03.22. DIVES AND LAZARUS

DIVES AND LAZARUS

Luke 16:19-31 The Parable of the Unjust Steward was spoken for the purpose of encouraging rich men to make a right use of their wealth, as well as for the sake of reminding all Christians that the qualities which give success in the world and constitute practical wisdom are very much required in the kingdom of God. But the Pharisees, who were rich, and who under a show of godliness and piety kept a very firm hold on their money, laughed at the novel investment which our Lord proposed. In our day the views of Christ regarding the distribution of wealth are seriously discussed by political economists, and no one ventures to deride His suggestion. There are still, however, double-dyed Pharisees, who with decorous solemnity and without a shadow of a smile listen to our Lord’s recommendations, but listen also without the slightest intention of allowing them any practical force, without one thought of giving them effect in their own life. The Pharisee who smiled incredulously in our Lord’s face, and expressed pity for His ignorance of the world, was no match for our modern Pharisee, who can persuade himself he gives our Lord a reverent hearing though he does not dream of obeying Him. The satirical and mocking observations which began to fly round the crowd when the former Parable was closed, induced our Lord to expose still more plainly the folly of the Pharisees and rich men. They lived in the comfortable creed that wealth was a manifest sign, if not the manifest sign, of God’s favor, while disease and poverty were the results of sin either in the sufferer or in his parents, a creed which had just truth enough in it to give it life and make it pernicious. They believed that the man who was wealthy here would be wealthy in the world to come, and that God could not but esteem that which commanded the admiration of the well-washed and decorous Pharisee. They had, to their own perfect satisfaction, reconciled the love of God and the love of money. They laughed at our Lord, therefore, when He told them that God and mammon were irreconcilable, and that to be rich and honored in this world was no sign whatever of riches and honor in the world to come. Our Lord, therefore, argues no further with them, but draws aside for a moment the curtain that hides the world of spirits and discloses to their view the after history of two men, one of whom had been opulent and powerful, the other nothing. He shows them what becomes of many highly respectable citizens, and what is frequently the result of the kind of life they chiefly admired. He takes them into the unseen world and gives them to understand that —

“Many there be who fill the highest place, Kings upon earth, who here like swine shall bide, Leaving but scorn and horror in their trace.” The first figure our Lord sets before us in the Parable is intended as a mirror to the Pharisees. He is not intended to be depicted as a monstrous specimen of humanity or luxurious living. We do not read that his wealth had been unrighteously acquired. No doubtful speculations, no far too clever financing, no transactions generally condemned, are charged against him. He was simply a rich man, who had made his money in the usual way. Neither was he a miser who could not bear to spend what he had made; on the contrary, he liked to see his friends enjoying themselves at his expense. Had he been notoriously selfish and uncharitable, his gate would never have been chosen as the asylum of the beggar. Indeed, this circumstance, that Lazarus was day after day laid there, points rather to a character for such Pharisaic almsgiving as would maintain his reputation as an observer of the law; for those who were careful enough to carry the beggar out in the morning would certainly set him where he would be pretty sure of being fed. The rich man did not refuse to have so loathsome an object at his gate, did not refuse to have his pleasure somewhat spoilt by the sickening sight, did not order his servants to drive the disgusting creature off his doorstep. Neither is it said that the man was a sensualist, curious in sauces and wines, knowing how everything should be cooked and in what season and with what relish it should be eaten. Not at all: he had money and liked to live pleasantly and brightly. He wore good clothes; not tissue of silver like Herod, nor anything that made him stared at in the streets, but merely, like fifty other rich men in his town, good linen next his skin and seemly purple over it. It is, in short, to his condition and not to his character our attention is in the first place directed. His character is shown by and by; but if we would receive the Parable in its full force, we must not anticipate its conclusion, but suffer ourselves to be led to it step by step. And this first step is to set before us a man surrounded by all the comforts of life and enjoying them to the full. In striking contrast to this affluent. easy, brilliant life is set the other extreme of the human condition. And here, too, nothing as yet is said of the character of Lazarus; it is only intended to paint vividly external circumstances as squalid, disgusting, and pitiable, as those of the rich Pharisee were enviable and glittering. While the gaily appareled guests throng into the mansion, while the sounds of mirth and dancing attract the passers-by, and the brilliant lights shed a radiance over all within, Lazarus lies through the weary hours in the outer darkness under the sweeping, chilling rain, waiting for the scraps that the hungriest slave casts out. Within, the Pharisee is receiving the flatteries of a hundred of his clients, and is wrapped round with all that nurses self-complacency; at his gate lies a helpless heap, a distorted wreck of a man that the dogs mistake for a carcass thrown out to them, and that men hurry past with a shudder. It is a contrast such as our own streets continually present, and if anything you have yourselves seen of the extremes of comfort and discomfort can add another touch to this picture, you are welcome to see remembered reality shining through the Parable.

