Sunday, September 28, 2025
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Luke 16:19-31
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
In his poem “Mending Wall” Robert Frost writes: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” He goes on to explain that nature itself doesn’t love walls – that ice and roots and gravity make it their work to break walls apart. And that makes walls unnatural.
Still, we humans love to build them. And for sure, walls can and do serve noble purposes. They protect us and shelter us. And walls can help to keep the social order. In the same poem, Frost also writes: “Good fences make good neighbors.” Well, sometimes.
When I was in kindergarten, my family and I moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana where my father took a new pulpit. The church and parsonage sat side-by-side on a very busy avenue. And all day long, traffic rushed both ways making it virtually impossible to cross to the other side.
On the other side, it was a completely different world. That’s where the black folks lived. We could see them from our house, but that road was a wall. That road also happened to serve as a division for the school district, meaning that there were kids my age just across the street; kids I could see from my front yard; yet kids I would never meet. They were my neighbors, but that road was a wall.
Walls come in all shapes and sizes. They are made of brick and stone and barbwire. But a wall can also be a hardness of heart, an entrenched opinion, a practiced ignorance, a sincerely held religious belief.
And about those kinds of walls, Scripture has a great deal to say.
Today’s Gospel lesson contains one of the most memorable, vivid, and frightening stories that Jesus ever told. Some folks think it’s a blanket condemnation of the rich. Others think it’s a clear description of hell. But I think that this story is mostly a warning about walls.
You might be interested to know that this story is not actually original to Jesus. It comes from ancient Egypt and lots of folks knew it. So, when Jesus retold this story, no doubt the crowd people nodded in recognition. “Oh, this is a good one,” they said to their children. And, since most of them were poor, they would have waited in anticipation to hear about that great reversal when rich get what’s coming to them.
But when Jesus retold this tale, he added an interesting twist. Jesus implied that this was not just a story about money. This was the story of human separation and ignoring the suffering of others.
Once upon a time there was a very poor man named Lazarus. And every day Lazarus would lie outside the gate of the gate of the rich man’s estate. He did this because he was hungry. And all he hoped for was the bread thrown under the rich man’s table.
Now, you might be wondering why there was bread under the rich man’s table. Was he just a messy eater? No. There was bread on the floor because it was the custom of the day for the rich to use bread like a napkin. They would take a piece of bread, wipe the gravy from their mouths and hands with it, and then toss it on the floor. Sometimes this bread was used to feed the dogs. Maybe it was used to feed the same dogs that licked poor Lazarus’s open sores. And maybe he could smell that bread on their breath.
Such was his life. But one day, that life came to an end. Poor Lazarus died. And when he did, he was carried to the bosom of Abraham, a place of comfort for the righteous. Likewise, the rich man also died, despite all the money and privilege he had. But when the rich man died, he didn’t go to the bosom of Abraham. He went to Hades. And we should note that Hades is not synonymous with our concept of Hell. Instead, Hades was a shadowy but temporary world of the dead. And there, we are told, he was tormented by the flame, implying that he had a price to pay for the way he lived.
Now, even though these two men were in two very different places, they could still see each other across a great chasm. And the rich man, though he was in Hades, still thought of himself as a person of privilege. And so, he asked Father Abraham to send that Lazarus fellow, someone from the lower classes, to go and fetch him some water to cool his parched tongue. His request was promptly denied. But his sense of privilege was undeterred. And so, he asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his family not to come to such an awful place. This request was also denied, but with this stark explanation, which should give us all pause: “Your family has the Law and the Prophets. They already know what God requires of them.”
And so do we.
So, just how or why did this rich man end up in such a predicament? Well, it couldn’t be because he was rich. Father Abraham himself had been a very rich man. Some rich folks do a great deal of good in the world. So, money isn’t the problem. Walls are.
Because Lazarus used to lie right in front of the rich man’s gate, that means that every day the rich man had to step right over Lazarus in order to get to the golf course. And when he had to step over him, the man saw how desperate Lazarus’s situation was. Maybe it bothered him at first. Maybe occasionally he tossed old Lazarus a coin. But after a while, because he saw him all the time, he didn’t see Lazarus anymore. It was way more convenient that way, because a beggar at his own gate contradicted his view of the world, his political opinion, his economic policy. And so, to keep those things intact, he built a wall around his heart that eventually walled him in.
That the thing about walls – no matter how pretty they are, they eventually become our prisons. But as Frost said: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” And maybe that something is God. And maybe that disdain for walls is built right into the created order. Eventually, they all crack and crumble and tumble until, finally, there is nothing left to separate us one from the other.
Which makes it sort of ironic that this story Jesus told ends with a wall - that great chasm fixed between the rich man and Lazarus. It’s a sobering, haunting image. And so, it should be. But is that the end of the story? Is separation and fear and distrust and ignorance and punishment the end of any of our stories?
Well, they don’t have to be. And maybe this wasn’t the end of the rich man’s story. Because remember that the biblical concept of Hades is that it is temporary. And that makes me wonder if maybe one day that poor rich man finally got it. Maybe one day, he looked across that great chasm for the millionth time and finally saw what he never saw on this earth. He SAW Lazarua. He SAW his brother. He SAW his responsibility. And when he did, maybe even that wall came tumbling down; maybe even that vast chasm was breached by the grace of God. And love won. Because it always does.
