Ignoring the Poor Is a Damnable Sin—A Homily for the 26th Sunday of the Year

This Sunday’s Gospel about the rich man and Lazarus contains some important teachings on judgment and Hell. We live in times in which many consider the teachings on Hell to be untenable. They struggle to understand how a God described as loving, merciful, and forgiving could assign certain souls to Hell forever. Despite the fact that the Doctrine of Hell is taught extensively in Scripture as well as by Jesus Himself, it does not comport well with many modern notions and so many people think that it has to go.

The parable addresses some of the modern concerns about Hell. Prior to looking at the reading, it is important to understand why Hell has to exist. I have written on that topic extensively here. What follows is a brief summary of that lengthier article.

Hell must exist for one essential reason: respect. God has made us free and respects our freedom to choose His Kingdom or not. The Kingdom of God is not a mere abstraction. It has some very specific values, and these are realized and experienced perfectly in Heaven.

The values of the Kingdom of God include love, kindness, forgiveness, justice to the poor, generosity, humility, mercy, chastity, love of Scripture, love of the truth, worship of God, and the centrality of God.

Unfortunately, there are many people who do not want anything to do with those values, and God will not force them to. Everyone may want to go to Heaven, but Heaven is not merely what we want it to be; it is what it is, as God has set it forth. Heaven is the Kingdom of God and its values in all their fullness.

There are some (many, according to Jesus) who live in a way that consistently demonstrates their lack of interest in Heaven. They do this by showing that they are not interested in one or many of the Kingdom’s values. Hell “has to be” because God respects people’s freedom to choose to live in this way. Because such people demonstrate that they do not want Heaven, God respects their freedom to choose “other arrangements.”

In a way, this is what Jesus says in John’s Gospel, when He states that judgment is about what we prefer: And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil (John 3:19). In the end, you get what you want: light or darkness. Sadly, many prefer the darkness. The day of judgment discloses our final preference; God respects that even if it is not what He would want for us

I. The Ruin of the Rich Man – As the Gospel opens, we see a rich man (some call him Dives, which simply means “rich”). There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day.

It is clear that he lives very well and has the ability to help the poor man, Lazarus, who is outside his gate. But he does not do so.

The rich man’s sin is not so much one of hate as of indifference. He is living in open rejection of one of the Kingdom’s most important values: love of the poor. His insensitivity is literally a “damnable sin”; it lands him in Hell. His ruin is his insensitivity to the poor.

The care of the poor may be a complicated matter, and there may be different ways of approaching it, but we can we never consider ourselves exempt if it is within our means to help. We cannot avoid judgment for greed and insensitivity. As God said in last week’s reading regarding those who are insensitive to the poor, The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done (Amos 8:7). God may well “forget” many of our sins (cf Is 43:23; Heb 8:12), but apparently disregarding the needs of the poor isn’t one of them.

This rich man has repeatedly rejected the Kingdom by his greed and insensitivity. He lands in Hell because he doesn’t want Heaven, where the poor are exalted (cf Luke 1:52).

Abraham explains the great reversal to him: My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.

II. The Rigidity of the Rich Man – You might expect the rich man to have a change of heart and repent, but he does not. Looking up into Heaven, he sees Lazarus next to Abraham, but rather than finally recognizing Lazarus’ dignity and seeking his forgiveness, he tells Abraham to send Lazarus to Hell with a pail of water to refresh him. The rich man still sees Lazarus as beneath him (even though he has to look up to see him); he sees Lazarus as an errand boy.

Notice that the rich man does not ask to be admitted to Heaven! Although he is unhappy with where he is, he still does not seem to desire Heaven and the Kingdom of God with all its values. He has not really changed. He regrets his current torment but does not see Heaven as a solution. Neither does he want to appreciate Lazarus’ exalted state. The rich man wants to draw Lazarus back to the lower place he once occupied.

This helps to explain why Hell is eternal. It would seem that there is a mystery of the human person that we must come to accept: we reach a point in life when our character is forever fixed, when we can no longer change. When exactly this occurs is not clear; perhaps it is at the moment of death itself.

