Say Their Names (Luke 16:19-31)

The following is my sermon manuscript from my message at The Bridge worship service at Woodmont Christian Church on July 2. This is what was on the paper in front of me, but I can promise you this is not exactly what I said.

My name is William Christopher Cox. The William is after my dad who goes by Bill, my Granddad who also goes by Bill—which, side note: my granddad’s name is Bill Williams and it absolutely blew my six year old mind when I figured out that his name was William Williams—and also my dad’s maternal grandfather. The Christopher in my name is because I was born in the early 1980s and it was federal law at the time that every fifth male child born in the United States would be named Christopher. Seriously, though, part of the reason my mom and dad gave me that name is because of what it means. Anyone who has rifled through those name bookmarks at Cracker Barrel can tell you that Christopher means “bearer or follower of Christ.” Faith has always been important to my family and my parents put that value into my very name.

There are bits and pieces of our parents and their histories in the name of myself and my siblings. My brother Taylor shares a middle name with my dad and his first name is a tribute to the South Carolina town where my parents met, fell in love, and served in a church. My sister Shari is named because it is a combination of Sharon and Mary—our two grandmothers—and her middle name Katherine is our mom’s name. We have the legacy of our parents’ lives in our very names, but it is remixed and rearranged into something that is unique. 

That is something that EA and I have tried to continue with our own children. Jim is James Christopher; his first name being the name of a cousin of EA’s who tragically died as a teenager. Liam is William Alexander; he shares his middle name with his grandfather on his mom’s side and he shares his first name with his dad, granddad, great-granddad, and great-great-granddad. Yet we didn’t want him to go by Bill or Will so we lopped off the first half of that name and got Liam. As a bonus, he gets to carry on my tradition of sharing a name with a ton of other boys his age.

I begin this morning speaking about names because they are doorways into our life stories. Just by talking about my family’s names these last few minutes, you have gotten a glimpse into the history of several families spread over the southeastern United States. Our names carry great weight in our souls; some of it may be baggage, some of it may be beautiful treasure that we cherish. I haven’t gone by Christopher since I was in high school, but being called that name profoundly affects me because that’s the name that my parents, brother, sister, grandparents, and other family still call me. To know someone's name, to say someone’s name is the beginning to truly knowing someone. It connects us to who they are, who has loved them, and who has cared for them. Even as someone who is not fantastic at memorizing names, I realize that our names matter.

Jesus begins today’s parable and the first character doesn’t have a name. “There was a rich man.” This anonymity is not unusual at all. Virtually no one in the parables of Jesus has a name. “There was a man who had two sons.” “In that city, there was a widow.” “Two men went up to a temple to pray.” “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” It’s sort of standard operating procedure for telling a parable. It keeps the tale universal and helps the listener’s imagination get inside the story.

So there was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. Jesus is painting a picture for his audience. This is not just a regular rich guy. By dressing in purple and fine linen and feasting each day, our rich man is a rich man who flaunts his wealth. He is a stock character. If Jesus were telling this story at a different time, the rich man would have looked like the Monopoly man wearing a top hat and monocle. If he were telling it today, the man would be pull up to his McMansion in a Lamborghini.

We have this rich man with no name because he is a stock character. “And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus.” Stop. This guy has a name. Jesus does not say “And at his gate lay a poor man,” but “And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus.” That is fascinating to me for so many different reasons. It’s fascinating because, as already mentioned, it is probably the only instance of a parable character having a name. But it’s also fascinating in the context of the story, because if anyone was going to have a name in this tale, it would be the rich guy. 

Or to perhaps put it more accurately, if anyone else besides Jesus was telling this story the rich guy would have a name and the poor man would be lost to anonymity. We know the names of the rich and powerful. Even if we have never been in the same room as them. If I asked you for the name of the billionaire founder of Microsoft, you would tell me it’s [Bill Gates]. If I inquired about the name of the five-time Super Bowl winning quarterback of the New England Patriots, more than a few of you could tell me it’s [Tom Brady].

We know the names of the rich. Not so with the poor. We often don’t know their names or their stories even if they cross our paths every single day. Just this morning I was thinking about the fact, that I have no idea what the name is of the guy who sells the Contributor on the corner of Woodmont and Hillsboro. Even though I have bought numerous papers from him. I don’t know the names of any construction workers that have taken up residence just down the street, even though they’ve opened doors for me as I’ve walked into restaurants in the area. I don’t know the name of the woman who does a great job with my burrito at Chipotle, even though I’m happy to see her when I go into Chipotle because I know that my burrito will be structurally sound because she’s there.