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Luke 16:19-31
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
In his poem “Mending Wall” Robert Frost writes: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” He goes on to explain that nature itself doesn’t love walls – that ice and roots and gravity make it their work to break walls apart. And that makes walls unnatural.
Still, we humans love to build them. And for sure, walls can and do serve noble purposes. They protect us and shelter us. And walls can help to keep the social order. In the same poem, Frost also writes: “Good fences make good neighbors.” Well, sometimes.
When I was in kindergarten, my family and I moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana where my father took a new pulpit. The church and parsonage sat side-by-side on a very busy avenue. And all day long, traffic rushed both ways making it virtually impossible to cross to the other side.
On the other side, it was a completely different world. That’s where the black folks lived. We could see them from our house, but that road was a wall. That road also happened to serve as a division for the school district, meaning that there were kids my age just across the street; kids I could see from my front yard; yet kids I would never meet. They were my neighbors, but that road was a wall.
Walls come in all shapes and sizes. They are made of brick and stone and barbwire. But a wall can also be a hardness of heart, an entrenched opinion, a practiced ignorance, a sincerely held religious belief.
And about those kinds of walls, Scripture has a great deal to say.
Today’s Gospel lesson contains one of the most memorable, vivid, and frightening stories that Jesus ever told. Some folks think it’s a blanket condemnation of the rich. Others think it’s a clear description of hell. But I think that this story is mostly a warning about walls.
You might be interested to know that this story is not actually original to Jesus. It comes from ancient Egypt and lots of folks knew it. So, when Jesus retold this story, no doubt the crowd people nodded in recognition. “Oh, this is a good one,” they said to their children. And, since most of them were poor, they would have waited in anticipation to hear about that great reversal when rich get what’s coming to them.
But when Jesus retold this tale, he added an interesting twist. Jesus implied that this was not just a story about money. This was the story of human separation and ignoring the suffering of others.
Once upon a time there was a very poor man named Lazarus. And every day Lazarus would lie outside the gate of the gate of the rich man’s estate. He did this because he was hungry. And all he hoped for was the bread thrown under the rich man’s table.
Now, you might be wondering why there was bread under the rich man’s table. Was he just a messy eater? No. There was bread on the floor because it was the custom of the day for the rich to use bread like a napkin. They would take a piece of bread, wipe the gravy from their mouths and hands with it, and then toss it on the floor. Sometimes this bread was used to feed the dogs. Maybe it was used to feed the same dogs that licked poor Lazarus’s open sores. And maybe he could smell that bread on their breath.
Such was his life. But one day, that life came to an end. Poor Lazarus died. And when he did, he was carried to the bosom of Abraham, a place of comfort for the righteous. Likewise, the rich man also died, despite all the money and privilege he had. But when the rich man died, he didn’t go to the bosom of Abraham. He went to Hades. And we should note that Hades is not synonymous with our concept of Hell. Instead, Hades was a shadowy but temporary world of the dead. And there, we are told, he was tormented by the flame, implying that he had a price to pay for the way he lived.
Now, even though these two men were in two very different places, they could still see each other across a great chasm. And the rich man, though he was in Hades, still thought of himself as a person of privilege. And so, he asked Father Abraham to send that Lazarus fellow, someone from the lower classes, to go and fetch him some water to cool his parched tongue. His request was promptly denied. But his sense of privilege was undeterred. And so, he asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his family not to come to such an awful place. This request was also denied, but with this stark explanation, which should give us all pause: “Your family has the Law and the Prophets. They already know what God requires of them.”
And so do we.
So, just how or why did this rich man end up in such a predicament? Well, it couldn’t be because he was rich. Father Abraham himself had been a very rich man. Some rich folks do a great deal of good in the world. So, money isn’t the problem. Walls are.
Because Lazarus used to lie right in front of the rich man’s gate, that means that every day the rich man had to step right over Lazarus in order to get to the golf course. And when he had to step over him, the man saw how desperate Lazarus’s situation was. Maybe it bothered him at first. Maybe occasionally he tossed old Lazarus a coin. But after a while, because he saw him all the time, he didn’t see Lazarus anymore. It was way more convenient that way, because a beggar at his own gate contradicted his view of the world, his political opinion, his economic policy. And so, to keep those things intact, he built a wall around his heart that eventually walled him in.
That the thing about walls – no matter how pretty they are, they eventually become our prisons. But as Frost said: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” And maybe that something is God. And maybe that disdain for walls is built right into the created order. Eventually, they all crack and crumble and tumble until, finally, there is nothing left to separate us one from the other.
Which makes it sort of ironic that this story Jesus told ends with a wall - that great chasm fixed between the rich man and Lazarus. It’s a sobering, haunting image. And so, it should be. But is that the end of the story? Is separation and fear and distrust and ignorance and punishment the end of any of our stories?
Well, they don’t have to be. And maybe this wasn’t the end of the rich man’s story. Because remember that the biblical concept of Hades is that it is temporary. And that makes me wonder if maybe one day that poor rich man finally got it. Maybe one day, he looked across that great chasm for the millionth time and finally saw what he never saw on this earth. He SAW Lazarua. He SAW his brother. He SAW his responsibility. And when he did, maybe even that wall came tumbling down; maybe even that vast chasm was breached by the grace of God. And love won. Because it always does.
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