The Fathers of the Church often thought of the human person as clay on a potter’s wheel. As long as it is on the wheel and moist it can be molded, but when the clay is taken off the wheel and placed in the fiery kiln (fire is judgment day (cf 1 Cor 3:15)), its shape is forever fixed.

The rich man manifests this fixed quality. He is unhappy with his torments, even wanting to warn his brothers, but apparently he does not intend to change or somehow he is unable to change.

This is the basis for the teaching that Hell is eternal: once having encountered our fiery judgment, we will no longer be able to change. Our decision against the Kingdom of God and its values (a decision that God, in sadness, respects) will be forever fixed.

III. The Reproof for the Rest of Us – The rich man, though he cannot or will not change, would like to warn his brothers. He thinks that perhaps if Lazarus would rise from the dead and warn them, they would repent!

We are the rich man’s brethren, and we are hereby warned. The rich man wanted exotic measures, but Abraham said, “They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.” “Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.” Then Abraham said, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.”

We should not need miraculous signs to bring us conversion. The phrase “they have Moses and the prophets” is a Jewish way of saying that they have Scripture.

The Scriptures are clear to lay out the way before us. They give us the road map to Heaven and we only need to follow it. We ought not to need an angel or a ghost or some extraordinary sign. The Scriptures and the teachings of the Church should be sufficient.

Their message is clear enough: daily prayer, daily Scripture, weekly Eucharist, frequent confession, and repentance all lead to a change of heart wherein we begin to love the Kingdom of God and its values. We become more merciful, kind, generous, loving toward the poor and needy, patient, chaste, devout, and self-controlled.

Hell exists! It has to exist because we have a free choice to make, and God will respect that choice even if he does not prefer it.

Each of us is free to choose the Kingdom of God—or not. This Gospel makes it clear that our ongoing choices lead to a final, permanent choice, at which time our decision will be forever fixed.

The modern world needs to sober up. There is a Hell and its existence is both reasonable and in conformity with a God who both loves us and respects our freedom.

If you have any non-biblical notions in this regard, consider yourself reproved. Popular or not, Hell is taught, as is the sobering notion that many prefer its darkness to the light of God’s Kingdom.

The care of the poor is very important to God. Look through your closet this week and give away what you can. Look at your financial situation and see if it is pleasing to God. The rich man was not cruel, just insensitive and unaware. How will you and I respond to a Gospel like this?

Where do I begin?

God’s Word says that Christians will be judges. Faithful judges according to God are those who don’t show human partiality, but learn to judge after His own heart, and take His correction and direction. They USE their own understanding, but when they lean, they lean on Him. “Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” When the Lord returns, He will make them rulers in His Kingdom because they are already properly taking care of His sheep.

On the other hand, if the replies here, overall, weren’t so terribly and tragically ungodly, unbiblical and unchristian, they could make me laugh for years at how much they haughtily twist God’s Word while being self-assured. Attitudes like that are not just for avowed liberals.

And unlike the vast majority of today’s population, including the vast majority of the church, I take passages like Matthew 12:36 most seriously, and don’t just haughtily declare my opinions to be prophecy or divine truth, “that’s the way it is” from my limited perspective and understanding. I’ve been perfectly willing to be open to the possibility that my viewpoint isn’t anywhere near objection. And I’m perfectly willing to give the church its due credit, especially for being the cleanest dirty shirt around. If I’m unjust to the church here in any way, I want to be open to God’s correction, and I still want to try to bridge the gap here to the church.

But, for one thing, as a poor person in this country, I still have to say that the church here has, all told, treated me just abominably, and it’s not just me. Laodicea it is, and Laodicea isn’t ready to judge and rule with Christ.

The church here doesn’t adopt people — not according to God’s principles, but worldly ones. The world makes Christians go the extra mile. If you don’t want to send your kids to public schools, then pay extra, pay twice for their schooling. But so many people, Christians, can’t afford that, and the Laodicean church doesn’t care. It’s every family for itself, and let the successful ones band together. The poorer ones are left to the state because the church won’t go the extra mile for them. They’re not “family.” Any poor person knows that, overall, the church either does a “good work” for them through a ten-foot-pole program, or, more likely, refers them to the state. But, I have to say, a number of times I’ve talked to a pastor here or there about different problems I was facing, and afterward, they didn’t so much as ask me how things were going when I saw them again.

