The Big Switch-a-Roo

You know when you are watching a mystery movie and you have worked out who-done-it? It is all logical and your conclusion makes sense. Suddenly you become aware of a dynamic that you missed or that comes into play late; everything has changed and it proves to be someone else.
Sometimes you feel a bit cheated because there was a big switch in the story you couldn’t predict.

Today’s parable from Luke 16 has that element of switch. A rich man and a poor man, called Lazarus, both die. Lazarus goes up and the rich man goes down. There is no question of their belief in God. The rich man goes down because he hasn’t fulfilled his responsibility to care for Lazarus who begged at the rich man’s door. In the after life there is a big switch-a-roo.
Their culture suggested that the rich man was blessed by God and could expect to go up and Lazarus who was cursed with sickness and poverty could expect to go down. But the opposite has happened.

Jesus is talking to some Pharisees who believe in the current teaching. This is a story to shock them out of their complacency towards their moral and social responsibility. Being religious is not just about the set rituals, practices and belief, but about the practicalities of loving one another. Faith is not just a personal, private belief system, but a way of life that touches every aspect of who we are.

This is a judgement passage. It says something about the measure of God’s judgement. Here is a paradox. Being a Christian is not measured by what we do. We cannot earn it with good deeds. It is about who we believe in. But believing in Jesus requires following Jesus, who loved in very practical ways. We are following someone who offered acceptance, justice, healing and hope to everyone who needed it. He loved people profoundly and practically. Without doing that we cannot be called followers, or even believers, in Jesus.

Every time Jesus spoke about the measure of God’s judgement it was always in the context of what we have done, not as acts of duty, but as the natural acts of a changed life. This story is about the rich man who failed to love Lazarus and was punished for it. Each of us has our own story. This story is a warning about complacency and the thinking which suggests we can separate our faith from the practicalities of our lives with others.

The question is, “Who is your Lazarus?” Who is begging at your door to be loved? For rich people like us he might look a little like Lazarus, or he might be a refugee, a drug addict, an unemployed person or an aborigine. He might be someone you hardly notice, but you might criticise from time to time. Jesus calls us love them practically. If this does not seem natural to you then Jesus warns you through this story, “Watch out for the big switch-a-roo.”