Interpreting the Law with Jesus

Sermon planned for Sunday, September 26th, 2010

Texts: Luke 16:19-31; Amos 6:1a, 4-7

Please turn with me, in your bibles, to the passage we just heard from – to the gospel of Luke chapter sixteen, beginning at verse nineteen. This parable has confused me for years and I am grateful that I had the chance to study it this past week. I began studying it on Sunday evening, while I was out hunting with Dan & Zach Heinrichs and his uncle Curt. I’m glad my study of this text was at least a bit more fruitful than my efforts at getting some meat into my fridge. I couldn’t get anything to walk in front of my crosshairs, but I was nearly run-over by a big Doe, and a young wolf came to greet me while I was going for a walk in the bush. But as I sat, waiting for my prey, I thought about Jesus’ parable about Lazarus and the rich man. Before we get into the text, I invite you to join me in prayer: Living Word, Jesus Christ our Lord, speak to us through this rather confusing story. Build us up as your body, and may Your Spirit fill our hearts and minds. Without your voice, all our words fall to the ground – so we ask that you lead and guide us. We pray in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The passage before us this morning is one of Jesus’ parables. The problem with this parable – or, at least, the thing that makes it confusing to us – is that the parable seems to have several points. It seems to go in several directions. It is quite common for Christians to interpret this passage in a variety of ways; they see different meanings in it. And so, my desire, this morning, is to join you in seeking some clarity about this parable.

For starters, it helps to pay attention to who Jesus was talking to. In the beginning of Luke chapter sixteen, Jesus was talking to his disciples. He was teaching them a parable about a dishonest manager. Jesus ended his teaching by making a rule about serving either God or wealth. You have to choose, because you can’t serve both. In verse fourteen, right after Jesus finished saying these bold words, we read that “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.” Jesus responded to the Pharisees who were mocking him by telling them that all the prophets and the writings of Moses were still valid. “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped.” After these words, Jesus then told the parable of Lazarus and the Rich man. This means that Jesus’ parable was a story told to the Pharisees, and not the disciples. He was trying to communicate something to these Jewish leaders who were mocking his views about wealth.

The Pharisees and Jesus agreed on a whole lot of things, but they were in disagreement about some very important matters. Out of all the Jewish groups – the Sadducees, The Pharisees, the Zealots, or the Essenes – Jesus was closest to the Pharisees. Like Jesus, the Pharisees were convinced that it was important to be obedient to God’s Will in all aspects of life. The Sadducees thought that all you had to do was give a proper sacrifice. The Zealots were convinced that Judaism could only survive if it had its own political state. And the Essenes were spiritualists that ran into the desert to escape the worldliness of Greek culture – like the early Christian monastics. Out of all of these groups, Jesus was closest to the Pharisees, who focused on daily obedience to God and his commandments. This is also why Jesus constantly debated with them. It’s often the case that a teacher spends most of his or her time dealing with controversies between those who are closest to them. You just don’t have enough time to deal with those who are miles away from your own position.

Two of the major areas in which Jesus was at odds with the Pharisees was on the issue of marriage & divorce, and on the issue of wealth & justice/righteousness. Our texts this morning focus on the debate regarding wealth and money. Sometimes, we Christians can make it seem like Jesus wanted to throw out the old system entirely, and all the Jewish groups, so that we could have something New – the Kingdom of God. Or, sometimes we can make it sound like the Jews were all about the law, but Jesus was all about grace. Although there is some truth in this way of putting it, really it’s not about Old vs. New, or law vs. grace. There was grace already in the Old Testament. And the new covenant we have in Christ is precisely that we have been made children of God and heirs of the first covenant between God and Abraham. We Gentiles now have an important place in God’s salvation project, which he began with Abraham. Even Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:14, that we are to keep the commandment without spot or blame until Jesus brings about the fulfillment of time. The argument of the New Testament is that Christians are to keep the law – but the law is the Word of God, which is Christ himself. Paul writes this after teaching the early church about wealth and money.

Just before the parable about Lazarus and the rich man, we read that the Pharisees were lovers of money. We shouldn’t read this to mean that they were greedy, that they were dishonest with their money, or that they were money grubbers or anything like that. The Pharisees were all about being very obedient to every letter of the law. When they read the Old Testament, they often focused on passages that talked about God blessing those who are obedient. God gives good things to those who obey Him. There are several passages in the Old Testament that speak about God blessing those who are righteous and punishing evildoers. Taking these passages straightforwardly, the Pharisees developed a view of wealth that was basically about celebrating the faith of the wealthy and condemning the sinfulness of the poor & afflicted. If you were poor or sick, you must have done something sinful to deserve this judgement. The Pharisees celebrated wealth, but not just because it was nice to be rich – they saw their wealth theologically. They saw their wealth as a direct blessing from God. This was their interpretation about how the bible talked about wealth and money.

