Loving to share
This week is on Luke 16:19-23:
I had an interesting experience this week that helped me relate a bit to these verses. I was sick with a cold and was rushing through the checkout line on Friday night. All I wanted to do was get home and collapse with my cold medicine and tea. In line in front of me was a little old lady who kept trying her bank card in the reader, but the PIN code wouldn't work. She got in a long conversation with the cashier, trying to tell her the reader was broken. (It wasn't.) The cashier kept telling her the reader was fine, that she'd typed in the wrong PIN code, but the old lady was sure the code was right. This went on for ten minutes or so, as the line grew longer and longer.
Then the lady got out her purse and started counting out money in the way that only little old ladies can. Slowly and gingerly, piece after piece, treating each bill and coin like a kind of precious artifact. She counted the money out four or five times. It turned out she was a couple dollars short, so the cashier had to ring things up again without a pair of socks. I was so impatient! I felt like lazarus, all sick and afflicted, but also tormented by having to wait.
But then the people behind me in line offered to pay for her socks. She wouldn't let them, but was really thankful anyway. And that was the point where I saw the lesson. Have you ever had an experience where it seems almost like someone presses pause at the end and reviews it with you like a test? The thought occurred to me that even if I didn't care for the woman at all, I could have short-circuited the whole ordeal by dropping $2 in the pile of money as soon as I saw she failed the count the first time around.
But the big thing was that I didn't care for the woman. How embarrassing it must have been to be the cause of a long line of angry people at the grocery store close to closing, or to not have enough money in your wallet to pay for what you'd brought to the register? Instead of worrying about my own problems I was powerless to fix, I could have figured out how to help her with her problem. For $2 I could have made a big difference, but I couldn't see it.
The rich man in the parable was in a similar situation. This beggar Lazarus was right in front of his gate. The rich man didn't do anything to help him, not for a lack of ability but for a lack of love. Even the dogs had more compassion than the rich man did, as they tried to clean his wounds. An animal known for cowardice and filth in Biblical times actually was better at recognizing the humanity of the beggar than the rich man was!
Lazarus ended up in heaven, but the rich man ended up in hell for not helping him. The sad thing is, how much would it have cost the rich man to help? It says that Lazarus longed to eat the scraps from the rich man's table. What if on one of the days that Lazarus had been outside of the gate, the rich man had gone down to Lazarus and been like "Dude, I can't eat another bite. Do you want the rest of this?" It would have saved him from hell and would have cost him almost nothing! How tragic!
I can only wonder how absorbed the rich man must have been in his luxury. Did he just pretend not to see Lazarus, like we do with beggars, and hope that someone less fortunate would help him out instead? Did he consider it late at night, but think "Man, maybe I should help that sick guy at the end of my driveway, except that I want a purple hat to match my purple robe, and also lobster is getting more expensive. Maybe later, when the budget isn't so tight."
The rich man lived in luxury every single day. The funny thing is he probably lived in less luxury than we do. If you're reading email in a heated house or with a web browser, you're better off than anyone in Jesus' time was. But there are people all over the world, and even in our own towns, who need our help, and yet we don't help them despite having the resources to do so. It's not that we don't know about it. We have the Internet! What stops us but a lack of love?
Elsewhere in the Bible it says that in the future mankind's love will grow cold and that they will become wicked. Isn't that us? We're called to be demonstration models of God's kingdom and character, and yet we don't work as advertised. We had one job, and we can't even do it! God has lavished us with such compassion and blessing and grace, and instead of going out and sharing it, we stay locked behind our gate, enjoying the luxury and complaining about how broken the dude outside is.
The rich man failed because he didn't even have the compassion and awareness found in a dog. If he had, he would have been like "Ooooh a person! Let's go see how he's doing!" We don't have to fail though. If the rich man had recognized the beggar as a gift to help him do God's work from a convenient location, he would have done fine. Maybe we have similar blessings in our lives, which we might see as burdens, but really are perfectly situated. The important thing is not to miss it like the rich man did.
Ask God for love and compassion. Maybe you'll see the opportunities while they're still there, instead of being like the rich man who only recognized them when it was too late.