There was a music video that came out earlier this week that got me thinking about how so many around us are nameless. I almost used the video to open up the sermon this morning, but it is in that gray area of whether it would have worked. Clay used a Kenny Rogers video last week and this is decidedly not a Kenny Rogers song. The song comes from The Hamilton Mixtape, which is inspired by the Broadway musical Hamilton. 

The hook of the song builds off a lyric from the musical in which Alexander Hamilton—an immigrant from the Caribbean—and Marquis de Lafayette—an immigrant from France—reflect on the fact that they are about to lead American troops at the decisive Revolutionary War battle at Yorktown and they say, “Immigrants, we get the job done.” The song from this mixtape is rapped by different artists who are immigrants and refugees as they reflect on what it’s like to the be the people at the bottom working so hard to scrape out a living in the land of opportunity. 

The video depicts people working in sweatshops, picking fruit in orchards, doing construction work, serving as nurses in hospitals. The whole video is arresting, but there is one line that jumped out at me while I was writing this sermon this week. Snow the Product—and, yes, I’ve never felt like a white dad in my 30s than when I say something like that—raps “We’re America’s ghostwriters, the credit’s only borrowed.” A ghostwriter, of course, is a person who writes a book but someone else’s name appears on the cover. And it made me think about how many people—whether they are immigrants or refugees, native born farmers, low income workers, bus drivers, trash collectors, teachers, and whatever else—who are writing the story of this nation, but never see the credit. People who make our lives more comfortable and better and yet we don’t know their names.

Because when Jesus says there was a rich man, I suspect our minds ventured to some well-known wealthy person. We pictured them and heard their name. When Jesus says there was a poor man, how many of us then draw a blank? And yet Jesus gives that man a name. It turns the story upside down. The gravity, the center of this story comes on this man who would have been unknown to the people around him.

The scholar Amy-Jill Levine stresses that “The name forces us to notice the man by the gate. He is not just ‘some guy’; he is Lazarus.” He has a name. He has a story and he is brimming with humanity. He is not just an anonymous poor man. He has family. Someone gave him that name Lazarus. A name, by the way, which means “God helps” coming from the same root as the Hebrew “Ebenezer.” Lazarus. God helps. Which is ironic because God is truly the only one that helps Lazarus in this story. 

Some have conjectured that there is some connection here to the Lazarus whom Jesus resurrects in the Gospel of John. We don’t really know. The Lazarus in John, while not wealthy, had better life circumstances. It is interesting though to think that when Jesus gave this man a name that he might have intentionally given him the name of a friend. Our parable’s Lazarus shares a name with one for whom Jesus wept. Whether intentional or not, we can imagine Jesus crying over the loss of this poor man who was very unlikely unmourned by others.

There is an old song by Hank Williams about this parable called “Tramp on the Street.” In it the country music legend reflects on the fact that this man who begged by the gate was someone’s child. He sings “He was some mother’s darling / he was some mother’s son / Once he was fair and / Once he was young / And some mother rocked him / her darling to sleep / But they left him to die / like a tramp on the street.” Jesus tells us that the poor man’s name was Lazarus and he wants us to look him in the eye, realize that he is someone’s child, and that Lazarus matters. Jesus knows Lazarus’ name. He says it. He wants us to know it too.

When these two men die, Jesus tells us that the rich man went to Hades and Lazarus went to Abraham’s bosom, which always makes me laugh. We usually just say heaven but can you imagine if that is how we popularly referred to heaven? Like the 80s song “Heaven is a Place on Earth” suddenly becomes “Abraham’s Bosom is a Place on Earth.” I digress. The rich man is tormented in Hades, but he sees Lazarus in paradise across this great chasm. 

Some preachers would use this story as an example of what the afterlife looks like, but I’m hesitant to do that. I can’t imagine paradise being a place from which you can watch people be tormented. That’s just the start of some issues I have with this scenario. I think Jesus is using this imagery to further the message of this parable though I confess I don't know for sure. But I do think that we should stop and take notice that embedded in that imagery is the idea that something terrible happens to us when we neglect those in need. There are devastating consequences. We can’t ignore that warning even if we don’t know the specifics of what that looks like.

The rich man calls out to Abraham: “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.” There are two interesting things about this request to me. One, the rich man knows Lazarus’ name, which actually makes him look at thousand times worse. It would be one thing if the rich man just ignored the guy begging at his gate. Don’t get me wrong, that is still a callous and inhumane thing to do. But to know the man’s name and still do nothing for him, that is a heartless way to live. 