And so, when they mocked Jesus for his strict words about serving either God or money, Jesus told them that they were forgetting the prophets and some of Moses’ other laws. The passage from Amos 6, that we heard earlier, is one such passage that speaks of God being concerned for the poor and the oppressed. Jesus’ parable was his attempt to enter into the debate, with the Pharisees, about the proper interpretation of scripture regarding money and wealth. Whereas the Pharisees focused on texts that justified wealth as a blessing from God, and condemned poverty as a judgment from God; Jesus, on the other hand, told a story in which the complete opposite was the case. This parable is confusing if we don’t understand that Jesus was entering into this debate with the Pharisees. Otherwise, this parable might seem to be a teaching about the afterlife, or a teaching that the rich go to hell and the poor go to heaven. Both of these messages are off base. Jesus was entering the debate about how the bible is to be interpreted on the topic of money and wealth. By telling this parable about Lazarus and the Rich Man, he was flipping things upside down for the Pharisees.

In the parable, Abraham didn’t allow the rich man to go and warn his relatives about the fate of the rich; instead, Abraham told the rich man, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” Then the rich man said, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” And Abraham replied, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” There’s a lot going on in this final piece to the parable. If we don’t pay attention to this debate about money and wealth, then it seems Jesus changed the direction of this parable from the afterlife and wealth to one about his resurrection. In reality, what he’s trying to communicate to the Pharisees is that they have missed some of the most important pieces of Moses’ law and the message of the prophets entirely. If you don’t listen to Moses or the prophets, then nothing will catch your attention.

Moses did say that God blesses the righteous and he curses the wicked; but its not as simple as saying that good people become wealthy and sinful people become sick and poor. That is a huge oversimplification. It is a false teaching that is still around in many Christian circles today. It’s as though some Christians prefer the Pharisees’ interpretation of the law to that of Jesus. The parable’s final line basically shows us that Jesus knew the Pharisees would not understand his message. He knew this because they had already rejected the message of Moses and the prophets. And if you’re not going to listen to Moses and the prophets, then you’re not going to listen to someone that rises from the dead.

And so, if Jesus rejected the Pharisees’ interpretation of the law about wealth, what did he offer as an alternative? Was it simply that rich people are bad and poor people are good? This is why it’s important to understand this story as a parable and not a straightforward sermon about wealth and salvation. Nowhere does Jesus say that rich people go to hell and that poor people go to heaven. Like I said, that would be just as oversimplified as the Pharisees position. What Jesus does teach is the character of God and His Kingdom. Jesus doesn’t give us a mathematical formula to figure out what happens to rich people and what happens to poor people in all cases – God is Judge and we are not! But Jesus does give us a lot of information about Who it is that we worship, and what His Kingdom looks like.

In his debate with the Pharisees, Jesus pointed back to the work of Moses and the prophets. The prophet Amos wrote about the descendents of Jacob. He accused them of self-indulgence and complacency. The problem wasn’t the wealth itself, but the fact that the wealthy ignored the poor and their needs. Not only did they ignore them, they actively persecuted the poor, selling them into slavery for silver or a pair of sandals. The prophets constantly warned the leaders of Israel that their oppression of the poor and the needy would result in their exile into enemy territory. This displays the character of God as One whose heart goes out to the oppressed. Liberation theologians speak of God as having a preference for the poor. I’m sure they’re off on that one – God shows no favouritism. However, God does defend the cause of the poor and the defenceless because they have no one else to stand up for them. The poor are blessed in the coming Kingdom of God because they’ll finally have enough to eat, and clothes to wear – but it’s not that they’re blessed because God loves them more than others. In other words, the Kingdom of God is good news to the poor because it is a Kingdom of justice and of plenty.

In his argument with the Pharisees, Jesus clearly put forward his own interpretation of the laws of Moses. You can’t just focus on those convenient passages that prop up your own wealth. You have to understand that we worship a God of justice. And when there are some who have plenty, and others who have nothing – there the Kingdom of God is absent. In any economic system that rewards the rich and punishes the poor – there the system of God’s Kingdom is absent. In any set of economic practices that favour the rich and put strains on the poor, there the practices of God’s Kingdom are absent. In any political platform where the needs of the rich outweigh the needs of the poor, the politics of God’s Kingdom are absent. This has nothing to do with the politics or the economics of the conservative right or the liberal left; this has everything to do with the character of God.

What is the character of God? Well, we read about Him earlier, together, in Psalm 146. The Lord is the maker of heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, He keeps faith forever, executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up the lowly, loves the righteous, watches over the strangers, upholds the orphan and the widow, and brings the way of the wicked to ruin. That is just one small snapshot – but there’s enough there to topple governments and change our political imagination for good. Jesus himself quoted this Psalm when he stood up in the temple and gave his Platform Speech. Please join me in reading Luke 4:16-22.