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.
I had an interesting experience this week that helped me relate a bit to these verses. I was sick with a cold and was rushing through the checkout line on Friday night. All I wanted to do was get home and collapse with my cold medicine and tea. In line in front of me was a little old lady who kept trying her bank card in the reader, but the PIN code wouldn't work. She got in a long conversation with the cashier, trying to tell her the reader was broken. (It wasn't.) The cashier kept telling her the reader was fine, that she'd typed in the wrong PIN code, but the old lady was sure the code was right. This went on for ten minutes or so, as the line grew longer and longer.
Then the lady got out her purse and started counting out money in the way that only little old ladies can. Slowly and gingerly, piece after piece, treating each bill and coin like a kind of precious artifact. She counted the money out four or five times. It turned out she was a couple dollars short, so the cashier had to ring things up again without a pair of socks. I was so impatient! I felt like lazarus, all sick and afflicted, but also tormented by having to wait.
But then the people behind me in line offered to pay for her socks. She wouldn't let them, but was really thankful anyway. And that was the point where I saw the lesson. Have you ever had an experience where it seems almost like someone presses pause at the end and reviews it with you like a test? The thought occurred to me that even if I didn't care for the woman at all, I could have short-circuited the whole ordeal by dropping $2 in the pile of money as soon as I saw she failed the count the first time around.
But the big thing was that I didn't care for the woman. How embarrassing it must have been to be the cause of a long line of angry people at the grocery store close to closing, or to not have enough money in your wallet to pay for what you'd brought to the register? Instead of worrying about my own problems I was powerless to fix, I could have figured out how to help her with her problem. For $2 I could have made a big difference, but I couldn't see it.
The rich man in the parable was in a similar situation. This beggar Lazarus was right in front of his gate. The rich man didn't do anything to help him, not for a lack of ability but for a lack of love. Even the dogs had more compassion than the rich man did, as they tried to clean his wounds. An animal known for cowardice and filth in Biblical times actually was better at recognizing the humanity of the beggar than the rich man was!
Lazarus ended up in heaven, but the rich man ended up in hell for not helping him. The sad thing is, how much would it have cost the rich man to help? It says that Lazarus longed to eat the scraps from the rich man's table. What if on one of the days that Lazarus had been outside of the gate, the rich man had gone down to Lazarus and been like "Dude, I can't eat another bite. Do you want the rest of this?" It would have saved him from hell and would have cost him almost nothing! How tragic!
I can only wonder how absorbed the rich man must have been in his luxury. Did he just pretend not to see Lazarus, like we do with beggars, and hope that someone less fortunate would help him out instead? Did he consider it late at night, but think "Man, maybe I should help that sick guy at the end of my driveway, except that I want a purple hat to match my purple robe, and also lobster is getting more expensive. Maybe later, when the budget isn't so tight."
The rich man lived in luxury every single day. The funny thing is he probably lived in less luxury than we do. If you're reading email in a heated house or with a web browser, you're better off than anyone in Jesus' time was. But there are people all over the world, and even in our own towns, who need our help, and yet we don't help them despite having the resources to do so. It's not that we don't know about it. We have the Internet! What stops us but a lack of love?
Elsewhere in the Bible it says that in the future mankind's love will grow cold and that they will become wicked. Isn't that us? We're called to be demonstration models of God's kingdom and character, and yet we don't work as advertised. We had one job, and we can't even do it! God has lavished us with such compassion and blessing and grace, and instead of going out and sharing it, we stay locked behind our gate, enjoying the luxury and complaining about how broken the dude outside is.
The rich man failed because he didn't even have the compassion and awareness found in a dog. If he had, he would have been like "Ooooh a person! Let's go see how he's doing!" We don't have to fail though. If the rich man had recognized the beggar as a gift to help him do God's work from a convenient location, he would have done fine. Maybe we have similar blessings in our lives, which we might see as burdens, but really are perfectly situated. The important thing is not to miss it like the rich man did.
Ask God for love and compassion. Maybe you'll see the opportunities while they're still there, instead of being like the rich man who only recognized them when it was too late.
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