catholic version.  That set up a situation where an interviewer once asked him about how he could put those two sides of himself together.  The best defense against charges of hypocrisy is honesty.  Waugh’s response has to be one of the most honest that anybody has ever given.  He said, “You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic.  Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being.”[1] 

            Very few people I know fit the profile of having formerly been (or being currently)

“a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.”

Plenty of people I know, and one I see in the mirror on a regular basis, can say they’ve done and said plenty of things they regret, and have thought of a lot more that they would have regretted if God had not stepped in and said, “Don’t be stupid.”  That, too, can be an honest witness even if it is not as spectacular or newsworthy.

            In small ways as well as large ways, we need and we know God’s mercy.  In all our ways, God is there for us.  Even before we are aware of what lies ahead, God prepares the way, so the apostle could look back and say of his darkest time,

“I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” [I Timothy 1:13-14]

The key word there is “grace”.

            There are some alternative words to “The House of the Rising Sun”, by the way, just as there’s an alternative story to the one it tells:

“Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me. 

I once was lost, but now am found;

was blind but now I see.

 

 

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear

and grace my fears relieved. 

How precious did that grace appear

the hour I first believed!

 

Through many dangers, toils, and snares

I have already come. 

’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,

and grace will lead me home.

 

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

 bright shining as the sun,

we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

than when we’d first begun.

 

Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me. 

I once was lost, but now am found;

was blind but now I see.”

 

---

[1] TOP 25 QUOTES BY EVELYN WAUGH (of 198) | A-Z Quotes

"Pull Up a Seat"

 

Luke 15:1-7

September 7, 2025

 

“Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he told them this parable: ‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.’”

*********************************

            Next year will be this church’s 200^th anniversary.  There was a group of Methodists meeting off and on in Valley Forge by around 1811, but it was in 1826 that they formally organized in Phoenixville.  So I was reading through a book published by Howard Peters (of 47 Nutt Rd.) in 1926: “100 Years of Methodism in Phoenixville”.  He describes a furor caused by one of my predecessors.  It’s a little unclear as written, but it seems to me that the preacher one Sunday spoke out against naming people who refused to endorse the temperance movement.  (What we would today call “doxing”.)  Mind you, alcohol abuse was a severe problem then.  It still is, but the scale was wider at the time, and the churches were trying to get a handle on things, even going so far as to start using unfermented grape juice at communion – a controversial step, but one that allowed people addicted to alcohol to take the sacrament without either shaming them or endangering their sobriety.  That’s why we still do that.

            This is how Mr. Peters tells the story:

“In the case of Wythes, in “Pennypacker’s Annals of Phoenixville,” several pages are devoted to a controversy which was caused by a sermon which was preached on June 14, 1845, by Rev. Jos. Wythes, on the evils of intemperance [so far, so good: our guy is preaching against substance abuse], in which he condemned the habit indulged in by opponents of the cause [the anti-temperance people], of using opprobious [sic] language in referring to individuals by name.”

In other words, he wasn’t going to get down to the level of personal attacks on specific people, even if the other folks were doing that.  Apparently there were enough temperance people in the congregation who wanted him to do that, or who took not calling people out individually for not supporting the Temperance Movement itself, that the service got out of hand.  Peters continues,

“A clergyman of another denomination being present was called upon at the close of the meeting who argued against the position taken by Wythes.”

So Wythes tried to demonstrate he wasn’t arguing for drunkenness by calling for people to sign onto a public pledge of abstinence, which many did, but he became a target nonetheless.

“On the 23^rd of August a temperance meeting was held in the neighborhood, addressed by Rev. John Chambers, a noted Philadelphia preacher, who spoke of Wythes as an opponent of the cause and a ‘fit minister of Hell.’”

Then there were peacemaking moves over the next month or two, but Peters was still writing about it 76 years later, during Prohibition.

            Now, I’m not here to open old wounds or to inflict new ones.  I will say, though, that I can hear in all of this the voice of people murmuring behind Jesus back, and saying,

“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

When the tax collectors and sinners were seeking Jesus out to hear what he had to say, why would you want to turn them away?  People were coming to him to find a way out of the smoke and haze and bleariness of troubled lives into the fresh air of God’s love.  Why create an atmosphere so empty of grace that no one can breathe without choking on accusation? 

            It’s hard enough for anybody to turn around and admit they have traveled far down a road that is not God’s road and to start back in the other direction.  That’s called “repentance” and it’s not easy to begin with, let alone with people looking on and pointing fingers and naming names.  There is a deep courage that is needed for anyone to say, “I have been wrong and have hurt others,” and the fear of a response – especially when totally justified – the fear of a response that expresses the deep hurt that they have inflicted can keep someone from taking that first step back toward where they should have been all along.  So they stay in a terrible place where their conscience burns within them or in pride they double down on the destructive ways, and the devastation takes them down in the end.

            Who are we, too, if we make it any harder for someone who has been wrong to stay wrong?  (Assuming here that we are right, and setting aside the words in Romans 3:23 that say, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”)  Or have we also become so hardened that we cannot see the possibility of renewal through the work of Jesus on the cross and of his Spirit in the human heart?  It’s only one step from saying, “Even God cannot save you,” to saying, “Even God cannot save me.”  That’s just another dead-end not worth going down.

            When God steps in to soften the hardened heart, not to recognize that or at the very least allow it as a possibility, puts us all at risk.  Do not get drawn into that.  I saw a video clip recently that showed a man sitting down on a couch, rubbing his eyes and wringing his hands.  His wife walked into the room and quietly set a coffee cup on the table next to him and turned away without saying anything.  As she was leaving the room he said, “I need to tell you that I am sorry I spoke so harshly yesterday.  I didn’t need to do that and it shouldn’t have happened.”

“Do you really mean that?” she said.

He answered, “Yes,” and she leaned over and picked up the untouched coffee cup.

“I need to get you a different cup of coffee.”

Somewhere there must be an ancient document with a version of Luke’s gospel that says, “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.  And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Yeah, no kidding.  Pull up a seat.’”