There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 24 He called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.' 25 But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.' 27 He said, 'Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house — 28 for I have five brothers — that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.' 29 Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.' 30 He said, 'No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' 31 He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"
This one leaves me short.
Hard to be glib - funny - light hearted with a parable like this.
Especially after checking on the web site globalrichlist.com and seeing that an annual income of $50K puts one in the top 1% in the world.
Try placing yourself in Lazarus’ shoes now. Not that Lazarus had any shoes. . .
The chasm is deeper than we can imagine, and I find it hard to look too closely at this parable. A bit like staring at the sun.
Interestingly, in his excellent book on parables, Bernard Brandon Scott skips this one. [edit - I thought it did - it doesn't. . . BBS sees here a call to solidarity. . . ]
Maybe I will too.
Or not.
PNT in a sermon on this text works with image of the chasm - chasms of disparity in wealth, chasms in relationships (I’m playing fast and loose with PNT’s much more nuanced read I must confess.) The core chasm, though - he suggests - is the chasm that allows these disparities in the first place. It is a theology that says that the rich get what they deserve and the poor do as well.
He quotes this line: “When money is our idol being poor is a sin.” hmmmm.
God helps those who help themselves.
And yet, in this only parable where someone has a name, it is the poor one who is named, and Lazarus means “God helps.”
God helps those who cannot help themselves.
Blasphemy!
Away with anyone who would suggest such a thing!
16 comments:
Let me open comments with a thought from Mary Hinkle Shore's excellent sermon on this text - a sermon sent to me by The Vicar.
She works the text well, and suggests that we might read this story and see ourselves - not as Lazarus, nor as the rich man. But as a servant. A servant of another rich man. But a rich man who would gladly have us use his resources to offer help and aid to Lazarus. . .
Nice stewardship twist.
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. . .
All that you have is not your own. . .
The Lord helps those who cannot help themselves.
I've been looking at the second lesson- especially vs15-16- doxology "The only sovereign, the King of Kings and Lords of lords, It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see." This doxology, possibly a baptismal hymn, sets speaks to the superiority of God to humans,,,doxology is a way we "fight the good fight" acknowledging that God is God and we are not. Forde says, p.75 in his book, On being a theologian of the cross, "AS Fallen creatures we will always be threatened by God, who is hidden by masks fo divine majesty. Like consceince they never go away...Precisely against the threat of supposed divine timelessness and immutablity we are claimed in the concrete word of the cross in the living present;through baptism and Supper we are washed and fed....there is a great divide... To be grasped by that fact is to be on the way to becoming a theologian of the cross." The great divide of death in the Lazarus story leads to doxology, and utimately to the cross. What do you think about the above thoughts?
OOps- left out this from Forde "Through the preaching of the cross in the living present, not through theological explanations, we are defended from the terror of divine majesty...the solution to the problem of God is not in the classroom but in the church."
This Biblical version of a heaven/hell joke mostly leaves me sad. There are lots of threads (punch lines) including that the name of the poor guy is "God help ya" which God finally does. The reversal of fortunes, the preaching of the law and prophets, and the 'not even someone coming back from the dead will help'. But mostly, at this moment, the whole thing makes me sad. This guy simply does not get it. He goes to his grave not getting it. He exists in Hades not getting it. He never seems to know that he doesn't get it either. So top to bottom, front to back, he just doesn't get it. Cant' help but wonder, do I get it? Do we get it? How insulated are our lives? Gated communities, walls to keep out the riff-raff (that picks our fruit - irony here) willful ignorance of the plight of much of the world. The Underminer has identified that we are part of the top 1%. The more money I have the more I strive for the perks that make life easier, and perhaps insulate me even further from the web of nature and community that actually is who I am. Wow. Where might the Gospel be hiding in this text? The guy never gets it.
I'm not sure of the path from there to doxology. But as Joash's theologians of the cross, we may just have to kill Jesus again this week. I don't know why. It's just what I do when I can't think of anything else. Trouble is, he will come back from the dead. Worse yet, it may not do me any good. Perhaps it's my death that is called for. Not like in the joke where the guy stays his same stupid cocky self even into hell. (boy that would be hell!) But a real death and resurrection, the old me crucified with Christ. A new me able to receive life from the one who is risen from the dead.
PNT thanks so much.
I can really connect with the sadness about this tale, and the sadness about . . . my own self.
AND
the sense that, finally, there must be a death,
and
that it is going to have to be either me or Jesus. . .
and
finally, I am led to see that though we are going to have to end up killing Jesus, in the end, he will return from the dead, bringing that cross shaped death into my broken life, and there. . . finally there, bridging the chasm I cannot myself cross.
We can use our sense of sadness brought on by this text to notice how this story reveals our utter sinfulness. PNT is right to wonder, "Do I also not get it?" An additional question might be, "Can I free myself from sin? Can I heal my blindness?"
