“The Gospel of the Cross”

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost

September 28, 2025

Amos 6:1a, 4-7

Luke 16:19-31

Children’s Message:

Look at these stickers! They’re so cool. I’m going to pretend that it’s actual money. And you know what? I want that money. I want to cover myself in that money. Look at me! I’m worth so much money!

What do you think? How do I look? Silly? You know which sticker I haven’t used at all? The one that says “Make offer.” I wonder what that means.

You know, today we heard the story about a rich man who lived in a big house. And outside his front gate lay a man who had nothing. Who was sick and hungry and dying. BIG difference! What do you think happened? What could have happened?

But the rich man loved his money and his power so much that it never occurred to him that he might use it to help people. He never offered. Jesus told this story to help his followers see that how we treat others is important. Not because they deserve it or are covered in stickers. But because God loves them just as much as God love you. And God loves me.

No one is outside of God’s love, and no one deserves to be forgotten, and no one deserves to have so much that they can forget, either.

Let’s pray. Dear God, sometimes we forget to look for you in the world. Open our eyes to see you in your children all around us. Amen.

Message:

There was a rich man. That’s how last week’s parable began, as well. In between the two, Jesus chastised the Pharisees for loving money more than people. There was a rich man. There was a rich man who had a manager. There was a man who had two sons—rich is implied in the inheritance. This is the third time, then, that Jesus tells us a parable about a rich man.

This time, there is no return of the son; this time, there is no praise of the manager; this time, the damage is done. There is no turning back. Both the rich man and Lazarus die, and the consequences are set. The rich man finds himself in Hades—which, by the way, is a Greek construct, not a Jewish one. And Lazarus finds himself nestled into the arms of Abraham, safe and sound. Accustomed to ordering people around, the rich man tells Abraham to send Lazarus to tend to him. Arrogant and presumptious.

This isn’t a parable about heaven and hell, about end times, about works-righteousness, or even about wealth.  It’s about relationship and how we use relationships—how we’re in relationship.  At the beginning of the story, the rich man wasn’t even aware of Lazarus’ presence.  If he saw him, he didn’t care.  Lazarus had nothing to offer him, so there was no point to even engage in conversation.  After they died, the rich man found himself in need.  And still, at this point, he considered Lazarus beneath him—asking Abraham to send Lazarus as a servant to cool his tongue.

Throughout the story, the rich man saw relationship as a means to serve his needs and desires.  He used people.  He never did get the fact that Lazarus was as much a child of God as he was.  The chasm the man created between himself and Lazarus in life remained after death.  Because he refused to cross the chasm when he had the power to do so, the chasm became fixed between them forever.

Again, this is a parable—it’s a story of unrealistic proportion to make a point about God’s Kingdom.  Jesus uses it, not to warn us of hell or guilt us into doing good things; he uses it to help us see that God looks at people differently than we do.  God doesn’t regard wealth or power or even good deeds as a measure of our worth.  We don’t know if Lazarus was a good person who did good deeds.  We only know that he suffered—in large part because of the neglect of those who could have helped.

In essence, the rich man stayed in his fancy home, and if he saw Lazarus at all, he sent him thoughts and prayers. That’s what we do, isn’t it? And it’s not always because we don’t care. Most of the time, for most of us, it’s because we don’t know what else to do. We don’t know what else to say. Or the efforts before us—the things we know we SHOULD do—feel impossible. Or they challenge our way of life.

There are a lot of reasons we don’t act. But the reality is that our inaction, our ambivalence, our apathy aren’t good enough reasons to let Lazarus languish at the gate. Right now, thousands of Palestinians are dying. People are dying—in the Holy Land—because people who identify themselves as God’s Chosen People want something they have.

Palestinians are being starved. They are being shot when they try to access what little food is allowed into Gaza. Aid workers are shot trying to bring food in. Hospitals and schools are bombed. All for Israel to say, “Get out. It’s ours.”

Men, women, and children lie at the gate of the powerful, and they are seen. They are seen—and told to get out. Even the dogs don’t have a chance to lick their wounds. It’s genocide. And the U.S. is helping. Because of an ideology. An ideology that has perverted Scripture. One that takes God’s Holy Word and turns it inside out, telling people that only once the nation of Israel possesses the land which God granted the Ancient Hebrews, can Zion can be built and Jesus will return.

So, we ignore the plight of the needy in order to force God’s hand and send Jesus back. In what wild world of distortion does that sound Christlike in any way? But this is the chasm being built. By those with money. By those with power. By those who use Jesus as a tool to get what they want. This is exactly what the prosperity gospel does. It distorts Scripture so that those in power can feel good about it without responsibility for the well-being of anyone else.

The prosperity gospel aligns itself with power. It tells us that we can and should be wealthy and healthy—that God blesses the faithful with worldly goods. It disdains the weak and poor as unfaithful and lazy. Only those who ‘deserve’ God’s love will get it. If you don’t have what you want or need, pray harder, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and make sure to worship those who have power over you—whether it be religious or political power.

But the gospel of the cross—the gospel Jesus came to proclaim—challenges power. It challenges the use of wealth for personal gain. It challenges the empire’s attempt at ‘peace’ by use of the sword—by use of military might. The gospel of the cross turns the world as know it upside down—the first are last, the rich are poor, blessed are the meek and the mourners. The shepherd leaves the 99 to find the one who is lost. The father reinstates the son and throws a party even before the son can apologize.

The gospel of the cross always stands with the vulnerable and marginalized. Luke brings this out better than the other gospels. Luke tells the story of Jesus from a very grounded and every-day point of view. In Luke, Jesus doesn’t say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit;” he says, “Blessed are the poor.” And he follows up the blessings with woes: “Woe to you who are full now; woe to you celebrate now; woe to you who are rich; woe to you who are celebrated.”

Jesus forgives as he dies, hanging from the cross. He eats with tax collectors and sinners. He heals the sick, feeds the hungry. He welcomes strangers and makes them friends. He visits the outsiders. He restores dignity to sinners. He loves the unloving and the unlovable. He sacrifices his life in order to show the world that God’s ways are astronomically different than our ways—that God will never stoop to the pitiful and demeaning ideology of prosperity.

And thank goodness for that.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE