Lazarus and The Rich Man

Sermon delivered by Rev Maiava Toma

28 September 2025

We are all familiar with the story of Lazarus and the rich man. We are familiar also with Luke’s version of the Sermon on the mount where Jesus says:   “Woe be those who are rich. … And blessed are those who are poor or are hungry.” ….. The thought may come to us that things don’t end well for the rich/ while those who are poor and suffering can look forward to sweet relief. 

This is of course not the message of the parable. Nothing good necessarily comes from being poor or from suffering in the way Lazarus does in the story. When you’re poor, there’s not much you can do for yourself or for anybody else. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with being rich from hard work in things that bring material reward. The gospels encourage diligence and service. We have the parables of talents given to good and faithful servants who use them to make money/ and are further rewarded for doing so. 

No. What this parable of Jesus does, rather well in my view, is to highlight the singular importance of the finite time we as human beings have on this planet.                     

We see straight away that what happens to us in life/ and what we gain in material terms do not last. They just don’t. Ultimately, they cease to be real or true. Lazarus does not have dogs licking his sores forever.  And the rich man does not go on and on having a good time. 

Things of the flesh come to an end, whether they are good, bad, wonderful or whatever.  Ecclesiastes 12: 7 says “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”  It is what happens at that point that matters. It’s what happens to the individual man or woman when life ends,that Jesus chooses to discuss in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. It’s an important parable.

The two men/ end up in very different circumstances, presumably the result of how they conducted themselves in life. We are not told in definitive terms what one or the other did right or wrong, in their lives. Jesus does not delve into this. It is not the issue of concern in the teaching he is giving here.

What this parable of Jesus focuses on/ are realities that hit us all when physical life ends. One reality for the two people in the parable is their inability to connect in the new order of things. They are separated. They are aware of the very different circumstances they are in, but they are unable to intervene in the slightest way to change anything in those circumstances. It is not possible even for Lazarus to merely moisten the other man’s tongue, with just a finger dipped in cool water. // While doing little things for others, like giving a little food to a starving man lying outside one’s gate/   would have been a matter simply of choosing to do so in old times, there was now a gulf/ between Lazarus and the rich man that was impossible to traverse. The needs of one could not be mitigated by the other from across the divide. They were stuck where each found himself when they died. It was a permanent arrangement, both their separation and their very different circumstances.

The rich man in the story, on realizing this, wanted desperately, to make sure his loved ones did not end up where he was permanently stuck. He pleads for someone to be sent to those he loved and cared for/ who were still alive and going about life in the same way he had done. He pleads for someone to go, to explain things clearly to them. /////The reply he gets is a flat refusal.  He is told that all his loved ones needed was already available to them. If that was not going to do it, nothing ever would. /////     

Our life is an exquisite gift of freedom and power from God. // It is valuable for the worldly blessings we can create in it, but more importantly, it is precious for ‘salvation into eternal life’/ we, as spiritual beings, can secure within it. We are different from other creatures in this special respect/ even though we, more often than not, behave as if we are no different from animals.

A cow lives an uncomplicated life. It gets or doesn’t get what it needs to live. If it doesn’t, the cow’s existence simply ends. For us humans, the material rewards in life come by the sweat of our brow in accordance with Genesis 3:19, or by the sweat of somebody else’s brow if it can be arranged. Sadly, this has not been difficult to arrange in the world we know. The gap between the very rich and the very poor just grows and grows/ seemingly beyond anyone’s control. A messy and shameful outcome of humanity’s mandate from God to be fruitful and to have dominion over all the earth. 

Eternal life in contrast is not a privilege for a favored few. It is offered to all. We individually have to choose whether to ignore or to accept it; but it is offered to everyone without cost. We are told this repeatedly in the New Testament. This is not the teaching Jesus is giving in the parable we are looking at.  ….

What this parable teaches; what it is saying to each one of us is this: ‘Get a grip’ on the crucial importance of your finite lifespan. Jesus is saying: Recognize the singular importance of the limited years you each have been given. Understand that only within those years are you able to secure eternal life for yourselves. Understand also/ that only within that window of opportunity/ are you personally able to help those you love/ to secure eternal life for themselves.  

My Friends, do we see what is at stake, if we miss this important message of Jesus, and we fritter away the precious gift, of our individual lifespans?   We can so easily fritter it away without thinking, until, like the rich man in the parable, it is too late. …….. It is easy for us to be distracted/ and to be so drawn into living life in the flesh/ that we allow what is, in truth, our real life, to slip through our fingers. It is particularly easy to do so if we are blessed with a relatively pain free existence in this world.