There are some pictures so constructed that when the spectator is thoroughly impressed with the scene before him, a spring is touched, the picture turns on a pivot and exposes on its reverse side that which completes the intended impression. This picture is constructed on similar principles. The festive Pharisee and the diseased beggar filling the eye, the picture is in a moment reversed, and the Pharisee is seen dropped out of all comfort and affluence, craving a drop of water as a boon he has no means of procuring, while Lazarus is lifted to the pinnacle of human sufficiency and glorified above all earthly magnificence. There is something intentionally horrifying in the suddenness of the contrast. Fresh from his luxurious ease, Dives is in torments; quicker than a troop of bandits strip a traveler, is he stripped of all the inexhaustible equipment for comfortable living which had characterized him in life. In the suddenness, completeness, and terror of the contrast, it is comparable to that which passes under a brilliant southern sky where nature has been prodigal of her beauties, when there is but one moment’s murmur, and the earth opens, pours out its flood of fire, and the fruitful land lies a scorched and sterile waste.

It need scarcely be said that this is merely a pictorial or figurative representation. Disembodied spirits have not eyes, fingers, tongues, voices. But the impression conveyed to the reader is strictly true, that a man’s condition in this life may be reversed in the world to come. The truth our Lord desired in the first place to enforce was, that what is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God — that while men hurry past Lazarus with sickening revulsion and seek the company of the luxurious Dives in his well-appointed house, it is from Dives that God turns with loathing. This is not at once made apparent, but in the ordinary course of things this judgment of God finds its counterpart in actual events and circumstances. And it is a pity that we should be so little able to enter into and sympathize with God’s judgments; that our admiration should be so much spent upon rank, talent, wealth, success and prosperity. The man who invents a machine or makes a discovery which will facilitate business operations or add to the conveniences of life is at once raised to a pinnacle of fame; the author of a brilliant novel or the leader of a political party can scarcely make his way through applauding crowds. And it seems ungracious to turn the other side of the picture, and show their rank and place in a world where rank and place are determined solely by character. Yet the fact is that all things that make the greatest show in the world, wealth and power and genius, are the mere instruments with which character works, and are useful or hurtful according as the motive that wields them is good or evil. Let us learn then to esteem character, that it may not be said of us also, that what is highly esteemed by us is abomination in God’s sight. It is of the essence of Pharisaism to be deceived by appearances, to have its judgment arrested on the outside and the surface, to be satisfied if the manners are good and the outward conduct respectable. It is weak and Pharisaic to be taken in by what is not of the essence of the man, and may be changed with circumstances, and must be left behind at death. And it is this way of judging by the outsides and accidents of things, that prepares those tremendous reversals of human judgment exemplified in the Parable. If men were now grouped and ranked according to their spiritual and moral qualities, how often would rags take precedence of purple, and the outcast from under the hedge be counted more valuable for all eternal purposes than the well-housed and respectable citizen. On the other hand, when tempted to murmur at the rougher portions of your lot, when you begin to look upon your misfortunes as punishment driving you from God, when you suffer your outward circumstances to regulate your inward peace, and find it hard to believe in the love of God when it sends you no better physicians than dogs, no ampler provision than crumbs from a rich man’s table, remember Lazarus, and learn that the outward circumstances of this life is no index by which you may read the relation you hold to God; that you may have one value in this world, another in the world to come; that here outward circumstances are the training of saints, there the unmistakable indication of the spiritual condition, sinners there being the only sufferers.

