What is justice? From a very young age, this question is at the root of how we relate to others. Did someone get something for Christmas that you didn’t? That’s not fair! Was the whole class punished for the actions of a few kids? That’s not fair! Did your team lose the game because one player made a boneheaded play? That’s not fair, either! When we grow up, questions of fairness and justice continue. They continue at work. What’s so fair about the boss’ kid getting to slack off and keep his job while I work my behind off, for example? They continue at home, with divisions of chores and responsibilities. They continue in government. What is fair taxation? What should the government’s funding priorities be? Which values and policies help make a just and fair society? We might say that we’re a justice-obsessed society, particularly lately, with court cases, indictments, and a potential government shutdown.
But our sense of justice is often skewed by who we are and where we are in life. Quick show of hands. How many of you are uncomfortable with how today’s parable ends? Consider for a moment why that is. Maybe you don’t like that Jesus speaks about a place of torment after death. Maybe you don’t think the rich man’s punishment fits the crime. Or maybe you yourself identify with the rich man. After all, compared with much of the world’s standard of living, most of us in this room are probably in the top 15% or higher. If you want to know where you are compared to the rest of the world, there are calculators online that will give you a benchmark. (I’ll put a link online.)[1] I won’t tell you where Sarah and I ended up, but it was sobering. Many of us have so much, especially compared with the rest of the world.
And perhaps that’s good reason for our discomfort. Because the parable gets to an uncomfortable truth. What we do with what we are entrusted with matters—both in this world and in the world to come.
Like most every other issue, at the heart of this parable concerns the First Commandment. We’re told the rich man wears purple and fine linen, which means he is a person of great importance. He feasts every single day, including, presumably, the Sabbath. He knows Lazarus, the man at his gate, by name. This might surprise us, since the rich man doesn’t seem to offer him anything. He is like the people of the faraway country who don’t give the starving prodigal son anything to eat. But the rich man’s offense is worse because he and Lazarus are both Jews. They are members of the same extended family—the tribe of Judah of the house of Israel. And it’s not just a biological family but a family of faith. But the rich man’s circle of concern stops at the gate. His world is self-contained, with himself at the center of it. He is his own God.
And in this, he reminds me of a C.S. Lewis quote. Lewis was once asked, “Which religion gives its followers the greatest happiness?” You might think Lewis would respond, “Christianity, of course!” but he had a very different answer:
While it lasts, the religion of worshipping oneself is the best. I have an elderly acquaintance of about eighty, who has lived a life of unbroken selfishness and self-admiration from the earliest years, and is, more or less, I regret to say, one of the happiest men I know….I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity. I am certain there must be a patent American article on the market which will suit you far better, but I can’t give any advice on it.[2]
Over his lifetime, this rich man has seen his wealth as his own to do with as he pleases, rather than God’s to do with what God pleases. Rather than follow the Law and the Prophets, he has created a chasm of his own making—a world where he is his own god, where everyone else is there to serve him. His worldview holds even post-mortem. He is stuck in his own self-worship, even in the flames, and can’t relate to Lazarus (or even Abraham!) except for his own benefit. He is a fantastic example of what Luther called “the self turned in on the self”.
And we know we’re like this. We all have the capacity to be self-absorbed, obsessed with our own happiness, to the detriment of our neighbors. We also tend to use our own standards of justice or fairness like the rich man, which is no justice at all. Perhaps if the story in Luke’s Gospel ended like the parable, there wouldn’t be much hope for us. After all, Abraham says, if someone won’t listen to God’s Law and the prophets, why would someone change their ways even if someone came back from the dead? It might be like Scrooge’s dismissal of Marley’s ghost: “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”[3] People tend to believe what they want to believe.
But Jesus shatters all that. If we learn one thing from Jesus, particularly from Luke’s Gospel, it’s that we can’t do anything worthy of repentance until Jesus comes and finds us. The shepherd has to find the lost sheep. The woman has to find the lost coin. The father has to welcome his lost son home. We have to be found and brought back. Only Jesus can bridge the chasm of our self-absorption and self-obsession. Only Jesus can bridge the chasm of human justice that so often results in injustice. Only Jesus can bridge the chasm of our worldviews which so often dehumanize our neighbors. Only Jesus can do this. And only Jesus does it.
And when Jesus finds us, he changes us. And yes, this change can be painful. If you want comfort, as Lewis said, the Christian faith is not the right one for you. But if you want real life, real transformation, Jesus gives it. Jesus gives us everything. Everything! Our whole lives, our families, the things we are entrusted with, and eternal life and salvation come through him. And when we are changed, we live differently. Our values are changed. We don’t live anymore under the fear of reprisal or the guilt that we are not doing enough, but we live as open-hearted and open-handed people who know what they have been given. And in that open-hearted life is God’s justice—a justice that doesn’t keep score, but finds, welcomes, and restores to life. Amen.
© 2025, David M. Fleener. Permission granted to copy and adapt original material herein for non-commercial purposes with appropriate credit given.
[1] https://wid.world/income-comparator/.
[2] C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock, pp. 58-59.
[3] Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.