Rich Man and Lazarus St Demetrios Fr Daniel York

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit. In the readings, there were

technically six readings. They get announced

as one epistle and one gospel, but there were

technically three epistles, three gospels. And

I want to start by pinpointing the second gospel,

the gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke, it's

an interesting text. In many of the manuscripts,

in many of the versions, it actually doesn't

call the story a parable, which I think is provocative,

to say the least, because what it shows us is

it shows us a conversation that opens up between

a saint and someone still The fact that these

worlds can kind of blur together and spill over

towards one another in communication, in prayer,

in dialogue. But it tells us, regardless, whatever

way we take it, it tells us this story about

a rich man. About a rich man who was clothed

in beautiful garment, fine purple, fine linen,

all of these things. Perhaps not unlike how we're

clothed. And he went through his life and he

lived the good life. He lived the rich life.

He lived the life of ease. He lived the life

of greed. The life of self -service. The life

of going through life and focusing on himself

and not others. And he walked by this guy all

the time, this poor guy, Lazarus, who had nothing,

was a beggar. And he never acknowledged him once.

And the Lord tells the story, the end of life,

this poor guy, he went into Abraham's bosom.

which in ancient Jewish ways of talking means

he went into essentially paradise. The rich guy,

he went into Hades. And in a sense, what the

Lord is saying, they both got what was coming

to them. And the rich guy in Hades, as it's described

very unpleasantly, is hot, is thirsty. They've

traded places. The rich guy now looks a lot like

the poor guy, begging. And he sees Abraham, and

he sees this poor man whose name he doesn't even

know, and he speaks to Abraham. And he asks Abraham,

essentially, to have mercy on him. to have mercy

on him first and foremost, which Abraham says,

well, there's a chasm between us. There's nothing

that can be done. And then he asks him to have

mercy on his family. Go to my brothers. Send

him to my brothers. Send this poor man to my

brothers, Lazarus. And Abraham responds and says,

well, If they have Moses, they have the prophets.

He says, no, if someone will go to them from

the dead, then they will listen. Abraham responds

and says, no, if they don't hear Moses and the

prophets, they will neither listen should one

come to them back from the dead. And I think

this is an interesting thing to think about considering

we are commemorating the life of St. Demetrius

this morning. St. Demetrius has shown up multiple

times from the dead, from his blessed repose

to many people. He has gushed myrrh from his

relics. He has shown the marks, the life of the

resurrection from his own body in his death,

in his repose, in his falling asleep. However,

I think when we place this text, Next to St.

Demetrius, in tandem with the John text about

persecution, we are given another picture of

what we should focus on when we think about St.

Demetrius, his life. St. Demetrius came from

a family, a Roman family, whose father undoubtedly

wore fine linens and purples and beautiful garb

in his public life. and yet secretly was a Christian

and raised St. Demetrius. His parents raised

him in the Christian faith, their only child.

They educated him. They reared him in the life

of Christ. They had a church secretly in their

house as Demetrius' father was very close to

the emperor, Emperor Maximian Galerius. He was

the proconsul, the ruler of Thessaloniki. And

the emperor had no idea about his father's secret

life and his son's faith. And so Demetrius was

enlisted to be a soldier, enlisted to follow

the ranks of his father, to prize the Roman life,

this life of luxury, this life of ease, this

life of service to Caesar. And he did. And he

was eventually appointed to be pro -consul, the

ruler of Thessaloniki, to replace his father.

And there was one thing the emperor said to him,

besides protecting the city, is there are a lot

of Christians here, and you ought to persecute

them, and you ought to minimize them. and you

ought to suppress them. And of course, Maximian

Galerius, he was one of, he was an emperor, a

co -emperor in the time of Diocletius. Diocletius

is the other emperor. In the last terrifyingly

horrible persecution against Christianity in

the Roman Empire, Galerius, Maximian, would be

the one. to abolish persecution against Christians

in the Edict of Sertica. And two years later,

Constantine would legalize Christianity in 1313

with the Edict of Milan. But it wasn't this point

yet. And he sends Demetrius into the city. And

Demetrius, rather than persecuting Christians,

rather than living a secret life, maybe a double

life, He opens his faith. He opens his heart.