If the Parable, however, merely exhibited the sudden and shocking reversal of human judgments and alteration of human conditions, it might be open to the charge often brought against it, that it Is a mere condemnation of wealthy men as wealthy and a defense of poverty. But the Parable at once proceeds to show on what the reversal of human judgment is founded — it goes on to show what the character of the rich man had been, what was the moral element and principle which ran through and determined his life upon earth. “Son, remember,” says Abraham to him, “remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things.” That is to say, if you desired equality with Lazarus in this world of spirits, you should have laid the foundation for it in giving him equality with you in your lifetime. Had you made friends with the unrighteous mammon which you so abundantly possessed, you would have been anxiously expected and welcomed by Lazarus and all those you blessed. Had you used your wealth as God’s steward for the use of God’s suffering creatures, you would now be enjoying pleasures greater than ever you experienced on earth. You beg for the friendship of Lazarus now, and entreat his kindly offices; but you had the means of making him your friend while on earth. He is now beyond reach of your good things and friendship, and you are beyond reach of his. It is you yourself who allowed the contrast between you and Lazarus to abide, and it does abide. “Remember,” look back on your earthly life, reflect upon its opportunities and the way you used them, and you will understand the origin and the justice of your present condition; you will recognize that it is yourself who have fixed this yawning chasm between you and all permanent joy. You did not bridge the chasm between you in life — you did not leave your splendor to sit by his side, to hold his racking, weary head, to drive off the dogs and make him feel that at least in one human breast he had an asylum — you did not even send your servants to bring him in to an outhouse to lie among your cattle — you had everything that he needed and you left him in his need — you did not inquire into his necessities, nor penetrate through the rags and stench and poverty to the humanity they encased — you did not own him as a brother, and in anticipation of his lying in Abraham’s bosom at the banquet of eternal bliss, take him in to yourself — you stood aloof and separated yourself from him, and that separation abides. Had you shared with him on earth, you would have shared with him now. This is no doubt a pretty hard lesson to learn. And I believe those will feel its hardness most who have most desire to learn it; who have candor enough and integrity of purpose enough to look straight at our Lord as He utters this counsel, and to feel that if they are to maintain a conscience void of offense they must be clear in their own minds as to the use they make of money and advantages. It is startling, too, to find that the destiny of Dives was determined by his conduct towards this one poor man; little as he thought of him, it was this powerless creature who could not even crawl into his path and force attention, who was exercising a more determining influence on his future than any of those who thronged his banqueting rooms and discussed with him all his plans and new devices of money-making or money-spending. What one person is it who holds this relation to our life; perhaps as little thought of by us as Lazarus by Dives, and yet truly determining what we are to be and to have in eternity? The man whose wants you relieve sullenly, almost angrily; the man whose too frequently recurring necessities you resent and spurn; the person who crossed your path when you were too much occupied with your own joys to observe his face of starvation or disease; such persons, and they whose claims you now refuse to look at for a moment, are determining your eternal condition. But “beside all this”— the thing you ask is impossible. It is, in the first place, just that there should be this reversal of your condition; but supposing that Lazarus were willing to forget the long wretched hours he spent at your gate, or supposing that his experience of pain made him sensitive to yours and anxious to relieve it, the thing cannot be done. This too is an essential part of the Parable. The results produced by character and a life-long habit cannot be expunged in the easy way suggested by Dives. The consequences of a selfish life of pleasure cannot be reversed as soon as they begin to be uncomfortable and distressing. If you take the wrong turning at the entrance to a mountain pass, you may emerge very near your friend who has taken the right one, but with a yawning gulf between that no human agility can leap — the only way is to go right back and follow the path he has taken, and if it is too late to go back, if the night has fallen and the mist closed in around you, no beseeching of the inexorable hills will repair your error. So a life of easy careless selfishness leads to a moral condition, a state of heart and of lot, from which no sudden leap can bring a man into the company and condition of those who have passed through long years of purifying pain and patient endurance that have tested every fiber of their character.

