INTRODUCTION
One dark night outside a small town, a fire started inside the local chemical plant. Before long it exploded into flames and an alarm went out to fire departments from miles around. After fighting the fire for over an hour, the chemical company president approached the fire chief and said, "All of our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved! I will give $50,000 to the engine company that brings them out safely!" As soon as the chief heard this, he ordered the firemen to strengthen their attack on the blaze. After two more hours of attacking the fire, the president of the company offered $100,000 to the engine company that could bring out the company’s secret files. From the distance, a long siren was heard and another fire truck came into sight. It was a local volunteer fire company composed entirely of men over 65. To everyone’s amazement, the little fire engine raced through the chemical plant gates and drove straight into the middle of the inferno. In the distance the other firemen watched as the old timers hopped off of their rig and began to fight the fire with an effort that they had never seen before. After an hour of intense fighting, the volunteer company had extinguished the fire and saved the secret formulas. Joyous, the chemical company president announced that he would double the reward to $200,000 and walked over to personally thank each of the volunteers. After thanking each of the old men individually, the president asked the group what they intended to do with the reward money. The fire truck driver looked him right in the eye and said, "The first thing we’re going to do is fix the brakes on that truck!" Things are not always as they seem. A person’s motivation may not be what you expect it to be. Especially when your standard for judgment is yourself.
As we open to the gospel of Luke this morning we see that our Lord is still ministering in the area of Perea on the east side of the Jordan, teaching his disciples the secrets of the kingdom of God. As the tax-gatherers and sinners gathered around him to listen to his teaching, a group of Pharisees surrounded him also. This is the same crowd which began in chapter 15 to hear his parables inviting everyone to God’s feast, about God seeking lost things and the call to put God above the world. However, the Pharisees, did not have an easy time with Jesus’ preaching and at these last words they scoffed at him. P’h-h-h Yeah right! Jesus. “you cannot serve God and mammon”. Get real, that’s not what we teach. You can sense the tension building, can’t you between the Pharisees and Jesus with the disciples and the crowd watching it all with baited breath. These two sources of religious authority, Jesus the back country lay preacher on one hand and the established religious higherarchy on the other hand were clearly at odds when it came to interpreting the will of God. A difference of opinions that put their religious teachings into a head-on collision. You see in Jesus’ day there was a commonly held belief that went like this. If a person obeyed God’s commandment God would then bless them the result of that blessing being: Long life, Prosperity, and Wealth. A + B = C. Simply really. Except that the religious leaders, who like the founding fathers of our country, were the land owners, the rich, the makers and shakers, had turned that common belief around so that it now said, “If you are rich then you must be blessed by God, therefore, you must be in the will of God.” C + B = A. So to the Pharisees to serve mammon, that is to seek after wealth and possessions, was the same thing as serving God. The rich believed this. The poor believed this. Even Jesus’ own disciples believed this to be true. In John 9:1-3 we read, “And as He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?’” By this standard it was easy to determine who was in and who was out of God’s favor. If you were poor, unemployed, ill, deformed, then of course you were on the outside. For God clearly had not blessed you. If, on the other hand, you had been born into a wealthy and powerful family. If you been raised with a silver spoon in your mouth. Had never gone without, never suffered, never wanted for anything. Then surely you were one of God’s favored people. God’s blessings must surely be on you and all that you did was within the will of God. So standing there before Jesus was a crowd of people who thought that they were on the outside. A group of disciples hoping to make it to the inside. And handful of Pharisees who knew for a fact that they were already on the inside.
To all who had gathered there Jesus said, “There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table; moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.” Ah, a story about the blessed and the cursed, and everyone knows who is who. Don’t we! But nothing is as it seems for we are dealing with the Son of God and his opinions come straight from the King of Heaven Himself. So keep your opinions to yourself, lest you be surprised to find that you’re wrong. “Now it came about that the poor man died and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom.” Now wait a minute here, this isn’t the way it’s suppose to work out. You’re telling the story wrong Jesus. You have to tell it right You know, the way we would tell the story. One of my favorite movies is “The Princess Bride.” The screen play was written by William Goldman, based on a his favorite story by S. Morgenstern. As the movie opens you see a sick boy in bed playing video baseball. His grandfather comes to visit and reads him this book, a story of adventure and love in the far off land of Florin. In one scene the sick boy interrupts his grandfather and says “No, Grandpa, you read it wrong! Buttercup can’t marry Prince Humperdink, she’s in love with Wesley. It’s not right, she has to marry her true love.” To which his grandfather replies, ““who’s telling this story.”
Things are not always as we may like them, most especially when it comes to the story of the kingdom of God. It’s not a story about wealth and power. It’s a story of true love. A story in which mercy and compassion win over self-satisfaction and greed, self-centeredness and arrogance. It is the greatest story ever told, for true love was victorious over pride, over covetousness, over evil, over death. There is far more to this story than most of us realize. Let us listen to the story again, as if for the first time. “And the rich man said to Abraham, I beg you, Father, that you send Lazarus to my father’s house for I have five brothers that he may warn them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ But he said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’” We too, like the Pharisees area people of Book. We hear the words of Moses and the Prophets, but do we listen. We have been visited by the one who has risen from the dead, but have we been persuaded that the being a part of the kingdom is truly a gift of Grace. Do we have the conviction to live by the compassion of the one who bids, “take up your cross and follow me”?
Conclusion
It is the Paradox Of Our Age that we have so much wealth and still are so spiritually poor. An unknown author wrote this about modern life. We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less. We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness. Have we all simply written our own story to justify the way that we live. But on September 11 everything changed. On Monday there were people trying to separate each other by race, sex, color and creed. On Tuesday they were all holding hands. On Monday people argued with their kids about picking up their room. On Tuesday the same people could not get home fast enough to hug their kids. On Monday we were irritated that our rebate checks had not arrived. On Tuesday we were mailing our checks to the Red Cross. It is sadly ironic how it takes horrific events to place things into perspective, but it has. The lessons we’ve learned, the things we have taken for granted, the things that have been forgotten, hopefully will never be forgotten again. But remember, what we could only remember after Tuesday, God has never forgotten. God knows what is of true value, the ones for whom He gave His son. We all have a choice from this day forth, we can either pursue after the American dream or we can seek after the kingdom of God. Let us not confuse the two. Remember, It’s only money. As we prepare to enter into a time of prayer I would like to share with you this prayer given by Bob Pierce the founder of World Vision who prayed, “Heavenly Father, bless not what we are doing. But let us do what You are blessing.”