The crowds that heard Jesus were amazed at his words, not just because of his preaching style, but because he claimed for Himself the very character of God. In other words, God’s politics and economics were made clear in the laws of Moses and the prophets. This is how God wants His people to organize themselves and to deal with community life. In Psalm 146, David was talking about how God relates to the weak and the poor. Now, here in his hometown, Jesus was claiming those words as His own. In his debate with the Pharisees, Jesus made it clear that they were wrong about how God viewed the rich and the poor. God looks out for the needy. Any system that maintains this huge gap between the rich and the poor is a system that is going to get crushed by the grace of God’s Kingdom that is breaking into this world.

Jesus’ interpretation of the law is better than that of the Pharisees. We can be sure of it. He is the Great Teacher. He is the Rabbi of Rabbis. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. In Ephesians 1:20-23 Paul writes, “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

Jesus has been given the highest title there is: he is Lord and Christ! It’s for this reason that we are those for whom Jesus’ reading of the law continues to hold sway! We’re convinced that he was right. We are those who have been persuaded to vote for Jesus, which is what we do every time we gather to worship and praise Him as Lord. In the debate with the Pharisees, we stick with Jesus and his teaching. Why? Wouldn’t be easier and more convenient for us rich Christians in North America to understand our wealth as a direct blessing from God? Wouldn’t it help us, emotionally, to see our finances as a direct result of our faithfulness and our prayers? Instead, we have been persuaded to call Jesus Lord. And so, the answer to the question of why we would go with Jesus’ interpretation rather than that of the Pharisees or the health & wealth preachers of our day – the answer is because we believe that Jesus’ Word is sure. Jesus is the divine Son of the Father. He is the second person of the Trinity. If Jesus teaches us something, we listen because we are those who have been gathered to that good confession that Jesus saves. We are those who have listened to the One whom God raised from the dead.

I guess, the big question that remains, for us, is whether or not it is possible for us to live our way into this new reality called the Kingdom of God. Can we actually practice an economics that lifts up the poor? Can we engage in a politics that shelters the outcast and the oppressed? What does it look like for us to be citizens of God’s Kingdom? What does it mean for us to practice the economics of Jubilee – the economics of God? Jesus left us with two practices that begin to train us into a different way of relating to wealth and power: Baptism and Communion.

In these spirit-filled practices, God’s Kingdom and his economics are shown to us. In these practices, we are being woven into the fabric of God’s Kingdom. In baptism, rich and poor, women and men, Funks, Smiths, Penners, and Hrudas are knit-together into one body where we are first and foremost known to each other as sister and brother. In communion, all these diverse folks are invited to the Lord’s table, where rich and poor eat side by side, where men and women share the same cup, and where people of different color skin break the same bread. Baptism and Communion are practices that are designed to reshape our worldview – even our economic imagination. These practices instigate a reformation of how we view money and wealth throughout the week, not just on the Sundays when we practice them.

In view of how we practice communion, what does it mean to shape our economics after a model of God’s abundance, where we are invited to a table set by the same One who fed thousands with a young boy’s lunch of fish and bread? What does it mean to trust God for our daily bread? An example that comes to mind is the life of Mother Theresa. She lived her life as though she never worried about whether there would be enough to go around. Shaine Claiborne writes, of her, that when he met her he noticed her horribly deformed feet. When he asked the other nuns about it, they told him that Mother Theresa always went through the box of donated shoes in order to find the worst pair for herself. This was so that the others could have better shoes. She lived by a different economic model. She had an alternative imagination – we call it the Kingdom of God. What is our imagination like when it comes to wealth? How does what we do at the table of communion transform what you do with your wallet?

What does it mean to be baptized into a body that isn’t divided between left & right or conservative or liberal; but rather into a family of friends bound together by Jesus? One thing that this does mean is that those who cling to Jesus are put on a level playing field, where we are all brothers and sisters of each other, and friends of Christ. We put that friendship first, above any and all other sub-loyalties, like who we vote for, our color skin, or what national citizenship we carry. As believers, our #1 citizenship is in heaven. We have more in common with Iraqi Christians than we do with Canadian atheists. This doesn’t mean we turn on our fellow Canadians – not at all – but it does mean that, in baptism and communion, we are given a much bigger picture of who we are, and whose we are. We belong to God our Father, through Jesus the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work within Us. How has belonging to God changed your life? How has the Holy Spirit turned your life around?

May you find yourself drawn to the teachings of our friend Jesus – the Rabbi of Rabbis. May you hear His words as the words of eternal life. May His Kingdom draw you in and may His love persuade you to be transformed. May God’s economy of sharing and generosity invade your heart and your wallet. May God’s hold on you in baptism continue to grow stronger as you present yourself to Him in obedience and in love. Amen.