God Knows Your Heart
Imagine if we believed that?
You justify yourselves before other people…but God knows your hearts.
We could easily reserve these words for the Pharisees. It’s pretty easy to mark them as targets, at least in the context of the Christian gospels.1 But I’m not sure how much such a leverage will do for our faith today.
Can you imagine for a moment Jesus is saying this to you? Are there ways in which you care so much about how you look in front of others, that it might compromise God’s best will and way?
God knows your heart. Imagine if we really believed that 100%, wholeheartedly. How much wrong could we actually do if we truly believed that God knows our hearts - and that this is all that matters.
The parable of Lazarus and the rich man really stands alone. There is nothing else like it in the gospels. Jesus doesn’t usually name his characters. There is never any kind of supernatural or divine elements like the underworld. And he doesn’t usually tell of such specific dialog in a parable. This is different.
The rich man isn’t condemned for being rich, but for being blind. Every day, he stepped over Lazarus without seeing him. Even in the afterlife, he still treats Lazarus like a servant, asking him to run errands and deliver messages.
It’s a haunting picture, but also a mirror. What if the thing that separates us from the life God intends isn’t wickedness, but our unwillingness to see the people right in front of us? Remember, he’s telling this parable after some specific words about the Pharisees. Who knew the Word of God better than them?
Jesus’ story isn’t about geography, neither heaven above or Hades below, but about proximity. The rich man and Lazarus were never far apart. One lived at the other’s gate. The distance between them wasn’t space, but empathy.
God knows our hearts. And perhaps that’s both a warning and an invitation…to let our hearts be shaped by compassion.
Luke 16:14-31
The Pharisees, who were money-lovers, heard all this and sneered at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves before other people, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued by people is deeply offensive to God. Until John, there was only the Law and the Prophets. Since then, the good news of God’s kingdom is preached, and everyone is urged to enter it. It’s easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the smallest stroke of a pen in the Law to drop out. Any man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and a man who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
“There was a certain rich man who clothed himself in purple and fine linen, and who feasted luxuriously every day. At his gate lay a certain poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores. Lazarus longed to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Instead, dogs would come and lick his sores.
“The poor man died and was carried by angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. While being tormented in the place of the dead, he looked up and saw Abraham at a distance with Lazarus at his side. He shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I’m suffering in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received good things, whereas Lazarus received terrible things. Now Lazarus is being comforted and you are in great pain. Moreover, a great crevasse has been fixed between us and you. Those who wish to cross over from here to you cannot. Neither can anyone cross from there to us.’
“The rich man said, ‘Then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my father’s house. I have five brothers. He needs to warn them so that they don’t come to this place of agony.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. They must listen to them.’ The rich man said, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone from the dead goes to them, they will change their hearts and lives.’ Abraham said, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the Prophets, then neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’”
Psalm 73:24-26
You have guided me with your advice;
later you will receive me with glory.
Do I have anyone else in heaven?
There’s nothing on earth I desire except you.
My body and my heart fail,
but God is my heart’s rock and my share forever.
Prayer
God,
Search my heart. Help me to, too.
Keep me from being too worried about what others think, except that they see my life as a reflection of yours.
By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.
A rabbi friend pointed out to me that if not for the Pharisees, we would not have the OT as we know it (the Hebrew scriptures). The Pharisaic movement played a crucial role in preserving and transmitting the Hebrew Scriptures after the fall of the Second Temple (70 CE), making it possible for both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity to inherit the texts we know today.
Indeed!