In the story of the parable, Lazarus did not have such an existence. The other poor guy, on the other hand, was clearly quite comfortable and content with his life. It would have been easy for him to drift through the years/ without a care beyond the personal concerns or comforts of the week/ or day he may happen to be in. …  In the story, his life ends/ and he finds himself in a shocking new scenario. I hate to say it/ but I suspect many, many more people than we like to think/ allow their real lives to slip through their fingers. …  We have the parable of the wide and narrow gates in

Matthew 7:13 to mull over.          ////     /////    /////   ////

Jesus was very much aware of human nature and of reality in the physical world when he walked among men. He saw and lived through it all. He warns us against the human self and natural desire in it for gratification and control.  He asks the rhetorical question in Luke 9:25: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses himself?” 

…. Our true life, the life Jesus is saying we can lose/ is not the “self” that we wake up to each morning. We strive so hard every day to build and to preserve that life of material wellbeing; that life of the flesh that can be so satisfying. …  All of that will simply vanish/ one day/ when we wake up to it no more. … 

We will instead find ourselves in a  reality that is not now visible. We will appear in that new reality, no longer human, but as spiritual beings displaying the essence/ of the relationships we had in life with God/ and with others. Everything we do in the life we are now living has value, in that higher unseen reality, only to the extent they reflect love of God and of  others.  /// Only elements of these two factors (loving God

and loving others) that can be gleaned from our activities in this life can carry over

into the reality that we presently cannot see.

The future is the future, praise God. … But for today, at this point in our existence, I put it to you that OUR REAL LIFE, the life we must not allow to slip through our fingers; that life is potentially Jesus Christ who says quite plainly in John 14:6 : “I am

the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”// … …  JESUS / is the way we are to follow; the life we are to live and the truth of eternity.

Paul does a marvelous job of explaining what it means to live life in true reality; reality that is unseen; reality in which we therefore must walk by faith, not by sight. (2Cor5:7) He says in the first four verses of Colossians 3: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

And in 2 Corinthians:16, Paul further writes: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day … as we look not to things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

The parable in our GOSPEL READING this morning, like all parables of Jesus, is invaluable teaching on the spiritual destiny of man. A special aspect of the one we are looking at right now, is the “wake up call” element that’s in it for us with regard to the life we are living at this moment. … … If we understand this simple message of Jesus; … what, do we do?    

My friends. It is not enough/ just to understand it all in our heads. Nor is it enough, because of our understanding/ to be diligent in attending church etc./ good and necessary as all of that is. You will recall that the Pharisees were meticulous in this regard. They observed all the rules perfectly. Yet, Jesus very pointedly said in Matthew 5:20 “ I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven”. … … Something deeper,/ and heartfelt so as to be life-changing/ is required of us. 

How life changing??

Well,Paul urges us in Romans 12:2 not to conform to the world but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. And in Philippians 2:5, to have the mind that was in Christ. 

The mind, the mind. The mind is so important. … … What we constantly put in our minds ultimately determines what we are.

The mind that’s in the world to which we are urged not to conform is ‘lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life.’ 1John 2:16. The mind that was in Christ (Phillipians 2) is ‘humility and uncompromising love’. We are asked in Philippians 2 to be transformed by the renewal of our minds to that mind, the mind of Christ. That’s a BIG ask, but it is what we are urged to do. … to have the mind of Christ operate in us - Nothing less

We are called upon not just to be Christians or Christ believers/ who today to our shame are no different in the things we do/ than those who don’t believe.

No. We are required not just to believe in Christ, but to be disciples of that Christ. We are required to be apprenticed to that Christ; to learn from HIM and to grow to be like HIM. … To know Him/ as ‘the way, the life and the truth.’ /// As Dallas Willard, an American Christian puts it so well: We learn to live our lives as HE would live our lives if HE were us. We learn to live our lives as Jesus would live our lives if HE were us.  … …  There would be no need for us to be pressured into following any Commandments or any rules. As disciples of Christ/ and with his help and power, we would simply do the right thing in all that we do; because of who we are, in spirit.

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People of All Saints’, Friends. … We all are miserable fallen sinners before God/ and all I’ve been saying this morning that we ought to do/ may seem utterly impossible for mere humans to even attempt. But we are not just mere humans. … We are made in the image of God/ and we are called to put a hand on the plough/ and not to look back. /// 

 Be assured however, that we are not abandoned to plough or to slog away on our own. We will always have the Holy Spirit. We have also the Word in Scripture to enlighten, encourage and to guide the renewal of our minds/ in our journey of transformation into Christlikeness and into eternity. …  Let’s comfort ourselves by reciting  together the 23^rd Psalm in Samoan.

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