There are so many things to say about
this Parable before we get to what the Parable says. So beware.
At the top of the list is that this parable is not about Heaven and Hell
and one’s eternal security. It has
nothing more to do with that than the jokes we tell today about St. Peter at
the pearly gates. It is a parable about
how we live life in the present in Jesus’ Kingdom. Specifically, do we put people first in our
relationships or are our relationships based more on how we can use people for
our own purposes and justify ourselves.
Jesus here contrasts two ways of
life. The first is the Israelite way,
the Kingdom of God way, which Jesus symbolized by Lazarus being at Abraham’s
side. Older translations call this “Abraham’s
Bosom”. “Abraham’s Bosom” is God’s
people expressing Abraham-like faithfulness through keeping the Law of Moses
and the demands of justice that God commanded through the Prophets. The second way of life is the Greco-Roman
way, the way of the world, the way of Money-Love and Power-Love. Jesus symbolized this way of life using the
Greek word for the Greek concept of the after-life, Hades (not Hell), to
describe the tormented existence of Money-Love that Luke said tarnished the
Pharisee’s lifestyle. They were very
outwardly faithful according to the letter of the Law, but in their hearts they
hadn’t quite accepted the spirit of the Law and the Prophets. Instead of being truly generous people concerned
with justice, they loved the power and image that having money provided them.
Another thing we need to say about
this parable is that it resides in a section of Luke’s Gospel where Jesus is
teaching his disciples about how the pursuit of wealth can complicate being
faithful. At 16:13 Jesus tells his
disciples that they cannot be slaves to two masters, to both God and Mammon;
Mammon means wealth. Immediately after
Jesus says this, next in verse 14, Luke says that the Pharisees, who were
“lovers of money” – money lovers and that’s a derogatory term - they heard Jesus
and ridiculed him. So Jesus shoots this
Parable of a rich man tormented in a Greek “Hell” in an effort to shame
them. He is accusing them of acting
shamefully like Greek’s rather than like true Israelites.
The Pharisees were Israel’s most
devout people, experts in the Law of Moses and the writings of the Prophets. They were expecting the Messiah to come at
any moment and establish the Kingdom of God.
They ardently, passionately, zealously strove to be ready for this day
by strictly observing the Law of Moses. The
Pharisees of all people should have been living lives exemplary of Abraham’s
Bosom, of true Israelite faithfulness but they weren’t.
A third thing to say about this
parable is that there is more going on here than just some rich guy ignoring a
poor guy who daily lay outside his door.
All we’ve got to do is walk a few blocks in downtown anywhere and we all
become guilty of that. The problem was
that one child of Abraham ignoring the real needs of another child of Abraham
completely tars the revelation of himself that God wanted to give the world by
calling the Old Testament nation of Israel into existence beginning with
Abraham and giving them the Law and the Prophets to live by. Let me say a lot more about this because this
is the heart of the parable. Our acting
in faithful compassion towards others is part of how God reveals himself in
this world.
The way of faithfulness that God
started with Abraham would be God’s way of saving humanity from its Fall into
trying to be God. God called Abraham and
told him to go to a land that God would show him because God was giving him
that land and would make his descendants to be a great nation through which all
nations would be blessed. Abraham went
and his children became a great tribe in the land of Palestine. In time the “children” of Abraham found
themselves enslaved in Egypt and God delivered them with a mighty hand. At Mt. Sinai, they agreed to let God be their
God and they promised to live the way he wanted them to live. Thus, God gave them the Ten Commandments. Being faithful to God by following these
commandments was to be the core of their community life. By living this way God’s promise to Abraham
would be fulfilled. They would be a
great nation. They would be blessed and
they would be a blessing to all nations.
Yet, it goes deeper than that. Through this faithful people God would demonstrate
to the world that He is the only true God and that he is steadfastly loving and
faithful and an abundant provider. The
nation that worshipped this God, the Lord God of Israel, would be abundantly
provided for, always protected, and their community life would be just and
beautifully rich in neighbourliness.
