Heavenly Father [Trinity 1; St. Luke 16:19-31]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

Jesus says,

“And [the rich man] said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house”

I heard a story at the Vietnam wall, last weekend. It was a fairly common story about a child growing up without a father, because it’s only the young men that get sent out to fight the wars of the old. Anyways, this young girl was born into her family and before she got to know her father he left to fight and died.

God placed within her, as He does all of us, an intense desire for both father and mother and when one is lacking, we are poorer for it. So it was with this girl. She just knew she had a father and as she got older she wanted to know who he was, but her mother could only tell her so much.

What she needed was someone who knew him, who grew up with him, who fought with him. She went to some veterans and lo and behold, a member of his unit was still alive and had been there with her father, at the very end. That veteran began her relationship with her absent father that she desperately needed in her life and that God has placed in her.

Rewind to the Rich man and Lazarus. Regardless of how it looks to the world, both men are in need of a father. The rich man is in need of fatherly discipline and Lazarus in need of fatherly aid. Both lead poorer lives for their absence and both lives are rich in suffering for the same reason.

For, when they both die they meet no one else except the Father, in today’s episode played by Abraham. The Father Who was supposed to discipline and aid, yet appeared to refuse to do either one of those so that the situation ended up as it did with the rich man in hell and the Lazarus at the Father’s side. How did it happen?

There are three fathers portrayed in the Gospel today. The father of earthly prosperity, the father of earthly suffering, and the one, true Father. In each case of revelation, there is a desperate need for a father, regardless of how he acts. Both the rich man and Lazarus display the deep seeded desire to have a father in one’s life.

The father of earthly prosperity is the dad we all want. He’s the one with the gifts, he’s the fun one, he’s the one that is so laid back he lets us do whatever we want and winks at our vices, much to our condemnation.

Repent. The father of earthly suffering is the father nobody wants, thus we usually associate anything of this sort to the devil or some other evil. Though this is not the true Father in heaven, yet, it is this father that leads Lazarus to Him and we are all in desperate need of a Father.

Our true Father in heaven makes the path of suffering in this world in order to reveal Himself. Not because He wants to test us or make certain we obey and are true, but because the path of suffering is the path of the cross of Christ. Lazarus suffers under his “absent father” in order to point to Jesus.

If we were the rich man, we would understand that we have a father, because he recognized his “father” Abraham, but we would not know him for who He really is. The rich man mistakenly thought Abraham would rescue him. Even if we were Lazarus and suffered as he did in this life, we would still be no closer.

The only way to know there is even a Father in the first place is because there is a Son. Jesus says, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Mt. 11:27)

Jesus is the only way to the Father. Jesus is the Son Who suffers at His Father’s command in this life and is rewarded in the Resurrection. Jesus is also the Son Who gives up all His riches and lands Himself in hell in place of all others. Jesus is not the Son Who does not know His Father neither is the Father absent on His account.

Jesus proves by His life that His Father is always present by calling upon Him throughout His life. Though He did not “appear” as we wanted Him to, His will was done according to Jesus and to us. The will of God was to sacrifice the Son on in place of you and Jesus joyfully chased after that will, regardless of what it did to His body.

And it is only through this Body of work that Jesus reveals the Father. It is only through Faith, given freely, in the flesh of Christ on the cross that Jesus does this work. It is only through belief and the sacraments that tears the curtain in two showing us Who the Father really is.

If we try to find our heavenly Father in the rich man, we get enjoyment of the now, but He turns against us afterwards and we don’t understand. If we try to find our Father in Lazarus, see a suffering that has no purpose and is used only to gain a reward.

In order to find out Who our true Father is, we need His Son. The Son Who was there since the beginning. Who created with the Father, Who sat beside the Father for all eternity, and Who conversed with the Father. We need this Son to speak this information to us, to describe Who our Father is, What He is like, and What He is doing.

We need to find the Son, sit down, and have a nice long conversation with Him. Dead in our sins, this is impossible for us. As father Abraham described, there is a great chasm between us and the Father. But, in the Church Christ has purchased and redeemed by His true Body and Blood, the Son brings the Father to us. The Son finds Himself and locates Himself and the Father in a place and manner of His choosing.

So when you come into the Divine Service, sit down, and start talking, singing, or praying, you have been incorporated in the Divine conversation. For it is in the Word and Sacraments that the Son is fully revealed as the Crucified Savior as He is in no other place.

It is here that the Spirit comes to hand out the gifts of Faith and belief that we might hear and know the words of this conversation. And it is here that the Father reveals all His plans and purposes, which just so happen to be all that Jesus has said and done. Thus, on the other side of things, it is not us desperately seeking the Father, but the Son desperately seeking to reconcile us to Him.

Jesus knows suffering and prosperity will attack and plague us, so He doesn’t sit by and wait. To the rich man He proclaims His Word and His Divine Service rings her bells, calling the young and old to repentance. To the suffering Lazarus, Jesus’ Church opens her doors and her heart to the poor, helping whenever and however, all the time, every time.

The Father is only apparently absent. He is truly present in His Son on earth and in heaven. The rich man had heard the discipline and will of God necessary for salvation in Moses and the Prophets, as Lazarus also did. Lazarus had the fortune of suffering as his Messiah did and thus provided the better picture of faith.

Even though this conversation is 2 weeks early, fathers need to be present to prevent both Lazarus and the rich man from befalling family and friends. A father’s absence, even for his job, is no excuse and only leads to calamity in young faith. A father needs to be there, just as our heavenly Father is there for all men.

There are also children that are related to you not by blood, that you find in the pews next to you and living life beside you. These children, neighbors, are also placed under your care to be a father to. Even if you have no children of your own and even if you are a poor father, it is not you, but Jesus.

Jesus does not point to your fatherliness, success or failure, but He always points to the heavenly Father. The Father Who is always present, Who always fathers perfectly, and Who always gives the Son as His greatest accomplishment.

Though we participate and commune in God’s father-ship, our actions don’t reveal Him as He truly is. The real earthly father will always point to Christ and let the Son do the talking. He will always sit his children down in the pews so they will hear the Word and believe. He will always bring them to the water and the blood, because he knows that only the heavenly Father can rescue his charges from their sin.