He embraces Christ openly. He preaches Christ.

He stands up for Christ. And so many more come

to the Christian faith. And he rules the city

with benevolence. He is the ruler. He is kind

of like the mayor or something. Maybe we would

think about it in this way nowadays. He's generous.

He's loving. He's compassionate. He's kind. He

has resources. He distributes them freely. He

brings so many into the Christian faith. And

he stands up for his faith boldly. And, of course,

the emperor eventually hears about it. His anger

comes personally to the city and confronts him.

And Demetrius hears about it, and he knows what's

happening. And so he gets his friend Lupus. And

he donates all of his resources, all of the wealth

that his father accumulated that was inherited

to Demetrius, all of the wealth that Demetrius

inherited. And what the rich guy didn't do, Demetrius

does. He says, distribute this all to the poor.

Give it all away because he knows what's coming.

And the emperor comes, confronts him. He says,

I've heard these things. I hope they're not true.

Demetrius says they are true. They are true.

I'm preaching Christ, and I'm opening the doors

to the kingdom, and I know what it will cost

me. So he gets thrown in the prison and prepares

for martyrdom. Another interesting thing about

that text in Luke is Abraham says, brings up

Moses and the prophets. It's interesting. We

sing the Beatitudes every Lord's Day. And the

way the Beatitudes end, which we don't sing,

but the way they end in the Gospels is they bring

up the prophets and the life of the prophets

and the persecution of the prophets and how Christians

are conformed. To the prophets, right? Because

Christ is, these words are for us. They're not

just like frozen in time. And so the next thing

that happens is Galerius raises up this guy,

Laeos, this giant Goliath figure of a man. Starts

creating all these gladiator games. And Demetrius'

friend Nestor, who is... who doesn't want Christians

to be killed by this guy, asks for the blessing

from Demetrius to stand up against this guy in

the gladiator ring. And Demetrius blesses him,

makes the sign of the cross over him, and says,

you will defeat him, but you will end up suffering

for Christ. And what happens? He goes into the

ring. He defeats this guy, praying for Christ's

help. And we're thrown back into the life of

the prophets immediately. The persecution of

the prophets, the victories of the prophets,

the faithfulness of the prophets. Think of David

going up against Goliath as Goliath hurls all

of these horrible things against David, cursing

him by his gods, cursing him by his Philistine

gods. No doubt, Laos is doing the same thing.

A German, a vandal. And the emperor gets angry,

and he has both of these guys, both of these

saints, to be more respectful, martyred. Demetrius

martyred in his own prison with 306 spears and

lances against him. This is the holy great martyr

Demetrius. Who could have lived this life of

ease. This rich guy. But he conformed his life

to the life of poverty. Giving everything away.

Giving. When he had the chance. He preached Christ.

Openly. And when he had the chance to give away

everything. He did. Freely. And when he had the

chance to suffer for his Lord. He did. He welcomed

it. And I think. I think when we look at St.

Demetrius' life, we have to find ourselves in

it, in a sense. I should say, the persecution

we endure as Christians is nothing like the Roman

persecution that Diocletius inflicted. We get

made fun of, we get poked at, yeah. But we worship

freely. in such a beautiful place like this.

Many of us have wealth. I mean, we live in California.

But we have these opportunities to enter into

the life of St. Demetrius. He was a Thessalonian.

And it's interesting that the scripture readings

don't use the letters to the Thessalonians at

all. But the Thessalonians, Paul wrote to them,

and the Thessalonians were so ready for the age

to come upon them. They were so ready for Christ

to come and judge the living and the dead. They

were ready. And Paul actually calms them down.

Paul says, let's live quiet lives. Let's live.

godly lives. Let's live respectable lives to

all. Let's bear Christ, but let's do it lovingly.

Let's do it quietly. Let's do it wherever the

Lord has us, whether it be a proconsul, whether

it be, I don't know, a banker, an accountant,

a doctor, a priest, a graphic designer. I don't

know, but wherever the Lord has us. Let's live

lives that are decent, quiet. Let's rejoice always.