And it goes even deeper than
that. Israel in its communal life of
faithfulness lived according to the Law and the Prophets would bear God’s
image, reflect God’s image into the world.
Humanity was created in the image of the Trinity, the loving communion
of Father Son and Holy Spirit. The nature
of our relationships is to reflect the image of the Trinity’s loving communion
into his creation. But, due to Sin our
attempts to be God mar our reflection of God’s image. Communal life of faithfulness, compassionate
and just faithfulness, lived according to the Law wouldn’t cure the problem of
Sin. The incarnation of God the Son and
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is God’s remedy for that. But, faithfulness, Abraham’s Bosom is the way
for now.
This rich man and Lazarus in this
parable are both children of Abraham. The
rich man’s ignoring Lazarus and letting Lazarus persist in such a wretched
existence was an utter denial by the rich man of his own claim to be a child of
Abraham and thus of being one of the people of God. This is why there was an unbridgeable chasm
between Hades and being in Abraham’s Bosom.
The rich man in his Money-Love cut himself off from being one of the children
of Abraham. As Jesus said one cannot
serve both God and Wealth. As Paul
writes, “Those who want to get rich
fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that
plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all
kinds of evil. Some people, eager for
money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1
Tim. 6:9,10).
While on vacation this summer I read a short little book called Leadership
and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box by the Arbinger Institute. It describes the torment we go through when like
this rich man we betray who we know ourselves to be by not doing what we know
and feel we ought to do. We have a
predictable pattern of thought and behavioural self-deception that we go
through when we don’t do what we know and feel we should do. It goes like this.
I a follower of Jesus, a child of Abraham, see someone in Lazarus’
condition. Though knowing I should do
something to help this person that goes beyond throwing money at them,
something that would require me to change my lifestyle by making some
sacrifices, something that would require me to regard this person as a real
person and a child of God like me, I do nothing. This doing nothing is an act of
self-betrayal. I am betraying who I am
as a child of God who through my acts of faithful compassion God reveals
himself to the world.
In the wake of this decision to do nothing, of this self-betrayal, I
begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. I inflate that person’s faults convincing
myself they are worse than they are; a lazy, bad person. Their faults become my justification for me
not doing what I know I should. I also
begin to look past my own faults and inflate my own virtues to justify my
self-betrayal – I am a good, hardworking person getting what I work for. I also begin to inflate the value of things
that justify my self-betrayal meaning I find practical reasons for not doing
what I know I should. I’m too busy. I have to get to work or I’ll be fired. Finally, I will find a way to blame the
person for my not doing what I know I should.
It is her fault that she is the way she is.
When I see the world in self-justifying ways, my view of reality is
distorted. Like the rich man in Hades I
cease to regard others as persons and focus only on my own needs. I find my self closed up, isolated in a box
of prejudices, of twisted perspectives of others, of self-justifying
opinions. I begin to treat others in
ways to which they will respond that will reinforce my self-justifying but will
also cause them to become self-justifying and to enter their own box. The rich hate the poor. The poor hate the rich. Americans think themselves better than
Canadians and Canadians think themselves better than Americans. Whites hate Indians and Indians hate
whites. This is called collusion. We collude in giving each other reason to not
regard each other as beloved children of God and to continue on in our boxed up
and hateful little worlds of self-betrayal where we don’t do what Jesus
commands us to do and what the Holy Spirit prompts and enables us to do – Love
as Jesus has loved us, giving himself up for us.
Money-Love, the pursuit of wealth,
makes it very easy for us to shut ourselves up in this living Hades of
self-betrayal, self-justification, and collusion. The way out is to see every person as a real
person, a beloved child of God and act compassionately as the Holy Spirit who
dwells in us each prompts us to do. Even
if it means we must give up a few things or quite a bit, we must do the
compassion we know we should otherwise we make God look really ugly. Amen.
