I am not a poor man. I have never scavenged in garbage cans for food nor suffered from malnutrition. I have never wondered about the source of my next meal. I have never lingered with a disease for lack of medicine or doctors. I have never stood in line in unemployment offices. All of this is simply to say: I am not a poor man.

At the same time, I am not a rich man, either. So far as I can tell, the rich have no problems with bills. They do not worry about whether they can afford to send their children to private school or college. They can travel when and where they please. They have more money than they can either need or use. Measured by this kind of affluence, there is no doubt in my mind that I am not rich. I am neither poor nor rich but middle-class. I have been and I always will be. Most of you are, too. This is a middle-class church and the United Church of Christ is, by and large, a middle-class denomination.

So how should we, middle-class as we are, respond to the passages in the Bible that talk about the poor and the rich? Do you recall some of them? “… The hope of the poor shall not perish forever.” “Let not the rich man glory in his riches.” “Your rich men are full of violence.” “… You shall open your hand to your poor brother, and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.” “Blessed are you poor …” “Woe to you rich …” These and many other passages from both Testaments speak strongly about the poor and the rich, but how does it affect us who are somewhere in between?

Before we can answer that question, I think it is absolutely important we understand how Jesus looked at riches and poverty. There is no better place to begin than with the parable we heard just a few moments ago which is traditionally called the Parable of the rich man and Lazarus. This powerful story has had a profound influence on many persons down through history. I think, for example, of how reading it was one of the most important reasons Albert Schweitzer left the comfort of Europe to become a medical missionary in Africa.

In many ways this parable is a play in three acts. In the first act we meet the two main characters and they are very different. One of them is traditionally named “Dives” which means “rich man” in Latin. Dives lives in the big house on the hill surrounded by fences and gates with security guards to let the right people in and keep the wrong people out. His home is magnificent. The furnishings are elaborate and elegant. You sink in beautiful oriental carpets up to your ankles. There is the very best in art work on the walls. The home has lounges and swimming pools and dining rooms and scenic views. Dives’ clothing is the latest in style and finest in material. Every day he sits down to gourmet dining. Since he does not have to work, he and a select group of friends revel late into the evening. He is not a miser for he spends his money freely and happily. He made it; it’s his; and now he’s enjoying it. One word is sufficient to describe this man: rich.

The other main character is quite different. His name is traditionally “Lazarus,” which means in Hebrew “God is my helper.” Certainly no one else is. He is a poor man. Actually, it would be more accurate to call him a beggar. He is so poor that he is pitifully grateful to receive the scraps of bread that Dives and his dinner guests have used as napkins to wipe their greasy hands. Lazarus is so crippled that he must be carried to the front door of the mansion each day in order to beg for the garbage bread. His body is so weakened by disease that he cannot even keep the dogs from licking his ulcerated flesh. He is a filthy, festering, stinking, starving beggar. One word is sufficient to describe him: poor.

So there they are: Dives – very, very rich – and Lazarus – very, very poor. No reason is given for their condition. Jesus certainly doesn’t follow the line taken by some of the religious people of his day and our’s who claim that wealth is God’s reward for righteous living and poverty is a sign of God’s punishment. Jesus also doesn’t take the path of conventional wisdom and say that Lazarus was poor because he lacked initiative or had wasted his money or opportunities. But let’s be fair: Jesus also does not suggest that Dives had gotten his wealth in dishonest or unscrupulous ways. Jesus finds no fault with one man for being poor and the other for being rich. He simply shows us the stark and utter contrast.

This was a familiar contrast in Jesus’ day. The poor people who heard Jesus so gladly certainly despised the Roman conqueror who occupied their land, but they reserved their greatest hatred for the oppressive rich among their own people. The tension between the “haves” and “have-nots” is very near the surface in this parable. Only a generation after Jesus told this story, war broke out in Israel. It was a war of national liberation against Rome, but it was also a revolution of rebellious tenants, unemployed laborers, and dispossessed people against the rich and the powerful. The poor can stand their poverty just so long.

That begins to sound modern, doesn’t it? My entire lifetime has been a period in which the people Franz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth” have begun to rise up and claim their place in the sun. Even without the violence to call their plight to our attention, more and more of us are becoming aware that there are literally millions of starving men, women and children in our world. While we are worshipping in this place for one hour, thousands will die of hunger as well as poverty-caused diseases. We’ve heard the statistics, read the stories, and seen pictures so many times. Have we become calloused to the suffering? Have we begun to get a bit tired of feeling guilty? If you have known those feelings then you are ready to join me in looking at the second act of our parable.

Here the scene is incredibly different. The setting is the life after death. The imagery is drawn from the popular conceptions of Jesus’ day. Most people believed that after death everyone went to a place called Hades which was divided into two distinct parts. Some go to the side called Paradise, symbolized by fountains of water. The rest go to the side called Gehenna, symbolized by fires of torment. The two sides are in plain sight and sound of each other but between them is an impassable gulf. I suppose I ought to pause here and point out that Jesus, in using this imagery, is neither affirming nor denying the reality of it as an accurate description of life after death. Like all of us Jesus used the common understandings of his time to make more important points.

In this second act we see the same two main characters we met in the first act. But what a difference! Lazarus is now in “Abraham’s bosom,” for a Jew the ultimate in blessedness. He is out of his sufferings and is now enjoying the heavenly banquet in the most intimate relationship with the Father of his nation. He is in perfect bliss.