Secondly, the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to bring him water. The rich man—in spite of everything being turned upside down and in spite of seeing that he’s in torment while Lazarus is in paradise—still sees Lazarus as someone beneath him, someone who should serve him. The rich man has learned nothing from this dramatic upheaval of his status quo. He is still spiritually blind.

When Abraham explains that this can’t happen, the rich man tries to get Lazarus sent on another errand. “Then, father, I beg you 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.” The rich man thinks that the threat of punishment will ultimately change their ways but it misses out on the change of heart necessary to truly be the kind of people that God wants us to be. God doesn’t want us to love our neighbor because there will be punishment. Love then becomes eating vegetables so we don’t have to stand in the corner. It becomes this thing that we have to do rather than this beautiful act in which we can participate. Faith gets twisted when it becomes about the carrot or the stick, when it becomes solely about the reward we receive or the punishment we want to avoid. Reward and punishment may be a part of the narrative, but that is not the heart of the story.

Abraham tells the rich man that his brothers have Moses and the prophets. They have a long history of commands, warnings, and blessings tied into our responsibility and privilege of caring for those around us. Passages like Isaiah 58:6-11 which says:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
     to loose the bonds of injustice,
     to undo the ties of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
     and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
     and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
     and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
     and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
     the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
     you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
If you remove the yoke from among you,
     the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

if you offer your food to the hungry
     and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
     and your gloom be like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you continually,
     and satisfy your needs in parched places,
     and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
     like a spring of water,
     whose waters never fail.

At the beginning of Luke’s gospel, Jesus echoes these words from Isaiah as he reads in a synagogue. He declared it to be his mission to bring good news to the poor, to release the captives, to heal the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to declare the year of the Lord’s favor. It’s a message of hope that is spread throughout all of scripture. And it comes to living, breathing life in Jesus. 

This message was not enough to convince the rich man and he doesn’t think it will convince his brothers. “No, father Abraham,” the rich man says, “but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” Abraham responds, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” We read this today and air is thick with foreshadowing. Not long after telling this parable, Jesus returns from the dead and even that was not enough to compel some to love God and to love their neighbor.

So where does this leave us? This is difficult for me because it says that one ought not to teach because they are subject to greater judgment. I'm on the hook for this and it is not something at which I am good. This parable leaves us with a responsibility and a calling. We are called to take care of those around us. As we read this passage in staff meeting this week, the question was asked in light of the rich man’s fate, “How do you know you’ve done enough?” And here’s the deal: you and I are never going to do enough. We are always, always capable of doing more and we shouldn’t forget that. Now the good news is I believe that God’s grace can cover us for this gap between what we should do and what do, but we shouldn’t be satisfied with that. Instead of asking if we’ve done enough, we should ask “What can I do?” How can I not be like this rich man? How can I embody the compassion and generosity of God embodied in Jesus?

And I believe part of that goes back to knowing their names. Two years ago, a woman named Sandra Bland died in police custody. The courts ruled it a suicide, but many people thought otherwise. As the stories about this tragedy broke out a hashtag spread on Twitter: #sayhername. They were demanding that the media did not just report that a woman died in police custody. They wanted you to know that Sandra Bland died. Say her name. Know her story. Remember her humanity. It wasn’t just any woman. It was Sandra. I don't want to co-opt that movement, but I feel like that principle can apply to our relationships with all those around us.

We talk a lot in church about how we are supposed to serve the poor and help those who are marginalized and oppressed. And it becomes easy to sort of view this group as this anonymous, faceless mass of people. When we see it that way, it can be easier to move on when we don’t really love them like we are called to. But we are not called to serve "the poor." We’re called to serve Lazarus. We are not called to be concerned about "the oppressed" or "the marginalized," but for our hearts to break over Sandra and Michael and Nabra and Darryl and so many others with names, stories, and loved ones. We need to say their names. We need to come face to face with their humanity. We need to know that their names are on the very lips of God. We need to know that they are beloved and that they matter. 

When we say their names, it is harder to see them as burdens or drains on society. When we say their names, we may start to see them as brothers and sisters. I don’t have a magic answer for this. I'm acutely aware that I am not asking “What more can I do?” in my everyday life and I should. So I am going to try something simple. I’m going to try to ask for more names, to say their names, and let the stories of my sister and brothers into my life. I know this won’t be easy, especially for a person like me for whom small talk is a Herculean task, but I want to love my neighbors. I want to see their faces. I want to say their names. And from that seed, I pray that God will let love and justice grow in my own life.