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There are several things that need to be said 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. Specifically, do we live in a way that reflects the image of our God who is unconditional and self-giving love so as to give hope to the world or do we betray that fundamental self-identity and live in a way based more on self-deception resulting in our using people for our own purposes which leads to a perpetual need to justify ourselves?
With respect to how we live life in the present, Jesus is here contrasting 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” was a catch phrase back in Jesus’ day for the faithful life. If you were living in “Abraham’s Bosom” you were one of God’s people, a Jew, a descendent of Abraham who was 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 faithfulness. 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” at them 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 God’s revelation of himself that God wanted to give the world by calling the 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 whom God created in his image 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 in that land God would make his descendants to be a great nation through which all nations would be blessed. Abraham believed God and went and his children became a great tribe in the land of Palestine. But in time, the “children” of Abraham found themselves enslaved in Egypt. The promise seemed threatened. So then, God called Moses to lead the descendants of Abraham of slavery in Egypt and God delivered them with a mighty hand. At Mt. Sinai, after all that God had done for them, these descendants of Abraham agreed that the God of Abraham was evidently their God and they were his people and they promised to live the way he wanted them to live. So, God gave them the Ten Commandments. Being faithful to God by following these commandments was to be the core of their community life. Through the Prophets God kept this people accountable. 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.
But, it goes deeper than that. Through this faithful people God would demonstrate to the whole 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. In its communal life of faithfulness lived according to the Law and the Prophets Israel 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. We make God look ugly, unbelievable, uncaring. 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, until God finally brings about the New Creation and puts all things to rights, faithfulness, Abraham’s Bosom, is the way for now.
Looking at this parable, this rich man and Lazarus in this parable are both children of Abraham. The rich man’s daily ignoring of Lazarus and his letting Lazarus persist in such a wretched existence while he himself grew richer and enjoyed greater comforts was an utter denial by this 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.
There’s 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. It explains that 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, instead 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. Then I 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 against me. 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 Natives and Natives hate whites. This is called collusion. We collude in giving each other reason to not regard each other as beloved children of God. And so, we 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 or quite a bit of things, we must do the compassion we know we should otherwise we make God look really ugly and that’s not good because it eclipses any hope this world might have. Amen.
