So there’s one big thing in this story that can be distracting or even scary. It’s the idea that when the rich man dies, he is sent to a place of suffering. A place of flames where he’s desperately thirsty and can’t get relief. That’s pretty scary, right? 

Some of you/the grownups might have grown up in churches that talked a lot about how our beliefs and actions in life might mean we go to Heaven – or Hell – when we die. 

(You may have noticed that’s NOT stuff we talk about a lot here!)

In the story that Jesus tells, the places where the rich man and Lazarus end up when they die are not Heaven and Hell. 

In Jesus’ time people had a lot of different ideas about what happened after you die – just like today. 

Some people thought nothing happened. 

Some people thought you would sleep for a long, long time. 

Some people thought that you’d go to the land of the dead. Some parts of that land were really beautiful and lush and comfortable – like the valleys of Abraham. And some parts of it were terrible and dry and scorched. And there’s a chasm – a great big split in the ground – between those two places.

Jesus is using that idea to tell this story. 

He is not answering The Big Question about what happens after we die, here. There are a couple of other places in the Gospels where he seems to be trying to say something about that – like when he says, In my Father’s house there are many mansions. But it seems like what happens after we die is pretty hard to explain. And he’s not trying to explain it, here.

That’s not what this story is about at all. 

The point of this story is not that the rich man should have been kind to Lazarus TO AVOID PUNISHMENT AFTER HE DIED. 

That is not the reason he should have been kind!

God does not want us to do kind and right and just things because we are afraid. 

That was the church’s idea, I think. 

Fear is not a healthy heart-reason to do good things. 

The point is that the rich man should have been kind to Lazarus because it was the right thing to do.

It was what all the teachings and traditions of his faith told him – 

As well as just basic empathy and humanity! 

So, the point of this story isn’t to make us worry about burning for eternity! But what IS the point of the story? 

What does Jesus want to make people think about, here? 

One thing he wants us to think about is what can happen inside of people who have too much money.

Is that a strange idea – too much money? … 

Right before he tells this story, Jesus says, “You cannot serve both God and money.” Only what he really says is, “You cannot serve God and Mammon.” 

What’s Mammon? 

Mammon is an interesting word that shows up a few times in the Bible. It means wealth, like a lot of money – a LOT of money.

But it doesn’t just mean money. 

It means money that people are treating like a god. 

Mammon means that people are putting money at the center of their lives, instead of God or other people or the wellbeing of their community and world. 

The great reformer Martin Luther wrote about Mammon. He said, “Many a person thinks they have God and everything they need when they have money and property. They trust in those things, and boast of them so stubbornly and boldly that they don’t care about anybody or anything else. A person like that fixes their whole heart on their god Mammon, that is, money and possessions. Mammon is the most common idol on earth.”

I know people who have enough money to share and are very generous and thoughtful about sharing.

I don’t think I know anybody who is super duper rich. But it does seem like people who are super duper rich are not always very happy? … 

Jesus wants us to notice how Mammon is at the center of the rich man’s life. His wealth lets him make everything around him just the way he wants it – his home, his clothes, his food. 

Maybe he gets so used to having everything exactly the way he likes it, that when there’s something unpleasant – like a poor, sick man lying on the ground – he just doesn’t even see it.

It’s like he’s wearing special Mammon glasses. 

There is a lot going on in this story, even though it seems pretty simple, and there are a lot of things it might leave us thinking about or wondering. 

But maybe the thing Jesus would want us to hear in this story today is actually a word of consolation and reassurance. 

It could be easy to hear this story as telling us that we’re supposed to reach out and help people who are struggling or alone or in need… 

And then to feel guilty or ashamed or overwhelmed. 

Because we know about A LOT of suffering!! … 

I know the grownups and the big kids hear about news from all over the world. People hurt and sick and hungry and afraid in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Haiti. 

We hear scary or sad news from across our country, too. Acts of violence, communities under threat, ecological disasters. 

I don’t know what grade they start showing you news in your classrooms, but at some point even our younger kids start hearing about some of this stuff – from school, or from other kids, or from their parents and older siblings talking about it at home. 

A lot of us feel an obligation to stay informed. We’re citizens of a powerful nation; there’s not much that happens in the world where our country doesn’t bear some kind of responsibility. So, in turn, we feel responsible – to learn, pray, advocate, donate, vote. 

That is the righteous work of citizenship and community. 

 And also: it’s much more than the folks who first heard Jesus tell this story would have had to deal with.

They didn’t have a 24-hour news cycle.

They didn’t have Instagram reels from war zones. 

They might hear, eventually, about a famine in that country, or a plague in that region, or a battle over there. 

But most of the suffering people knew about was the suffering they could see. The needs and struggles right there in their community, in their neighborhood. 

The rich man in the story isn’t reading about Lazarus in the newspaper. He’s literally walking past him – maybe stepping over him! – on a daily basis. 

So much information comes at us about human suffering around the country, around the world. 

I think sometimes it can be really too much for us.  

We get overwhelmed, discouraged, paralyzed. Numb. 

Sometimes it might even have an impact on our capacity to see and respond to the needs and struggles that ARE close at hand. That we could reach out and touch. 

Nobody, nobody in this congregation, 

if someone were literally bleeding and starving on your doorstep, 

would just step over him and do nothing. 

Nobody. 

But maybe we need permission 

to lift our eyes from our doorstep, but NOT TOO FAR. 

What’s the human suffering… on my block? 

Within a mile of my home, my work, my school? 

To read our local papers, and wonder: what are the ways people are struggling or suffering in my city, my town, right here?

Sometimes people could feel like focusing more locally means they’re ceding responsibility or closing their eyes and hearts to big needs elsewhere. We all need to find our own balance, and feel deeply inside us what we need to carry and stand for. 

But there are good reasons to think locally about how to connect and help and serve. I’ve learned this from folks with a lot more wisdom and experience about how to respond to needs, tend folks’ humanity, and build towards a better future, so my list of reasons is not going to be comprehensive! But here are a few. 

Responding to local needs may mean we’re more able to make a real difference, because we have a better understanding of the stakeholders and the needs and constraints and possibilities.

Responding to local needs can build networks and relationships that will help us better respond to other situations in the future. 

Responding to local needs is wise – shrewd! – in a time when some of our friends and neighbors are under threat and living with a lot of fear – because local, real-life connections can be safer and more trustworthy ways to connect and help. 

In our Godly Play classroom we ask, I wonder where you are in this story? If the person in Jesus’ story that you feel closest to is Lazarus – if you are down or struggling, in pain or in need – I hope this community will respond to you with compassion and care. 

Maybe what we need to hear in Jesus’ story today is permission not to try to carry the weight of the whole world – that’s the consolation, the reassurance I mentioned. 

And instead, an invitation to look for who and what is hurting, in our neighborhoods and networks, and to ask ourselves and each other what we can do about it.

How we can help, even a little – not because we’re afraid of eternal flames, but because that’s the kind of people God made us to be. 

Not to step over a suffering neighbor, 

but to step into our shared humanity. 

May it be so.