It is a grave charge indeed that we are each of us entrusted with — to determine for ourselves the eternity in which we are to live. And are we to expect that this can be well done without thought, care, conflict, all that can prove us men and bring out our manhood? Does any one resent being called upon to be in earnest and to make this life an ideal and a noble life for himself? Does any one object to this life being a real trial of men, fitted to determine and actually determining what they really are? — Surely no right-minded person would shrink from a test that is real, that goes deep enough to search the very roots of evil and of good in us.

One would naturally expect that the Parable would close at this point. The doom of the selfish pleasure-seeker, of the man who does not use the means in his power to help the needy, has been clearly shown. It has been shown that if Pharisees on earth deride the proposal to serve God only and not mammon at all, the Pharisee who has left earth is in no laughing mood, is convinced of the justice of his doom and the impossibility of relief. And one would suppose this left no more to be said. But if no more had been said, the Pharisees, ever ready to justify themselves, would have said: This is a mere fancy sketch, spoken under provocation for the sake of alarming us. If things were as He represents them to be, some courteous ghost would blab it out — we should not be left by our father Abraham to glide on to such a doom, unstayed and unwarned. Anticipating such evasions, our Lord appends the pathetic supplication of Dives: “If I am past redemption, save my brethren; if no relief can reach me in this place of torment, hinder them from a similar doom.” And this request is introduced merely for the sake of bringing out that already all needed warning is given, and that the proposed additional warning would have no effect whatever — that is to say, the Pharisees are without excuse if they continue their attempts to make the best of both worlds. The statement of the Parable, however, to the effect that those who disregard Moses and the Prophets would equally disregard the appearance of a dead friend, is one which at first seems open to question. Who has not often longed to lift the veil and see for a little the actual condition of the dead? Who has not felt as if it would be so much easier to believe if we could but for one hour see? Who has not been ready to say with these Pharisees: Why not end all this doubt, all this plague of skepticism, all this brutality and worldliness, by sending back from among the dead some messengers who might be identified, and who might plainly tell us what they know, and allow us to cross-examine them? Could they be better employed? And if faith is so desirable, why is not everything done that can be done to give us faith? If there is a spiritual world in which it is so important that we believe, why are we not put in direct communication with it so that it would become as real to us as France or China or any country of whose existence we have no doubt, although we have never seen it? Is it possible that this world and a world so utterly different can be in so close a connection, as if separated only by a paper screen through which a man may any moment fall, and that yet we should so little know what passes in that world? Is it possible that that world can be filled with friends of our own, and yet not one of them whispers us a single word, no more than if there were no such world at all? Is it possible that men who are to-day fully occupied with this world, following its fashion and leaving the world of retribution to sober, religious people, may to-morrow find themselves in that world? And if so, why does not nature herself cry out to warn us from our ruin? Why do not the spirits of the dead return and command us to hold back?

Such feelings are natural, but they are misleading. The rich man’s brethren were heedless of the unseen world, not because they did not believe that any future state awaited them, but because this world’s pleasures absorbed their interes t. It was a profound moral change they needed, and for effecting such a change, “ Moses and the Prophets,” the continuous revelation of God and His holiness in the past, was a much more powerful and appropriate instrument than an apparition. By such a messenger from the dead as the rich man proposed — supposing his message could be authenticated — our ideas of what lies beyond the veil might be altered, and fear might lead us to adapt our conduct to the revealed future; but could our character be thus changed? No revelation of punishment awaiting the evil-doer could avail to make us different in heart, or could unfix our real inward affections from sensual and worldly objects, and fix them upon God and what is spiritual and holy. Only the revelation to our own souls of the beauty of holiness, only the revelation of God, in the fullest sense of these words, can teach us to fix our hearts unalterably on God and all that lives with Him and in Him. Only by seeing and knowing Him can we learn to love Him; and only by loving Him are we perfected as men.

