Lazarus and the Rich Man

19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
 20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, 21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
 22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
 23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
 24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
 25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
 26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
 27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:
 28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
 29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. 30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
 31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. Luke 16:19-31 
So Lazarus is kept outside the gate to starve and to be plagues with sores and with filth.The rich man has an over abundance but doesn’t help Lazarus in anyway, moreover he keeps him outside his gate.But in the end Lazarus is worthy of Heaven and the rich man isn’t even worthy of a name, of even being remembered as anything but a villain.  
Now in my last post connecting this story of the rich man keeping Lazarus outside the gates and our church keeping beggars outside the temple gates drew plenty of criticism.Mainly because the critics felt that by concentrating on this I failed to address the things the church does do like tithing or welfare distribution centers like the bishops store house, the church’s assistance program which has been so successful in getting people back on their feet and back to being self sufficient that many other organizations including governmental ones have modeled their own programs after ours. 
So it’s not that the church doesn’t do good, it’s that it also makes mistakes which all of us do, no one is perfect but Christ after all.  
And I don’t want to make my critiques black and white any more than I like receiving critiques that are black and white.I just wanted to point out a misstep by citing a scripture eerily reminiscent of a practice of our church to shoo away the “undesirables.”And it’s important to note that this isn’t just ordinary scripture, not that there is such a thing really, but that it’s a parable of Jesus.Jesus himself crafted this story to make a point.It is not our job to decide who is and who is not worthy of being designated as desirable or undesirable.
Jesus tells another story about sifting the wheat from the weeds at the time of harvest, a decision made by the master of the field, not by the workers.
Likewise Jesus is the master and we are the workers and the decision of judgment on judgment day is his alone.So making the statement that someone is asking to get something for nothing without full knowledge of that person would be inaccurate, and to condemn them for it would be wrong.But it isn’t so easy to tell the difference and I’m not saying we shouldn’t try, I’m saying we shouldn’t judge.  
Ultimately the parable in Luke is about God judging us on how good we are to each other, if we treat some of our brothers and sisters as human trash then we have not lived up to the example of Jesus.He treated all he met with love, generosity, sincerity and dignity.Which is where Matthew 25:31-46 comes in to play; Jesus says all nations will be divided between sheep and goats.I.E. desirable and undesirable, and lists the measure by which he judges which is: did you give drink to the thirsty, did you care for the sick and afflicted and visit them, did you visit the prisoner, did you make the stranger feel welcome? 
And to those that did and did not he said “As ye have done it unto the least of my brethren ye have done it unto me.”Which to me says that if we see God, if we see Jesus in all our brothers and sisters and treat them like we do then we have lived a righteous life, if we did not treat our brothers and sisters in that way then we did not.
But that does not mean by any stretch that all our brothers and sisters are going to be as good or as good to us as Jesus has been, but that’s why Jesus said we are to love our enemies. He also makes the point during the sermon on the mount that even criminals love their friends and hate their enemies and he asks what righteousness there is in that?And in the Lord’s prayer he says: Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth,
As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,The power, and the glory,For ever and ever.Amen.Jesus is showing us that we should pray to God that our trespasses are forgiven by him as we should also forgive those that trespass against us.Now clearly this is easier said than done, but Jesus did it so it is possible, also he asked that we also do it so that shows it is possible too because he would not teach us a lesson that was impossible to implement in our daily lives.
Now I don’t mean to make anyone feel like a Nazi because they didn’t do something on a grand scale like start an international charity digging millions of wells in Africa or because they didn’t spend the majority of their lives caring for lepers in Calcutta, you don’t need to do quite that much to live a righteous life but to have a good heart is to treat people with love and as the Dali Lama said “Love is the absence of judgment.” 
And I have used this parallel between Lazarus the rich man and the church keeping the homeless out of temple grounds as a way to talk about the judgment people have of the homeless.I wanted to say that we should love our brothers and sisters unconditionally because love is a birthright as a child of God.And if love is the absence of judgment then we can not do both, it is an either or issue.
I said what I did on these last two posts because when I see homeless people harassed on church property I see judgment, the same kind that I see when they are kept out of temple grounds.Now if Jesus Christ is the head of this church, and keeping in mind his parable of Lazarus and the rich man and knowing that Jesus said “As ye have done it unto the least of my brethren, ye have done it unto me,” do you really believe homeless people would not be welcomed into his house?