Luke 16. 19-31

I want you to imagine, this morning, (this evening*) that I am a television commentator, and you have just tuned in to watch a programme called  ‘The Homes of the Rich and Famous.’

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

Hello and welcome to a brand new series called ‘The Rich and Famous’. Today we visit the home of a very rich man indeed, and you are going to love his vast property. We’ll see if you can guess who our celebrity homeowner is by the end of the programme.

I have behind me here a fabulous home in an absolutely perfect location, with beautiful panoramic views of the Mediterranean sea to our left and acres of rich vineyards over to our right.

The asking price for this particular property would be phenomenal, so let’s not even go there. Come through this decorative arched gate with me and you’ll see why.

Can someone remove that mess from under the window please, what is it and what ARE those dogs doing over there? It’s a what? A beggar? Well can one of the crew get him out of here please? …It’s going to be one of those days!

Let’s do that last part again.

I have behind me here a fabulous home in an absolutely perfect location, with beautiful panoramic views of the Mediterranean sea to our left and acres of rich vineyards over to our right. The asking price for this particular property is phenomenal, so let’s not even go there. Come through this decorative arched gate with me and you’ll see why.

You’ll see some beautiful features inside but first we must cross over the front courtyard to admire one of the finest pieces of mosaic I’ve ever seen, very highly polished with original chips of marble. Look at that pattern, isn’t fabulous?

Here we have a ten-bedroom villa, with verandas and formal gardens back and front. It has a swimming pool overlooking the sea, and a massive outdoor water feature to the rear, where water simply tumbles and falls gently down into the gorge below. Imagine sitting out her with a glass of the finest wine.

 Over here we have a luxurious play area for the owner’s pedigree dogs. I bet they have the time of their lives here.

This is indeed a house hunter’s dream is it not? I told you you’d be excited. In front of me, over the gorge you can see beautiful views now of a small thriving town, but one with a big history believe me. The town is quite sparsely populated, and over there we see the town gates.

 Let’s enter through the rear of the building

Inside we have six large panelled rooms, with marble floors, and we’re now standing in what is the large and glittering banqueting hall, more like a large entertainment centre, with a mezzanine level above perhaps for musicians, to while away the hours while you are drinking excellent wines and eating sumptuous foods. There’s room here for many guests, all of them influential and wealthy no doubt.

I wonder if you’ve guessed yet who our celebrity is? Let me at this point give you a few clues.

The activity that our rich host has been involved in:

He alone was responsible for a new kind of animal feed, actually turning cows into carnivores, making them unwitting devourers of their own kind, quite ingenious.

He also was involved in clearing the countryside of 200,000 miles of hedgerows to make room for massive and exciting new building programmes.

He has been responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and the burning of many fossil fuels, which may help us to get rid of all that unnecessary ice in the Polar Regions, and help bring about changes to erratic patterns of weather.

He is one of the world’s 400 billionaires, possessing a greater wealth than the combined incomes of countries that contain 45% of the world’s population.

Have you guessed who he is yet?

There’s more…

One of his biggest contribution to the political world stage was the stand he made when there was an attempt to cancel third world debt, which if it had been set in place during the jubilee year could have devastated the worldwide economy.

He supports the kind of world where the rich can only get richer and the poor know their place, but rather than see the poor remain in the poverty trap, he encouraged export of foods which would benefit the wealthier nations.

The poor were obliged to produce coffee, tea, sugar, and timber, rather than products for their own survival, and of course they were caught up in competition with other developing nations providing the same, so that value of all these products on the worldwide market declined.

This was unfortunate and had a devastating effect on their health, water provision and education, but this was a cunning move by our wealthy host so that he and others could enjoy additional prosperity, and not have to make unecessary sacrifices.

He was also a leading light to business men and politicians the world over in insisting on monumental pay increases of 26%, when public sector workers had to fight for a mere 5% of their paltry pay but that’s life and he was in a position of control to do so.

He was an investor also in the lucrative arms trade and made huge profits, generously negotiating deals all over the world with countries who could ill afford to defend themselves never mind feed their own people. But he argued if he hadn’t provided them with arms, then other dealers would have done.

 But his deals have helped to put some very dodgy weapons in the hands of unstable governments throughout the world, many of them neighbours to the other, but at least both now have weapons with which to fight one another. Thanks to him.

On top of all this our host today is a top director in the tobacco industry, which has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people each year…

And might I add, he has done his utmost to increase profits in the alcohol trade with some very fine creative ideas in the world of advertising, increasing sales especially with appeal to the younger generation, AND IN PARTICULAR women in who have responded with such enthusiasm.

Perhaps I’d better not go into the latest one of his ventures in the film industry because there may be children watching, and I know this is being this is being screened before 9 o’clock.

However I think by now you can will have guessed that the name of this celebrity whose home we’re visited today, and might I say how grateful we are for his hospitality in giving our cameras free access to his wonderful home here.

Hi name of course in INASENSE  ALL GUILTY  TOSOME EXTENT. (words on a large card)

Someone we all know very well indeed.

