Seeing Through Christ: Faith in Action and Compassion

And so in the same way, we have perception filters about church, about denominations, about what scripture is, about what a specific scripture is meant to say. We have perception filters about Humboldt and Iowa and ministry and so much more. And sometimes those filters have led us to not see God right in front of us or the things that God wants us to do. [00:28:20]

But through these past couple weeks and months, we've seen the good news tell us that we should love our neighbor, uplift the poor, care for the beaten on the side of the road, search for the lost, bear fruit. These are just the parables and passages from the past couple weeks. [00:29:18]

And just after saying that in verse 14, we get this parable in verse 19. I think Jesus paired these words together for a reason, right? You love money, and your heart's not in the right place. Now we get this parable about a rich man who loves money, and his heart is not in the right place. [00:30:23]

And maybe this just makes us ask, how does God help us? Or how do we expect God to help us? What are some of those perception filters that we need to come face to face with? Are we more concerned with God giving us money and comforting us here and now? Or are we more concerned with Jesus' loving sacrifice? [00:32:04]

The rich man asks, Father Abraham, can you just send Lazarus to dip his finger in some cool water and all I want is a drop? So the tables have really been flipped, right? Lazarus who just wanted the scraps of food off of his table, now the rich man who just wants a drop of water from heaven. [00:34:29]

Part of the challenge of this passage is for us to recognize the harm, the blindness, the complacency that privilege can cause. How it's so easy to be distracted from the love of God. And the truth is, you know, we don't maybe want to admit that we're privileged because maybe we aren't at the very top. [00:35:47]

And in many ways it blinds us from those who are suffering, those who God calls us to love and to take care of. And that's a sacred obligation for us to participate in. The response by Abraham to the rich man is, I'm sorry, but no, I cannot send Lazarus to give you water. [00:36:06]

It's also somewhat shocking that Abraham says there's such a chasm between the two of them that even if they wanted to, they couldn't comfort him. I think this is probably a challenge for us to wrestle with, and something that maybe worries us in many ways but I think this also points back to the origins of Lazarus' name as a reminder that only God can be our help and our comfort in the darkness of death. [00:37:10]

But once again, the answer is no. And Abraham explains why. They have Moses and the law and the prophets and the scripture, and they have the temples and the Pharisees and people to teach them. They have all of this stuff. And you know what? Even if I were to send Lazarus, and he was raised from the dead, and it was some amazing miracle, you know what? They still wouldn't believe. [00:37:51]

In other words, it's a lack of responsibility to our faith. It's loving other idols. It's the false belief that just being in a religious building once a week somehow leads us to salvation without doing any of the change through God's grace. [00:39:30]

And Jesus points out that it's the love of money or the love of anything besides God that draws us away from the law, the prophets, Moses, and Jesus himself. As the siblings in this passage, we are being warned. The question now becomes, how do we respond? Are we listening or are we going to ignore the dead rising? [00:41:22]

In some ways, this passage reflects an old saying that a pastor's job is to comfort the afflicted, but afflict the comfortable. And I think that is a great reminder for us all, and I don't think it's just the pastor's job, right? We hold each other accountable, and we comfort, and we challenge each other. [00:42:54]