To Begin with the End in Mind (Pentecost 16C)
One of the strangest and most wonderful films I’ve seen recently is an adaptation of a Stephen King novella called The Life of Chuck.
It begins with what looks like the end of the world: storms rage, cities collapse, the internet dies, and neighbours resign themselves to the world’s ending. Then, as the power goes out for the last time and the earth is left in darkness, the night mysteriously lights up with a message that reads: “Thanks, Chuck – 39 Great Years.” But who on earth is Chuck?
It turns out Chuck is an ordinary man, and at only 39 years old, he lays dying. As he slowly loses his grip on the physical world, what looks like end times is the universe inside him unraveling. We flash back through his childhood discoveries, the wisdom of his grandparents, his love of dancing, and the quiet nobility of his life in accounting. As his wife whispers goodbye — “Thank you, Chuck, 39 great years” — we see one final flashback: teenage Chuck, in an otherworldly encounter, glimpsing the moment of his death. Every choice he has made since then has been shaped by the knowledge of how it would all end.
I wonder, what would we do differently if we knew how our mortal lives would end? What of the world would we want to change if we knew how things would end for others? We are not given this information, and neither is the rich man in the parable Jesus tells today — which describes not a beginning, but an ending.
Lazarus is poor, ill, and hungry. He doesn’t have the strength to scare away the dogs who bug him. He sits at the gate of a rich man’s house, waiting for food and mercy. That mercy never comes. Lazarus and the rich man both die.
The text doesn’t mention heaven or hell, but that’s where our imagination goes. Lazarus is with Abraham, the father of the Israelites. The rich man is in torment. He asks Abraham to have Lazarus bring him water for relief, but is told an unbreachable chasm has opened between them — and the old world order of the poor serving the rich has come to an end.
The rich man then begs that Lazarus be sent to warn his family. Abraham reminds him that they already have the teachings of Moses and the prophets. They already have what they need — just as the rich man did in life. If they do not heed that, why would a message from the dead make any difference?
This is not a geography lesson about heaven and hell. It is the climax of a series of parables about what we do with our wealth, status and agency. The parables ask:
The lost sheep and coin: who do we search for, and who do we leave behind?
The prodigal son: do we welcome the despised and restore them to belonging?
The unjust manager: do we use our resources for ourselves, or to build community?
And finally today: after all these teachings, after the prophets, after Moses, the question comes: what will we do with all the wisdoms we have learned?
There’s an African proverb that says, “When an old man dies, a library burns down.” We live in an age where the answers to nearly anything are at our fingertips. Standing on the shoulders of generations past, and with the reach of modern technology, we have access to more knowledge than any generation before us. Yet when we fail to hear the lessons of our tradition and the inheritance of wisdom passed down to us, we squander the gift. Personally, I think it’s the challenge of our age. Climate scientists have been frustrated for decades: the evidence is clear, yet misinformation spreads faster than action. Doctors are weary of patients ignoring medical advice until it is too late. Preachers too feel the ache when parishes are quick to give to a charity, but slow to serve the neighbour at the gate. Again and again, the wisdom is there, the prophets have spoken — the question is whether we will listen.
This parable is confronting, but it is also encouraging. Abraham reminds the rich man that God’s kingdom isn’t a surprise — humility, justice, and compassion are our oldest practices. From the beginning, Israel’s law commanded fields be left open for the poor to glean. The prophets declared that God loves the stranger and calls us to do the same. Micah said it plainly: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” It is rooted in who God is: the One who declares, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” God’s character is liberation and compassion. Abraham tells the rich man to remember who he is also. Son, he calls him. The rich man is also a child of God. Before he knew God, God knew him. Lazarus is God’s child and known by God too. As God knew them, so God knows us. And we are called to live as Jesus did: showing humility and compassion to all we meet.
The rich man knew Lazarus’ name, but he never treated him as a neighbour. He never sat beside him, never welcomed him as kin. That is the danger for us also. When compassion is reduced to charity without relationship, the chasm grows.
And that is why the practice of the Eucharist matters so deeply. Here, Christ draws us not as donors or recipients, benefactors or beggars, but as guests together. One bread, one cup — no one receives more or less. This is not charity but communion. It is God bridging the chasms between us, so that we might learn to do the same. Week by week, this table rehearses a different kind of world, one where Lazarus is not left at the gate but brought to the feast as brother and friend.
Maybe the Eucharist is what it’s like to begin with the end in mind.
So the question comes back to us: what shall we do with the wisdoms we have inherited? What kind of world are we shaping with our lives? A world of distance, or a world of communion?
The parable urges us: don’t wait. We have all we need - begin now. Practice it at this table. Live it in our streets. Embody it in our relationships. For as Henri-Frédéric Amiel once wrote: “Life is short. We don’t have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.” And may the world we help build be recognised as God’s own.
Amen.