Do join us next week when we’ll be visiting the home of a neighbour of our celebrity today, who was actually promised to meet us here but as yet has not turned up. I’ll give you a clue. His first name is Lazarus.

Are you any wiser? No neither am I?

So let’s tune in then, to find out all about him.

See you then, goodbye from us all here on homes of the Rich and Famous.

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The first thing we note in our gospel reading today is that the rich man certainly had the attitude, ‘Let’s live for today and make the most of it!’ He was dressed in the finest attire and ate from a sumptuous banquet.

He was totally indifferent to the beggar, lying covered with sores beneath his window.

Dogs licked his wounds. 

All the rich man had to do was look out of the window…

Perhaps he had looked out and had a few tears over the poor man’s condition, but then being so caught up in other things, the scene simply faded from his mind.

Perhaps he looked out and blamed Lazarus for not helping himself, for being lazy, for scrounging, for being a waster who didn’t deserve any help at all. That here was a condition he had brought upon himself.

Perhaps he asked himself what could one person do for the likes of him, and why wasn’t someone else helping him?

Perhaps he was irritated to be so often reminded of his presence. Why his window, and not someone else’s?

Perhaps he was just plain selfish, and chose to ignore the needs of Lazarus? Out of sight, out of mind, close the window; turn off the television screen!

But see him through the window he did, because when their situations were reversed, and they had both passed on into eternity, it was Lazarus’s name he called out to, expecting mercy that he never afforded to him in his lifetime.

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Secondly, the rich man never thought he would ever be called to account for the style of life he had chosen, nor to account for his neglect of the poor man. Even in eternity he is unrepentant, and demands water to be brought to him by Lazarus. Still he is treating him with contempt; still he looks on him arrogantly like a lackey. Never at any time did he look upon him as a brother in need.

One dies of neglect; the other of excess.

Gandhi once said,

‘I suggest that we are thieves in a way. If I take anything that I do not need for my immediate use, and keep it, I thieve from somebody else. ‘ He goes on to speak of the millions hungry in his country.

 ‘You and I have no right to anything that we really have until these three millions are clothed and fed better. You and I who ought to know better, must adjust our wants, and even undergo voluntary starvation in order that they be nursed, fed and clothed.’

Is this too drastic do you think?

At one extreme there is this view and at the other…there we are in the western world.

I wonder how many programmes on holidays and homes and gardens we watched and coveted, like the one we have just been hearing about, which go to the other extreme, where wealth, excess, luxury is exalted and worshipped.

What we highly esteem God seems to abhor!

And what we abhor God seems to exalt!

Are we guilty for training our little ones from an early age to be consumerists in the ‘I want ‘stakes’.

And dare we go to our shopping malls and not return with buying something/?and should we return with nothing, do we  find ourselves depressed?

Are we preparing for eternity, or living for the moment’s pleasure in our world today?

 ‘But Lord,’ cries the rich man, ‘I didn’t realise I would be called to account, all this eternity business is real after all, let me go and warn my brothers!’

If we really believed all this ‘eternity business’ perhaps we too wouldn’t be living as we do!

But as it warns us in this reading, the word of God is sufficient revelation to call people to belief, and commitment to our fellow man!

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Thirdly we’re not just talking about food here. Humankind must be set free from all the forces that oppress him, of the natural, economic and political order, as set out by the TV commentator before.

These are issues happening in the here and now, which we ought to be speaking out against, and making our protests about. If something is unjust and oppressive we need to speak out, and not just ask ourselves ‘What can one person do?’

Story of little Japanese boy/picture postcards 10p each, raising £1m for earthquake relief; gentleman at the door laughs at his impossible task.

The man asks him if he expects to raise the whole amount himself?

He replies, “No sir, There’s another boy helping me!”

I, and so many of my own generation today and those younger find it hard to imagine real poverty or hardship, because we haven’t experienced it ourselves. We could learn more, by asking those who are older and do remember such experiences.

It’s fairly obvious that this could have been one of the reasons for the Rich Man’s neglect of Lazarus. But there is no excuse, for he has seen Lazarus through the window of his world …

and so have, have we not?

We have seen our poor, and our oppressed and our damaged ones through the window of ours, which is through a television screen.

And how have we responded?

How will we excuse ourselves in eternity if we have not moved a muscle to help?

There is nothing wrong in enjoying the benefits of our labours, but we need to ask ourselves have we lost a sense of proportion and have we lost our higher Christian values in the race to ‘have more and more.’

The Old Testament prophets demand that we put the very foundations of our faith, in order, and build them and others up.

Listen to the prophet Haggai:-

‘Is it a time for you to be living in your panelled houses, while this house remains a ruin?’

The New Testament invites us to adjust the balance of power and wealth;-

‘Our desire is not that others may be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality!’

The New Testament today recommends:-

‘There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into this world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these!’

And so let us not set our hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather upon God our rich provider.

Let us do good, to be rich in good works, let us be generous and ready to share, and store up for ourselves the treasures of a good foundation for the future, so that we may take hold of LIFE that really is LIFE.

Abundant life for every person, salvation for all, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

AMEN