It is doubtful if even the information given by such a messenger — apart altogether from the effects such information might produce — would be of much value, or would be permanently accepted as valid. It is true, many in our own day are persuaded that they receive the most assured knowledge of the unseen world by holding direct communication with those who have entered it, and I would be slow to deny the possibility or actuality of all such communication; but as yet this method of discovering the unseen has merely shown how constant a craving for such knowledge exists in men, rather than that much assured and wholesome truth has been reached by it. He was more deeply instructed who rather shrank from any such reappearances of the dead, and anticipated the fruitlessness of any such comfort:

“If any vision should reveal Thy likeness, I might count in vain, As but the canker of the brain;

Yea, though it spake and made appeal To chances where our lots were cast Together in the days behind, I might but say, I hear a wind Or memory murmuring the past.”

It is not in that direction we need look for relief from our skepticism with all its unrest, vacillation, and brooding sadness. But does not God everywhere elude observation? Is God not unwilling that we should know Him? Does He not hide Himself? Are not clouds and darkness impenetrable round about Him? Not so. God seeks to make Himself known to you. He wishes to bring as much light as possible into your mind, and has used the best means of introducing that light. Why then do so many earnest men spend their years in a vain search for God? Why have so many most thoughtful and inquiring men missed the light they have all their days been looking for, and without which they have no joy in life? Partly, perhaps chiefly, because, like the rich man, each inquirer prefers some self-devised method of revelation to the method God has actually adopted. To those who understand that God is the One Living Spirit, all things reveal Him, He besets them behind and before, and though they should be oppressed by the presence and flee from it, God awaits them in their place of flight and they cannot escape Him. The intelligence discernible in all things, in their harmony and unity, in their universal subservience of one plan and contribution to progress — this is God. The holy love that is discernible in the law that governs human affairs — this is God. More discernible is this law in Jewish history than elsewhere, because the Jews awaited its working, and observed and recorded it, while other races mistook what they had to deal with. But if men look for a God that is not or where He is not, they cannot find Him. If they will not look at things as they actually are; if they will not consider what Moses and the Prophets teach; if they will not recognize the unseen Spirit that trained and guided and made Himself felt by Israel; if they shut their eyes to the embodiment of that Spirit in Christ, and to His working since in millions of our race; if, that is to say, they exclude all that is most significant in human history, can we expect anything else than that the search for God elsewhere will be fruitless and disappointing? If we find God at all, we must find Him not spectrally separate from all known realities, but in and through all things that are, and especially in and through human history and our own souls.

Through all these things God reveals Himself to us, as to moral and reasonable creatures, who can be more profoundly influenced by appeals to conscience and reason than by startling and abnormal apparitions. And if from these things we can learn nothing about God and our duty to Him, still less are we likely to learn from necromancy. Conscience lies deeper in us and is a more essential organ than the eye, and if conscience responds to all that Moses and the Prophets, completed and interpreted by Christ, tell us about God, this is an infinitely worthier testimony to His existence and His truth than if an unsubstantial shade hovered before the eye, and in some hollow, sepulchral mutterings, warned us of the results of unbelief. If your faith is weak, do not wait for unusual manifestations or novel proofs of things unseen, but use the means of knowing God which others have found sufficient, and which God has actually furnished. Keep your mind saturated with the teachings and life of Christ, and what your conscience responds to, see that you act upon. For if the humble and loving tone of the morality you find there enters into your blood, the eyes of your understanding will become brighter to discern spiritual things. Begin at the right end, and with what is already within your reach. Begin with what you know to be true, that is, with what your conscience accepts. Begin with obedience, with gratefully accepting a light upon duty and upon your relation to the persons and things around you which you cannot but own to be the truest and best, and by following this light you will at length reach an atmosphere in which things will assume their right and true proportions. Thus will you earn the reward of humility and truthfulness of spirit, not outrunning your actual faith, but not lagging behind conscience; thus will you learn the truth of the Lord’s own words: “If any man do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.” The pure in heart shall see God; if not now, then hereafter.