Luke 16.19-31

LOVING ONE’S NEIGHBOUR

(Luke 16.19-31)

Sunday by Sunday, the congregation told God publicly how much they loved him through their worship.

Yet, day by day, it was my late wife who privately washed and fed the disfigured body of Arthur Collins, as he lay dying alone at his home from cancer of the tongue. Not a very pretty sight, I assure you.

Yes, it is always very easy to give lip service to our love for God, particularly when we are surrounded by like-minded people. It is much more difficult to put those words into action, particularly among those whom we may find both difficult to like and to love.

The author of the epistle of St James recognised this when he wrote, "Anyone who says 'I love God', but hates his brother, is a liar, since a man who does not love his brother whom he can see, cannot love God whom he has never seen."

In other words, the acid test as regards the genuineness of our love for God is our love for other people. Our vertical relationship with God should find expression in our horizontal relationship with other people.

But that is what the Pharisees and the Scribes, in the days of Jesus, could not understand. They were very full of their love for God but they failed to see the need to express that love in action. They walked around with their spiritual noses stuck up in the air and failed to see the people in need as being their responsibility.

This is why Jesus told the parable of Dives and Lazarus.

The story falls into three parts.

In the first part, we are told that Dives was a rich man, who dressed and ate well. By contrast, Lazarus was a poor man who dressed in rags and relied upon the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table to satisfy his hunger.

In the second part the position of Dives and Lazarus was reversed. The poor man dies and goes to heaven, whilst the rich man goes to Hades. Now instead of Lazarus looking for favours from Dives, Dives looks for favours from Lazarus.

Whereas Lazarus had previously relied upon the scavenging dogs to alleviate his suffering by licking his sores, it is now Dives who asks Lazarus to alleviate his suffering by dipping his finger into water to cool his tongue.

In the final part of the story, Dives, now painfully aware of the mistakes of his life, asks for someone to go and warn his brothers, who are still alive about what could happen to them.

This story has a popular appeal because goodness appears to be rewarded and badness appears to be punished.

But this is not the point of the story.

It is not a story to encourage us to be good. It is not a story to cheer up the poor. It is not a story to condemn wealth. And neither is it a story to promote belief in the after-life.

It is essentially a story to challenge you and me, here and now, to stop giving just lip service to our love for God, and to start putting that love into action by caring for our neighbours.

Nowhere is such love better displayed in human form than in the person of Jesus, the image of the invisible God. Day by day, Jesus demonstrated his love for God through his love for people.

This was a love which knew no limits. It was a love which embraced everyone, including those he may have found it difficult both to love and to like. A love which was sacrificial in giving even to the point of death upon the cross.

It is this model of Christian love and action which distinguishes it from secular humanistic love. Above all it is a love which we see symbolically expressed upon the cross. Just as the cross reaches from earth to heaven and at the same time reaches out to embrace the whole world, so also should our love for God and our neighbour.

It is said, that upon hearing the story of Dives and Lazarus Albert Schweitzer - that great musician, theologian and physician - decided that he must go and serve his neighbour. This for Schweitzer meant leaving the comfortable life of Europe to go and work with lepers in Africa. There he founded a hospital at Lambarene in French Equatorial Africa, where he remained until he died at the age of 90 in 1965.

Who and where is your neighbour who needs your love today? It is not enough just to leave it to others – let alone to the Vicar’s wife.