“YOU HAVE MOSES AND THE PROPHETS, I.E. YOU HAVE JESUS”
Saint Luke 16: 19-31
1st Sunday after Trinity: 23 June Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
King David writes in our Introit, “how long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?” Do you in your sinful “old Adam” backsliding also wail and whine this lament?
You do.
The Psalmist was brought by The Spirit to understand and confess that The Lord indeed forgets none of His children—His lambs; The Lord has never hid his face, nor will He ever, from David, or from you.
The parable, if it is a parable, of Lazarus and the “rich man” is about Our Lord and His work. One mustn’t spend too much time on spiritual/trans-spatial/physical dimensions and locations of heaven and hell and hell. When an unbeliever dies, he or she goes to hell and remains there for eternity. When a believer dies, he or she goes to be with God and remains there for eternity. In our own “time and space and place” world/universe…The Church Militant goes on under “The Cross” until Christ reappears again, at the end of time, (the Eschaton; the Parousia) when all the dead, believing and unbelieving will rise again with physical bodies to join the “quick.” (who remain). The Saints, including poor beggar Lazarus, will receive “glorified bodies” and will reside in the New Heavens and the New Earth with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, i.e. with The Father, Son, + and Holy Ghost, and all the Lord’s Sheepfold. The rejecting disbelieving enemies of God will be cast aside as goats into perdition.
Jesus’ Words are not for the dead but for the living…for you, and yours.
A homily for this morning’s Gospel could, and maybe should, be focused entirely on the Hebrew Bible—The Old Testament (The Masoretic text or the Septuagint, translated into our own mother tongue). Jesus is clear that one would not need Paul’s letter to the Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, nor even Saint Luke’s Evangel itself, to receive all that He desires to give and does give through The Word of God and The Sacramental Word of God. Jesus speaking through the parabolic “Abraham,” (and of course Abraham speaks only Jesus by the Holy Spirit) says to you and all others still living (for it does the dead rich man in hell no good) “they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.”
All the fullness of God’s counsel, all His life- giving Word is contained in the Pentateuch (Moses) and all the prophetic books of the Old Testament, and the Writings (the Psalms and wisdom literature). The Word that Lazarus and the “rich man” had at their disposal was not Saint Luke, but Genesis through Malachi.
The rich man (tradition & Ralph Vaughn-Williams notwithstanding) doesn’t even have a name given by The Lord. He does not need one nor deserve one. The Lord created and named Adam. The Lord re-created Adam after the first man’s sin and fall, by Himself becoming the SECOND ADAM—sinless and perfect; obedient and sacrificial. Even as The Lord renamed Abram and Jacob, He renamed all of you in your waters + of rebirth. There at the font it wasn’t dogs licking your wounds but the Samaritan Savior Himself binding you up, washing you clean and carrying you by angels (your pastor, your parents, your sponsors) into the loving arms of Father Abraham—in the Church Catholic—the temporary parish until Christ returns again in Glory.
The rich man is not damned because he is selfish, greedy, and unwilling to share. Although to be sure those sins are deadly and lead one in a path that is away from God. The rich man is not damned because he is rich. There are many whom The Lord blesses with an abundance of mammon—mammon which is to be properly stewarded and used for God’s kingdom and one’s neighbor. The rich man is lost because he did not know he was lost, lame, impotent, blind, and dead—that all his “goods” and all his “doings” amounted to rags, to dung. “For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen.” [1 Jn. 4.20] He looked to himself and his own “belly” (the way people today do so; and also look to their feelings, emotions, opinions, desires, etc.) He did not look to Moses and the prophets—To God’s Word—To God. “Let not the rich man glory in his riches.” [Jer. 9.23]
Lazarus is not carried to “heaven” because he’s poor and sick and left alone in the gutter. There are as many atheists in those situations as there are Christians. Lazarus is saved because he did hear Moses and the Prophets. His hearing was not his own but was in fact a gift and work of God The Holy Ghost. By God’s Grace the beggar was given faith to receive Jesus. Lazarus, like you, was graced to cry out with King David: “O Lord, I have trusted in Thy Mercy, my heart shall rejoice in Thy Salvation.” And, “let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me.” [Jer. 9.24]
The Lord Who is the ultimate “rich man” in that He is Light of Light and God of God, omnipotent and eternal, became the poorest man on your behalf. He veiled His Divinity to become the ‘suffering servant,’ the Paschal Lamb. Jesus is the true Lazarus, laying wounded and dying not outside the “rich man’s” mansion, but outside the Jerusalem which had rejected Moses and the prophets. Jesus, licked not by dogs’ tongues but by nails, whip, thorns, and spear.
He did rise from the dead to bring you to light, life, immortality, and peace. He did visit your father’s house and your house—your Christian brothers—and you. You are comforted in His Holy Absolution. Your sins are forgiven. You have Moses and the prophets—You have Jesus—His Word, Body, and Blood.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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