The One God Helps

By Jared Warner

Willow Creek Friends Church

September 28, 2025

Click Here to Join our Meeting for Worship

If you would like to read the transcript in English or Swahili click here

Kama ungependa kusoma nakala kwa Kiingereza au Kiswahili bonyeza hapa

Luke 16:19–31 (ESV)

¹⁹ “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. ²⁰ And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, ²¹ who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. ²² The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, ²³ and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. ²⁴ And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ ²⁵ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. ²⁶ And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ ²⁷ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— ²⁸ for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ ²⁹ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ ³⁰ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ ³¹ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”

Today we meet with Jesus as he again interacts with the religious leaders. For the past couple of weeks we have listened to Jesus’s parables. He spoke about the lost sheep and the lost coin as the Pharisees watched the sinners and the tax collectors draw near to him and have a meal. He then told the parable of the the lost son. Last week he focused his attention on his disciples and he shared the parable that I said I really disliked, unfortunately the Pharisees overheard what Jesus said and they too did not care for what was said. They particularly took offense to the statement, “You cannot serve God and money,” as Luke commented that they were lovers of money.

I sat this week with the passage we read not really knowing where I should begin, and I realized that I cannot begin without backing up just a bit. The Pharisees were getting upset with Jesus, they looked at him, they watched him, they observed who he spoke to and who he ate with. They were watching every move. And then they overhear him teaching his disciples, that parable I dislike and it sets them off. They begin to ridicule him. But Jesus is not the quiet man that we often imagine. Jesus speaks up.

I want us to go back to verse 14 and look at something. “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. And he said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.”

I want you to imagine the scene. See the passion and the anger pulsating on the face of Jesus, as they ridicule him over their interpretation of the sayings of God. Then out of seemingly no where he gives a one liner. “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.”

Why did Jesus say this at that moment?

I want us to just sit with this for a moment. I assure you that I am not speaking out against anyone, I myself can be included in that statement. But Jesus said those words for a reason. It immediately shut everyone up. They were getting up in arms about how Jesus was eating dinner with the sinners and how it was not right for him to do so. They were giving him a lesson about how amazing they were. How righteous they were. How much better they were in comparison with everyone else around them.

They were ridiculing Jesus about his interpretation of the law. And he shut them up with that one statement. Why that statement?

We have a great deal of attention within religious circles about marriage. And quite frankly I have gotten tired of listening to it. We have lifted marriage up to a status of near idolatry. Not just marriage but the acts sanctified within marriage. But with all this talk and focus do we remember what it was actually for?

Often when we discuss marriage we go back to Genesis, and we talk about how Adam was created from the dust of the earth and how God breathed into his nostrils and gave him life. We then jump on ahead and we say that Adam was alone and so God caused him to fall asleep and from one of Adam’s ribs God created Eve. Its a great story but one we often miss the nuance to. God fashioned out of Adam’s side not rib, it literally means that God split Adam in half and he created a rescuer, not merely a help mate. A rescuer. God did not fashion marriage he built a community of rescuers. A dynamic due so to speak. He split humanity in half and he called the two halves rescuers. Eve is not there to satisfy Adam’s carnal desires, she is there to keep Adam from dying. And the same could be said in the opposite direction.

Marriage is about community, it is about survival. It is a recognition that I need help. But the religious leaders had twisted it along with everything else about the Law of God, and suddenly it has nothing to do with the need for mutual assistance and instead it is about selfish satisfaction and carnal desires. What was once help and rescue. What was once something that would ensure survival had become a tool of manipulation.

Jesus says this to the fuming Pharisees and they shut their mouths, and he begins to tell another parable.

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.”

This is a unique parable. It is the only parable that Jesus gives where a character is given a name, that name is Lazarus. This is an interesting name. Eventually it will be the name of the man that Jesus raises from the dead, but that is later. The name Lazarus was during that time period the third most common name of men in that area, and it is the name of the second high priest of Israel. And the name means the one God helps.

Why did Jesus choose this name for this man? It is the stereotypical man. The common man. The everyday man in Israel is not the man sitting in fine linen eating a feast, but its Lazarus.

In this period of time there were basically only two classes of people within a society. There were rich and poor. Slave or free. Rulers and the ruled. There was really no such thing as a middle class, this is largely a thing of modern invention, so when we look at this parable we need to see it for what it truly is. The man in purple is a rich man, someone in governmental stature since only certain people can ware purple, and man that live according to his means.

This rich man, this leader of men, was just living his life and there was a poor man named Lazarus laid at his gate. The wording here is a bit too tame as the word we have translated as laid means to throw or to cast. The idea is that this man Lazarus was discarded or tossed aside. The image that Jesus is trying to convey is that this man was trash, had absolutely no value to the community. He was of so little value that the dogs licked his sores.

