The Name He Knew

Two men, and a gate between them, and everything in the story is decided by that gate.

"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores," — Luke 16:19-20 (KJV)

Named Lazarus. Hold onto that, because it is the whole sermon if you catch it early. The rich man has no name. Jesus gives the beggar a name and leaves the rich man anonymous, and that is not an accident, that is the verdict, handed down before the story even starts. And Lazarus is not down the road at some distant shelter. He is at his gate. The rich man had to see him, or arrange not to see him, every single day on the way to the table.

"And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores." — Luke 16:21 (KJV)

Crumbs. Lazarus is not asking for a chair. He is asking for what falls on the floor. And he does not get even that. The only mercy in the scene comes from the dogs, who at least come near him. The man inside will not.

"And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;" — Luke 16:22 (KJV)

Both die, the way both always do. And now the parable turns, and gives you a detail that should stop your breath.

"And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." — Luke 16:24 (KJV)

Send Lazarus. He knows his name. From torment, the first words out of the rich man's mouth are the beggar's name, which means he had it the whole time. He did not walk past a nameless lump at his gate for years. He walked past Lazarus. He could have called across the yard and said the man's name any morning he chose, and he chose, every morning, to step over him and go eat. That is the horror of it. Not that he never saw the beggar. That he saw him, knew him, knew his name, and stepped over it to dinner.

"And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence." — Luke 16:26 (KJV)

A great gulf fixed. Here is what the parable will not let you miss. The gulf in the next life is not new. It is the same gap that ran through his own front yard, the distance between the table and the gate, only now it is set hard and permanent. He spent an entire life digging it, one ignored morning at a time, one step over Lazarus at a time, and death simply poured the concrete he had already been mixing. The chasm was his own construction. He just never felt it hardening under his feet.

"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." — Luke 16:31 (KJV)

He wants a ghost sent to warn his five brothers. Abraham tells him no. They have Moses and the prophets. If a man will not hear the word already in his hands, a dead man walking into his living room will not move him either. And Luke's first readers knew the joke that is not funny. One did rise from the dead, and most of them did not believe him either.

Paul says the quiet part out loud.

"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." — 1 Timothy 6:10 (KJV)

The rich man's sin was never that he had wealth. It was that his wealth made him rich in nothing else. Purple and fine linen and a full table, and not one good work at his own gate. And Paul gives the cure in the same breath.

"Charge them that are rich in this world... That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;" — 1 Timothy 6:17-18 (KJV)

Rich in good works. That is the only wealth that crosses the gulf. And the week's first reading shows a man betting on exactly that. Jeremiah, sitting in a city about to fall, buys a field, on purpose, as a sign that God's future is real and worth putting money down on.

"Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land." — Jeremiah 32:15 (KJV)

The rich man invested everything in the table and nothing in the future that outlasts it. Jeremiah put his money on the kingdom that was coming. One of them was a fool, and it was not the prophet buying dirt in a doomed town.

You do not step over a beggar at a literal gate, so you have decided this parable is about someone else. But you have a gate, and there is a name at it. The coworker you keep at exactly arm's length. The relative you have quietly written off. The need you drive past on a route you chose so you would not have to see it. You know the name. That is the whole indictment. Not that you cannot see them, but that you can, and you do, and you step over.

The rich man's gulf was not built by a single act of cruelty. It was poured by a thousand ordinary mornings, each one a small step over a man he could have named. And here is the only mercy the parable holds out to the living: yours is not fixed yet. It is still wet. Go learn the name at your gate, and cross the yard, while the concrete will still take a footprint the other way.

Amen.