Luke uses this text in his typical way of making us liberals feel more guilty and inspired to do better in our charity: Let's each go by a Prius and wear underwear made out of walnut shells!
But it seems the best use of this text is to show us how pathetic we are.
And how gracious God is.
Thanks for all the cb chatter, fellow "Iceroad Truckers for the Lord"!
Perhaps the sadness can be a gift to help me perceive the chasm which I cannot span
I think of the dark wisdom of Brother Void in Daily Afllictions - his meditation titled:
Finding Sorrow - let me simply include it here
“Religion is for people afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.” —D. Creech
Finding Sorrow
Let my hidden weeping arise and blossom.
When you get depressed, it's comforting to remember that deep inside you is a well of pain. This pain can help you. It's a reservoir of self-knowledge and nourishment. When you're able to welcome this pain, it can carry you out of depression into sorrow.
When depressed, you are merely numb and listless. But in sorrow, you feel the fine-grained texture of loss. While depression diminishes your world, sorrow teaches you the true value of the things you mourn. Sorrow is the other side of joy, a solemn vigil that honors what you love. So the next time you are ensnared in darkness, cut through the gray armor of depression straight to the dark heart of sorrow.
Lost in depression; I am found in sorrow.
- end quote -
Might the sorrow raised by this story help to show me the true values of the kingdom to which I belong?
A toast to Brother Void. That's really good. Er, I mean sad.
Ice Road truckers. Now that's a calling, and a show.
What I observe about all this sadness is that it is more objective than subjective. This is sadness that the rich man does not feel. Nevertheless, his life is damned sad. He doesn't know what he is missing. He has rejected all but his own "self" (or something to that effect).
Now I wonder if there might be some connection between the Lazarus so easily rejected and the Christ - one risen from the dead - also easily rejected. "The life that really is life" (to quote from the 2nd lesson, and perhaps even to touch once again upon Joash's desire for doxology), is itself easily rejected. The sadness is objective. We just don't get it. And we don't know we don't get it. We are lost within ourselves.
It reminds me of that old adage that asserts that every group has a loser in the group. If your group doesn't seem to have one - that means you are the loser! (It may have been a geek or a nerd or some such thing instead of the loser.)
We may not feel sad. We may feel like we've made it. I don't know. At least I have a job that is clean and warm. Not in the emotional sense, of course. Maybe I'm an Ice Road Trucker of the soul.
I'm struggling with this like the next guy. Very, very sad indeed. At first I thought to myself that the folks I met in South Africa, many of them, might love this passage because of the promise of justice found in the after life. "Yea," they might say together in celebration, "our pain will be replaced by great joy!...
But wait a minute..., we still have to look accross a chasm at those other folks (blind idiots who just don't get it, but people non-the-less) who are suffering?!"
That's not heaven--that sounds like the same thing we have here...in reverse"
Worse yet, it seems to me that even when Abraham does allude to the one who returns from the dead (the hypothetical Christ according to Abraham), it is all for not.
This chasm is just too vast. Even in this life, if someone came back from the dead (or crossed the chasm between death and life) they would still be unable to reach the rich man's relatives. This sucks.
At least I can soak in the meloncholy sorrow of this life--just one more day--as an ice road tucker...(I'm going for my guitar).
I'm curious what you all think of verses 29-31, in which the point is made that the Bible (Moses and the prophets) is enough to warn us away from Dives' fate.
There is an implied message that the preaching, teaching, Bible-reading of the church is a powerful source of sanity for us. Perhaps Dives and his brothers and father struggle with it because they don't rightly believe it (scripture, preaching, teaching) is God's Word.
God bridges the chasm-- the "downward ascent"-- with his word. Most specifically his word made flesh. Is there a sermon there?
I get to be Jay on Ice Road Truckers. (You guys ever watch Survivorman?)
is it that the preaching teaching reading of the Word prepares us to believe the -otherwise unbelievable - Good News of the resurrection?
That's not quite it either, but P d'Basement is on to something here I suspect
And why is it that the Word is not enough for Divas and family?
Is it not flashy enough? Not "spiritual" enough?
Too busy going to banquets
I'm still stuck on I Tim- look at v19 says "So that they may take hold of the life that really is life." This death/life motiff that rings is found bound in both the gospel and I Tim - Paul says "to take hold of" twice- v12 & v19, the irony is that as we struggle to hold on to life, it is Jesus, the crucified one , the Sovereign Lord,who holds on to us! That parable is too strange to interpret- & apply directly to our lives- stay away from it! (it will kill you!-than again, maybe that's Jesus' point!)
When all was said and done, one place that was interesting to go with this text, is that Jesus has chosen so many ways to speak of forgiveness. If this is about forgiveness - it is a scandalous sort of forgiveness. Makes me think of the scandal of the cross.
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