I'm going to go in two directions with this strange story of the rich man and Lazarus...first  thinking about it from the point of view of the rich man and then, second, seeing what happens when we identify with Lazarus. So bear with me... 

There is a bumper sticker that says, "Whoever dies with the most toys, wins."  I've always assumed that that was ironic...when you're dead, you can't play with your toys, so the race-to see who can get more-is a futile one.

Many people read the sticker that way.   But many other people take it straight: the person who has accumulated the most wealth in his or her life is the "winner"-of whatever game it is we are playing.   I googled the phrase, and it came up quite often in shopping blogs or accounts of technological wizardry-usually with the word "wins" in capitals.   Whoever dies with the most toys WINS.   I liked this one:   the sessions ran with a lot of pizzazz-and without a hitch-thanks to our shiny new Apple G4 Powerbook and some new high-powered DVD presentations. As it turns out, "Whoever dies with the most toys, wins" is not just for T-shirts

I mean, that's INSANE, isn't it?   "Whoever dies with the most toys, wins.??  Whoever dies, dies, and NOBODY wins, at that point...except, of course, in today's Gospel story...where somebody does indeed win, but it's  not the  man with the toys-the rich man-the very rich man, who dines SUMPTUOUSLY...EVERY DAY. The rich man loses big...and the poor man, Lazarus-that really  terrible image of the beggar  with open sores,  and  so weak that he can't stop wandering  dogs from coming up and licking him...Lazarus WINS...he goes to heaven, carried there by angels, and the rich man goes to hell, and that's that...nothing can change it, once they're dead.  

Jesus is telling this story in response to the Pharisees, who have been ridiculing him because of the sayings we heard last week, which ended with, "you cannot serve both God and wealth."   Luke tells us that the Pharisees were "lovers of money"  and whether or not that was true (Josephus, the historian, says that the Pharisees were both frugal and generous)...but whatever the truth about the Pharisees, the truth of the Gospel is, not that wealth is a bad thing, but that how you USE wealth if you have it, is crucial.   It's what defines your place in the ideal economy of God's creation.