In sharp and utter contrast Dives is in terrible torment, surrounded by fires, anguished by thirst, and baffled most of all by the sight of the man who once begged at his front door now at the side of Abraham. His agony is so great that he cries out: “Father Abraham!” He appeals to kinship and begs that Lazarus might come and touch his tongue with just one drop of water. What a change! In his lifetime, Dives wouldn’t have wanted to come within ten feet of Lazarus, let alone have him touch him with one of his diseased and filthy fingers. Now he implores Lazarus to come and touch his tongue with a drop of water. Well, whatever compassion Lazarus may have felt at that moment he is not allowed to respond. Abraham answers for him: “Lazarus can’t come. For as you were separated in life so you must remain separated after death. You enjoyed life then but suffer now; he suffered then, but enjoys existence now.”

We get the picture but are not sure of the point. What does the story mean? Does Jesus want us to understand that those who are rich now will suffer later and those who are poor will have an eternity of joy? Is this a sort of First Century proto-communism to condemn the rich and commend the poor? Our first reaction might be in that direction if we failed to notice one important fact: according to Jesus, Lazarus is in Abraham’s bosom and whatever else he was, Abraham was a very wealthy man in his day. The implication is clear: in Paradise are both rich and poor. Wealth in itself cannot be the criterion for what has happened. What does Jesus want us to see?

The meaning seems clear enough to me: Dives was punished not because he had great wealth but because he had little or no compassion. The motto of his life might well have been Rhett Butler’s final words to Scarlett O’Hara: “Frankly, I don’t give a damn.” Dives lived entirely for himself. “Oh, yes,” says Abraham, “You lived the “good life” on earth but you missed the “good” you could have done in life.” In Gehenna, Dives is seen as the failure he always was. On the surface, Dives might have seemed to be a great human success story but when God weighed his life, it was seen that Dives has missed his ultimate responsibility: he did not show love and compassion toward his neighbor and so he cannot have had any real relationship with God. The tragedy of Dives’ is not that he hated Lazarus in particular or the poor in general; his tragedy was he could have cared less what they were going through. He did not see the crippled legs. He didn’t smell the filthy clothes and running sores. He didn’t feel the cold and gnawing hunger. He didn’t hear the agonizing cry for help. No, Dives kept his distance and was insensitive to Lazarus and all those who looked to him to make a difference. And if Dives couldn’t bestir himself to cross the short distance between his dining room table and his front gate, then he surely cannot now pass across the awful chasm between the land of fire and the land of fountains. In his life, he was a stranger to love and compassion. Now it is a stranger to him. Without in any way romanticizing Lazarus’ awful poverty, somehow in the midst of his agony he found the faith to put his trust in God. His name became the watchword of his life – “God is my helper” – and God did not let him down.

But there is a third and final act to this story that we must not miss because I think it holds the key to what Jesus would want you and me to understand for ourselves. The scene is the same as in act two. We are still with Dives in Hades but we are now introduced to some new characters, the five brothers of Dives who are still alive on earth and enjoying their wealth. Dives and Abraham are still talking with each other but the focus has shifted. Dives realizes that his chances have all gone but feeling a spark of concern and compassion he never felt on earth, he calls out to Father Abraham:

“Let Lazarus go and warn my brothers so they can avoid this torment!”

“They have Moses and the prophets to warn them,” replies Abraham.

“But that’s not enough,” replies Dives, probably thinking of his own earthly experience where he was a pillar of the local congregation. “No, my brothers need something more to startle them and change them. Send someone back from the dead!”

“If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets,” declares Abraham, “nothing, not even someone who has come back from the dead, will convince them.”

And with that, the curtain falls. But as we walk away from the theatre of this parable, we keep wondering about that final scene. Why was Dives pleading for his brothers? Did he finally become sensitive to other people in their need? Or was he just bringing in his brothers to justify his own callousness? Whatever his motive, the answer was clear: he could expect no special help, no shock therapy, to snap them out of their unconcern. They have Moses and the prophets – all the religion and moral and ethical exhortation and guidance they could possibly need. But Dives is still worried. Why?

Let’s spend a few closing moments looking at those five brothers and let me employ my imagination to fill in some missing details from the picture. If you think I am imagining them as very modern, you are absolutely right.

The first brother may say, “I’ve worked hard for my money. No one ever gave me a hand up or a hand out. The poor have had the same chances I had. If they try hard enough they can succeed the same way I did. Doesn’t the Bible say, “Whatsoever a man sows, that will he also reap?” The second brother might respond in this way: “The Apostle Paul said, ‘if anyone will not work, let him not eat.’ Most poor people are getting just what they deserve. Sure, there are a few exceptions – some old people and kids – but most poor people are welfare cheats. They’re the way they are because they’re lazy. Helping them out will only make them more lazy.” Another reply might come from the third brother: “Why all this concern today about poverty and hunger. We’ve always had poor people around and we always will. Do-gooders always want to change things but things don’t change. Didn’t Jesus himself say that “the poor you always have with you?” It’s just a fact of life we have to accept.” The fourth brother sounds very religious. He turns to the book of James for his motto and quotes it to the person in need who comes to him for help: “Go in peace, be warmed and filled.” After all, the really important things in life are spiritual and not material. The mission of the church is to save souls, not bodies. He is very offended by all this mixing of the sacred and secular. He doesn’t go to worship to be depressed by the world’s problems. He wants to be uplifted and encouraged. Maybe next week, he’ll stay home and watch a religion program on television.

But the fifth brother is different. Something has touched him since the death of his brother Dives. He has a far different response. Like Zacchaeus he is ready to commit his wealth not just to satisfy his own needs, but to help meet the needs of others. Don’t call him a philanthropist because he doesn’t have that much money. He is just an ordinary, middle-class person like you and me. But he is ordinary with a difference: he has begun to care. He intends to do whatever he can to translate concern into concrete action.