Let's pray without ceasing. Those words were

given to the Thessalonians. Undoubtedly, Demetrius

heard that letter over and over again. Let's

be Eucharistic in everything. Be thankful. Give

thanks in all things. Be Eucharistic. receive

everything as if it was an offering that we could

give back to Christ, our life. And should the

time come, let's endure to the end like Demetrius.

I think we live in an age, and maybe I could

speak for my own generation, and maybe I could

pinpoint men in particular. I was reading an

article in, I think it was the New Yorker or

the Atlantic a couple months ago, and it said,

the author put it, women, femininity has been

figured out in our day and age. That kind of

puts it crudely, but that's kind of what it said.

Whether that's true or not, we can debate afterwards.

What is happening in our day and age is now it's

time for men to figure themselves out. Masculinity

has not been figured out because we've inherited

this kind of masculinity where they sort of painted

this picture of masculinity that was more classic,

classically the case, and kind of slammed on

it. And I'll say this, that kind of slamming

that has happened in our day and age. So many

of guys in my generation, we were raised without

men in our life. We were raised without fathers

who disciplined us. Like the scripture says,

that disciplined us, that should have disciplined

us as it was pleasing to them. We didn't even

have that. We didn't have anyone. to say, son,

do this, don't do that. And so many people, men,

and not just women, not just men, women as well,

we're sort of just meandering through the world.

We're sort of just living life from one thing

to the other. We're sort of going from one place

to another, searching for the next thing, exploring

ourselves, just going through life. Rather than

being planted, rather than being rooted, rather

than being disciplined and secured and anchored,

something we can derive, something that we can

see so beautifully from St. Demetrius, that when

the Emperor Justinian, in the 6th century, two

centuries after Demetrius' martyrdom, tried to

move his relics from Thessaloniki, to Constantinople,

the relics shouted out, stay away, do not touch,

because Demetrius is so devoted to Thessaloniki

and helping them and being with them. What can

we say about our own rootedness, our own devotion,

whether it be to our family, whether it be to

our jobs, whether it be to a job, just a calling

in general? Where we can take that, we can approach

it with transfigured eyes and give it to God,

offer it back to God, suffused with his glory,

empowered by the life of the resurrection that

is coursing through us, through our union with

Christ Jesus, our Lord, who pours out his life.

who pours out his divine energies into us, as

we will just in a short time, we will offer ourselves

to him in the bread and the wine. And the Father,

through the power of the Spirit, will offer to

us back Christ. In order to strengthen us, in

order to conform us more to the pattern of Christ,

so that we might become more and more saintly.

so that we might become more and more holy, so

that we might become more and more disciplined,

so that we might become more rooted, anchored

to where the Lord wants us to be, that we might

serve boldly, that we might love freely, that

we might openly confess Christ, though quietly

and not obnoxiously, and do it as Christ puts

it. for my name's sake, if you are going to be

persecuted. That it isn't just us being bombastic

and trying to make others angry. No. It is done

from an anchor of love. It is filled with hope.

It is seasoned by grace. It has all of the efficacy

of St. Demetrius all over it. That is how we

become good soldiers, brothers and sisters. That's

how we fight the good faith, as the apostle puts

it. That's how we live the life of the gospel.

We have nothing to fear. St. Demetrius in his

prison, as 306 lances came against him, really

had nothing to fear because he knew that Christ

has conquered the gates of Hades. Christ has

conquered the devil. Christ has taken his own

lance, the cross, and thrust it through the devil's

head. And the devil can harass us. The devil

can roar. The devil can pounce. But really, the

devil can't do anything to us. Those of us who

have been baptized, chrismated. Those of us who

are coming to the table. Those of us who are

confessing our sins freely. Those of us who are

trying to live the Christian life. Against such

things, the devil has no authority or control.

Think of Job. Nothing can really truly be done

to him. Brothers and sisters, let's stand together

for our faith. Let's fight the good fight. Let's

live quiet and decent and godly lives. Let's

love all of those who the Lord puts into our

orbit. Let's love our families. Let's love one

another. Let's be the body of Christ together.

Amen? Through the prayers of St. Demetrius, our

Lord Jesus Christ, save us.