The dogs is a strong picture as well. Dogs in ancient times were not the nice pets we have today. They were packs of scavengers roaming around, semi domesticated but not exactly safe. They were outsiders ready to take whatever they could. Because of this the outsiders of the community were often called dogs as a derogatory term, even Jesus is recorded as using this in conversation. This does not mean we should be free to use derogatory language but there are moments where a well placed word will shock us to attention. In this story Lazarus is lower than low. He is trash. He is so worthless that even the outsiders, the gentiles are above him.

This man is thrown out, discarded, but where is he thrown? He is at the rich man’s gate. There are two classes of people the rulers and those that are ruled over, the masters and the slaves. And in this society the gate was the court of justice. This indicates that Lazarus was a subject of the rich man.

We like to say that Jesus does not speak about politics. This is not exactly true, Jesus speaks about social justice all the time, the problem is that our cultures are different. This is a story about miscarriage of justice. Lazarus, the one God Helps, is literally tossed out like trash before the court of justice and those that have the ability to help are unaffected.

The poor man dies and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at this side. The tables are now turned and the rich man is in torment, and the man that was once neglected is satisfied. He cries out for mercy, he cries out to Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water to cool his tongue. He knows this poor man’s name in death but was unmoved in life to even drive the dogs away. But notice what is said in response there is a commanding verb that is so often used in scripture. Remember.

Remember

As I was growing up I remember this passage being used to scare me into turning my life to Christ. The pastor would use the words of Jesus to prove that Hell was real and that the fires were as well. I do not know if this is the point of the story but there is something here that is important. That word remember. “Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.” I do not know if hell is hot, I have never been there and I personally do not have any desire to visit. But there is something very ominous about remembering.

This man knew Lazarus, yet did not help. He knew his name, he allowed him to be tossed at his gate and he did nothing. Remember Abraham says to his child. Remember all that you had available to you, and yet you did not help. And now when the tables are turned suddenly you remember the name. Only when you are in trouble, only when you are now facing torment do you seek mercy. Where was that mercy before?

“And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.”

I was once taught to draw the four spiritual laws on a napkin when I went to Ukraine. I would draw on that napkin the great chasm that could only be bridged by the cross of Christ. I have often reflected on the things I was once taught. I have thought about how this passage has been used to point to heaven and hell. And then I remember verse eighteen.

Why does Jesus talk about divorce and remarriage between the parable of the deceptive servant and this parable about Lazarus and the rich man?

Marriage was created to provide help. Man needed a rescuer so God gave him Eve. And together they were to make the world God created into the living temple for God. But something happened. They were distracted. They had a desire to become something they were not intended to be they fell and out of that fall separation entered the world. The great divorce.

From the time of Cain, humanity has sought their own form of rescue. We build cities and civilizations, we build tools of war and domination. We see wealth and power all to secure our rescue for ourselves. But this only creates a deeper an wider chasm. When the one God helps is laying at the very gates we had constructed. Oh but send Lazarus to tell my brothers, send Lazarus to warn the world of its own destruction? But we already know. We already know that we are creatures of great destruction if left to our own devises. We will destroy because we want more. Abraham told that rich man, “they have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.”

What is the message that Moses and the Prophets say? Hear O’ Israel the Lord your God is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength and love your neighbor as your self.

From the beginning God created us to love one another and to love him. We were created to build a community based on shared labor and profit, two sides of one whole. That is what we reject. And we reject it every day when we fail to see that of God in the person at our gates. When we say that some do not have the rights that others poses we reject that of God. When we say one deserves more or less we reject God. When we say that I have built a city, a business, a family on my own. We are rejecting that of God. God is the one that provided the help, and we are the ones that God helps. We can acknowledge that now or we can see it later. But we will all eventually remember. Did we hear them? Did we see them? Or were we too focused on our own cloaks of purple?

There are many things I would like to say regarding this parable. Most of the things I want to say would likely cause division. But I keep coming back to verse eighteen. Why is it there? Why is this whole chapter in the Gospel of Luke. I just really do not like this chapter in general. But why does Jesus in the middle of all the weirdness include that one statement about divorce and remarriage?

I think it has to do with our idea of greener pastures on the other side of the fence. We think if only this or that would change in my life then I would be satisfied. If only this or that person was elected. If only. Lazarus is already at the gate. And we are him. We have suffered, we have gone through pain we have experienced loss. But we are not that person any more. We are also the rich man feasting at the table. We look out at an trip over the man tossed at the gate and we mutter and curse that they are there. We see without seeing and we hear without listening. Abraham told that rich man, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” We believe that Jesus did pass from death to life. We believe that He did bridge that gap across the abyss. We believe, or do we?