For the past 20 years, while being softly and very politely rejected by the church, like a misfit they’ll just glad handle and place in a corner out of the way so I’ll be forgotten and then just move on eventually, I’ve nevertheless faithfully served the Lord on my own time, while working low-income jobs to pay the bills. Because it’s about Him, whatever the church does. If I let bitterness to the church change me, and even to give up on the church here entirely, I’d be going against Him, not the church. I won’t let Laodicea make me Laodicea. Just saying, though. The church — as the institution, not an individual here or there — has never, ever been there for me.

The church here is very much Laodicean — or even worse. As the modern world has made so many things “new and improved,” the church here has reinvented the Laodicean church, taking lukewarmness to an extent undreamed of by the original Laodiceans. Nevetheless, the church here doesn’t care about that, for some reason. It’s quite indifferent to what it’s like. “It’s all good, as we believe in Jesus and so are saved!” Or it’s an occasion to sit around with a book by Francis Chan and to talk oh-so-seriously about how worldly the church is. “We have sinned, Lord!” And it’s lip service.

Sure, the church does good works. And it seems to trust in them, too. And it still spreads the Gospel and teaches and worships and disciples. But it doesn’t seem to realize it does less and less of it despite having more and more.

Liberals also are afflicted with projection. So is the Laodicean church.

How about abusing, twisting and misusing 2 Thessalonians 3:!0.

“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”

From time to time, I hear this verse quoted, and not once have I ever heard it mentioned that this verse is said in the context of the church and is for believers. It will always be pointed out — and properly so — that those who held all things in common in Jerusalem, as related in Acts, were those of the church, not the world. Acts doesn’t promote communism. But then again, many in the Laodicean church, I believe, are going to have to answer to the Lord for why they disavowed so many verses in the Bible. “But Lord, those verses were communist! They were socialist!” No, they were mimicked by Satan but had a Christian fulfilment, when people are thinking and acting like Christians.

Jesus on the Cross is welfare for us.

Politics, though, often brings the resurrection of the Old Adam. And of this age and Laodicea, “Go, therefore, and spread the game of golf across the world, teaching the worthy athletes in every nation how to get the lowest score.”

From metmom: “2 Thessalonians 3:10 For also when we were with you, this we declared to you: that, if any man will not work, neither let him eat.”

Doesn’t that, as an absolute, only apply to the church, the same way this does?:

“And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.”

I’m not saying the principle doesn’t apply at all, because of course it doesn’t; only that it’s not meant to be applied to the world as it is to the church.

From robowombat:

“Charity is for those of our blood. Family is (to a certain extent family) all the others are just strangers. Oh, yes, if you are a middle class straight white man see how much charity will ever be offered to you no matter what your circumstance is.”

That’s exactly the issue. Is God’s church a family, or a club? As I wrote elsewhere here, the world makes Christians go the extra mile, such as in paying twice for a Christian education. And Christians have created crisis pregnancy centers to counter societal and governmental support for abortion. But despite some exceptions, the church doesn’t adopt as the Lord calls for. It offers programs and benignly neglects and ignores poorer Christians so they give up and leave church. The difference is between the care of family, and what loving family would do for each other (personalized service to each other) and the services offered by the atheistic state in, say, a government orphanage.

If the middle class finds things difficult, then how should the poor? No, all those services and “freebies” are not as they appear. Nor do the poor have it made. Many of them are weaker members of society, average to below average in intelligence. What’s easy or not too hard for others is very hard or impossible for them, and there’s no one there to help. I had a social worker, a white man around 40, who couldn’t spell words like “aplication” (his spelling). Like public schools, the quality is often pretty subpar, just for starters. Or often not being able to even walk out an apartment door because of the threatening behavior of neighbors. I have to stop here, but so much more could be said. The poor here have both poverty and riches, and often the riches don’t make up for the poverties. Even the middle class, too, should be able to understand having both simultaneously.

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