Luke 16:19-17:10

What We Deserve

Dave Ramsey is a local Nashville guy who has become a nationally know personality as a personal finance guru. He encourages people to get out of debt and handle their money wisely. He has a lot of buzz terms such as “plasticetimy” which is what he calls cutting up your credit cards. My favorite of his phrases is what he invariably replies when people ask, “How are you doing?” He says, “Better that I deserve.”

The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is often thought of as a glimpse into heaven (or something like it) and hell. Maybe it is, I don’t know; however, it clearly addresses something about what is “deserved.” “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.”

Yesterday we read about the manager who had misused his master’s possessions but was later commended for allowing others to pay back less than they owed. Today we see a man suffering in torment who completely ignored the plight of a poor beggar he passed every day. How easy it is in our culture to see the poverty in which some live and tell ourselves that it is their fault. If they were willing to work as hard as we do... If they had not been so careless with their money... If they were more moral or church goers or...something, they would not be in that position.

Let me suggest one other possibility. Perhaps they are in that position so that we can help them? Perhaps they are there to see if we will share some of our master’s possessions? We are, after all, just servants. It’s not that we deserve more than others. “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”