Preparing for Worship - September 25, 2022

The Scriptures for this Sunday are very relevant, as they speak to financial, money concerns that many of us have in these days of high inflation and uncertainties about the future. The Old Testament lesson is from Amos 6:1-7. Amos speaks words of warning from God especially to the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, though he speaks also to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The rich, “notable” people of the land are feeling “secure” and they are satisfying all their own desires, while not “grieving over the ruin” of many troubled people among them and helping them. They lie “at ease” on their beds inlaid with “ivory” and their beautiful couches. They eat luxuriously and have plenty of time to listen to and sing their favorite “idle songs” and drink not just glasses, but bowls-full of wine. If they continue this way (as they did!) ignoring the Lord and His will, judgment and exile was coming for them, as it did, at the hands of the Assyrian armies.

The Psalm is Psalm 146, a psalm of praise to the Lord. The warning is not to put too much “trust  in princes” (or queens and kings) and other human beings who cannot bring “salvation” to us. Rather, our hope and help are in our Creator Lord, who “keeps faith forever” for us and cares about us in all the difficult times in our lives. Ultimately this psalm is also a prophecy of “the Son of man,” our Lord Jesus, who came to save us, no matter who we are, as we trust in Him. (See Luke 4:16-21.)

The Epistle lesson is from 1 Timothy 6:6-19. It fits best with our other readings for today. (A reading from 1 Timothy 3:1-13 could also be chosen, about important qualities needed for what we would call pastors and elders and other church leaders today. But even they are reminded not to be “a lover of money” or “greedy for dishonest gain.”) In Chapter 6:6ff., we are reminded of what is most important for us: “godliness with contentment,” satisfied with the basics we need for our life, and staying in the faith and love of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not money itself that is evil, but “the love of money” - a “craving” through which “some have even wandered away from the faith.” Those who are wealthy are called “not to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God.” They are also called to do good with the blessings they have received and “to be rich in good works” that help others.

The Gospel lesson is Luke 16:19-31 - a story Jesus tells about “a rich man” who had the best of everything and “feasted sumptuously every day,” but ignored and would not help in any way a poor, sick man, Lazarus, who lay at his gate, day after day, who wished only for scraps that fell from the rich’s man’s table. Both men died, and Lazarus was taken to the joy of heaven. (Other Scriptures make it clear that he was taken to heaven, alongside Abraham, not because he was poor, but because he had been brought to faith in his Lord God. The rich man ended up in Hades, in hell, in torment, not because he was rich, but because he rejected his Lord or in his focus on himself had wandered away from the faith.) The rich man now wishes only for a “scrap” - a drop of cool water - “in his anguish in the flame” - but it is too late. He wishes then that someone could go and warn his five living brothers, who are in eternal danger in unbelief themselves. He is reminded that they have the very Word of God available for them, as he did, and if they ignore and reject that, they would not believe, even if someone would rise from the dead - which Jesus eventually did, in His victorious saving work, available to all.