Who do we listen to in our lives? Or phrased a different way, who or what do we place our trust in to give us guidance for how to live our lives? For some, it might be Scripture, for others it might be friends or family, it might be a combination of all of the above, or it might be something else entirely. Yet, who and what we listen to has an important impact on the decisions we make, the values we hold, and how we relate to the world around us. It determines whether we are guided by wealth and success, by caring for those around us, by our relationship to nature or any number of things. Our Gospel today reminds us that when the thing we are guided by takes our focus away from God though, that we can be led astray.
“But Sarah and Abraham replied, ‘they have Moses and the prophets. Let your siblings hear them” (Luke 16: 29). The rich person in this story never saw the world around them, namely Lazarus and his suffering right outside the rich person’s door. They was blinded by their wealth and only saw Lazarus as an inconvenience at best, and at worst as a servant to their needs. There is an inherent connection between the Gospel reading and the reading from the prophet Amos this week, especially because people like this rich person are exactly who Amos is talking about. The people that throw fancy banquets and ignore the realities of the world that lie right on their doorstep. The people outside of the walls are not so much people, but objects to be used and exploited, it seems.
One of the details that I found intriguing about this Gospel reading this week is the way that, even in death, the rich person still sees Lazarus as beneath themself. ‘Sarah and Abraham,’ the rich person cried, ‘have pity on me! Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am tortured by these flames!’ (Luke 16: 24). It is a distressing image, the idea of being tortured by flames, yet this person doesn’t ask what they have done to get here, they don’t think about their actions at all really, but instead the first words we hear from them are entreating Lazarus to do something for them, even though this person did nothing to help Lazarus in his misery during his lifetime. Then, the rich person continues to ask to have Lazarus do things. They don’t seem to understand that Lazarus is more than just a servant.
Yet, instead of sending Lazarus to warn this person’s siblings, Sarah and Abraham remind them that they, like this person, have had guides along the way, but they have chosen not to listen to them. Instead of following in God’s path, they have followed their own paths, led by their wealth and their greed. In some ways, it reminds me of the so-called jokes going around during the pandemic that focused on when people got to heaven and asked God why God hadn’t protected them, to which God replied that there were doctors, masks, and vaccines…what more did people want God to do?! While it seems like a harsh statement from Sarah and Abraham, it is probably true that if this person’s siblings won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they are also not likely to listen to Lazarus from the dead. If they would even see him at all, after all, they never really saw him during his lifetime.
I can see how this story is terrifying for some and comforting for others; it would have to do with whether they see themselves as the rich person or Lazarus. But, in some ways, it feels like this is a story about cosmic justice that we all hope to see in times of frustrating and demeaning social situations. Yet, I don’t think that is quite what Jesus is getting at here. Instead of being a story to scare his followers, to make them think that they are going to burn in the fires with no sort of comfort, I think Jesus is trying to teach a lesson about the importance of paying attention to the world around us, and to Scripture and the prophets. “But Sarah and Abraham replied, ‘they have Moses and the prophets. Let your siblings hear them” (Luke 16: 29). It is an invitation to truly hear the words of Scripture. And, at least in the Hebrew Bible, listening to and hearing God wasn’t just about taking in words, but it came with the assumption that those who heard would obey God’s commands. Listening required a changing of ways.
What does this mean for us today though? I think this Gospel also begs us to ask the question: who are our prophets today? While our theology of the Spirit is different now than the time of the Prophets, since we believe the Spirit acts through more than just a select group of people, I think it is important to seriously ponder how the Spirit is working in our world and through people today. I believe that God is still present and active among our communities and is helping shape the ways that we view the world. Personally, I have to believe that there are more prophets in the world than just those who made it into the Biblical canon because otherwise we are missing a lot of really important voices. Yet, the job of prophets is not necessarily an easy or a wanted one, as they were often rejected by their communities for what they were saying.
Prophets in their time were not always respected. Thinking about the readings we have from Amos, most people are not going to want to hear a critique of the way that they are living their lives and why that is the exact opposite of what God wants them to be doing. Prophets usually were not accepted by the world, probably because they forced people to think about and address issues that they would rather sweep under their rugs. And, unfortunately, I don’t think prophets in our time are always respected either. Yet, I can think of many who people would consider prophets today, and they are often women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, and even children. People like Greta Thunberg fighting for climate justice, Pastors Lenny Duncan and Nadia Bolz-Weber who are reminding the church that things can’t always remain as they have been, or those who fight for justice and equality. Trans people who are fighting for their very right to live as God created them to be, and the people that we more commonly think of like Martin Luther King Jr. or late Senator John Lewis. These are just to name a few because I think the list of prophets is a lot longer than we probably realize, especially because not every prophet is going to achieve national or global fame.
So, while I think that this reading could be viewed as an example of cosmic justice, I think that narrows the point of the story too much. Instead, I think we are invited to expand our thinking to consider how we are surrounded by prophets and how we might be called to be prophets in this world too. To call ourselves and those around us back to the ways of God. To truly hear and see the ways that God has been and is working in our beautiful and broken world. And, to trust that those ways might be unexpected because God is continually working something new in our midst. To know that what Moses and the prophets had to say still has meaning in our lives, even if our lives look drastically different than theirs.
“But Sarah and Abraham replied, ‘they have Moses and the prophets. Let your siblings hear them” (Luke 16: 29). I love that we get to still study these prophets today, as they are often some of my favorite stories of Scripture. Amos 5: 18-24 is the reading that I used when I preached my first ever sermon as a senior in college. And, as I entered Seminary, I resonated a lot with Moses, especially his questions of “why me?” I think that we still have so much that we can learn from Moses and the prophets, as we continue to study what they had to say in their times and what they are saying to us today. And, we are invited into studying what Moses and the prophets said together, in community. We are not sent out to understand this all on our own, but to figure out what it means for our communal life together. And, to listen to how God is still speaking through the prophets of our own time, because I am pretty certain that God is still speaking to and among us. So, may we open our ears and hearts to truly hear the prophets of old and the prophets of our time, as we continue to learn what it means to be God’s beloved children.