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| "Luke 16, 20" by ha do, on Flickr |
Luke 16:19-31
[Jesus said:] “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 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.’ 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. 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.’
He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 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.’”
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Once upon a time, there was a rich man. This is how the story begins. A story of a rich man and a poor man, a story of a great reversal where comfort and anguish in this life are flipped on their heads in the afterlife. It is another story in now a long line of stories that Jesus tells that make us uncomfortable, where Jesus condemns wealth and challenges his listeners to upend their priorities if they are to be his faithful followers.
It isn’t a subtle story that Jesus tells. He includes details in his storytelling that hammer away at his point that the greatest and most difficult divide that our faith calls us to overcome is the divide between rich and poor, between powerful and powerless. So I want to begin by highlighting a few details that are especially worth noting in today’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
The first important detail is that in his storytelling Jesus leaves the rich man anonymous but gives the poor man a name, Lazarus, a name which means “God has helped.” Usually, it is the rich and powerful whose names we know, and the poor and overlooked who remain anonymous. Jesus subverts this to make a point. It is clear from the very beginning of this story who Jesus sides with. It is clear from the very beginning of the story whose story this actually is. It is the story of Lazarus. This detail, more than any other, is the key to the whole parable.
The second important detail is that when Jesus depicts an afterlife for both men, he depicts the afterlife in extremes. Lazarus is flown up to rest on the bosom of Abraham, which is the best of the best places you could be. The rich man is sent to Hades and to his unquenchable torment, which is the worst of the worst places you could be. Far from being a teaching about what life looks like after we die, Jesus uses these extremes to show us the great reversal in the story: that the roles of the rich, comfortable man and the poor, tormented man have now been reversed.
The third important detail is that when Abraham talks about the great and uncrossable chasm, he’s not actually talking about something new that happened to pop up in the afterlife. The chasm between Lazarus and the rich man after death is the chasm that divided the two men in life. The chasm was set in life every time that the rich man stepped over Lazarus and pretended not to see him on his way out of the house. The chasm grew even deeper in the afterlife, when the rich man still saw Lazarus only as a servant to do his bidding, demanding that he bring him water or that he visit his family to secure their salvation. The chasm is not a feature of the afterlife; it is a clear description in the story of the divide between rich and poor, powerful and powerless.
And the fourth important detail is the ending of the story, most notably that the story ends without any word of mercy or hope for the rich man. We get no epilogue where Abraham finally relents and reaches across the chasm. We don’t get a follow-up report ten years down the road showing the rich man with a change of heart, feasting in heaven alongside Lazarus, his new best friend. The story just ends with a man stuck in torment across a fixed chasm, whose pleas for water and for the salvation of his family have been denied. It is a troubling and uncomfortable end to the story.
When we read this parable, we so often want to hear good news for the rich man because we see ourselves in him. We read the story of the rich man and start thinking about all the ways that we ourselves have stepped over the poor and neglected the hungry, and we desperately want assurance that God will forgive these sins. We want to hear that the rich man turns out okay, because we want to know that, despite our mistakes, that we will end up okay too.
But this is not the point of today’s parable. This story isn’t supposed to make us feel okay and comfortable and self-assured. If we feel unsettled by the lack of redemption for the rich man today, then the parable is doing exactly what Jesus intended it to do.
Because Jesus is telling this parable to a group of Pharisees who are described as being “lovers of money,” who have ridiculed Jesus thus for for all of his teachings about money. He is telling the parable to a group of religious leaders who feel settled and secure and rich in themselves, not just because of their economic means, but because they believe that they, as keepers of the law, have the upper hand in receiving God’s favor.
Jesus tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus precisely to unsettle those who are well-fed, well-sheltered, and well-privileged. The point of the parable is not to make everyone comfortable, and especially not to comfort the already-comfortable. The parable raises the question, “Who is God’s good news for?”
And the answer that the parable provides is the gut-check truth that maybe the good news in the story isn't for the rich man or for us. The good news is for Lazarus. Lazarus suffered and hungered and anguished in his mortal life, but on the far side of death, he is shown the greatest comfort. Far from being a parable telling us truths about the afterlife, this is a parable about God’s intentions to turn the world upside down for the sake of those who suffer. And this, according to Luke’s gospel, what Jesus’s mission is all about.
Back at the very beginning of Luke, when pregnant Mary visits pregnant Elizabeth, Mary sings her Magnificat. This is a song about reversals. She sings that God "has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty."
And then Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry, reads the scroll of Isaiah, saying "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor."
And then again, Jesus teaches his disciples saying, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled....But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.”
We could edit this, couldn’t we, to say, “Blessed are you, Lazarus, who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you, Lazarus, who are hungry now, for you will be filled….But woe to you, rich man, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you, rich man who is full now, for you will be hungry.
There is no question, especially in Luke's gospel, that Jesus has in the forefront of his mind and heart the plight of those who have no power, no money, no freedom, and no agency in this life. Those who we routinely ignore, step over, and pretend not to see.
This is what today’s parable is all about. That there is good news for Lazarus, the one who needs it the most. And there is good news for all those in our world who need it the most. The good news is that God does not forget those who are hungry or who struggle to make ends meet; that God attends to the plight of the weak and the vulnerable. The slightly backhanded good news is that if we force God to take sides, God will always side with the broken, the outcast, and the forgotten.
We love this, in theory. We love to hear that God saves those who are last and lost and least. We love the idea that God cares for people in their struggles. It this sounds beautiful and all, but let’s be honest. It is actually challenging as heck when you really think about it.
Because what if we were to take out the character of Lazarus and instead insert a character named, "Black lives matter?" Or insert a character named, "Syrian refugees," or "Single mothers on welfare" or "Homeless heroin addicts?" That gets harder, doesn’t it? And what if, instead of a parable about Lazarus, it was a parable about "Muslim immigrant families," or "Father working two minimum wage jobs but still hovering under the poverty line?" or "Veteran suffering traumatic brain injury who can't pay his rent?” When we put this parable into our own context and update the terms, it gets really uncomfortable really fast.
And that’s the point. This parable is supposed to convict us, that we might be able to see God's good news for those who AREN'T us. Because God's good news of mercy and salvation for the world cannot truly be good news if it doesn't first apply to those who are the most vulnerable in this life. And God’s good news for the world cannot be good news if it does not open our eyes to see and serve those who we most want to overlook in the world.
Sara Miles, in her book Jesus Freak, says: “None of us can control what God does. But we can open our eyes and see what God is doing. Jesus says that in order to see the glory of God revealed, we have to look at the whole of creation: God is always among us, making us whole even as we try to divide ourselves, loving us even as we hate each other. Look at the lame, he says, at the plagued, the poor, those you’ve cast you, those whose suffering you misunderstand as a sign of their own sinfulness. Don’t call unclean anything God has created; do not exclude anything or anyone from your vision. It is all God’s work.”
This is the rich man’s greatest sin, that he didn’t see Lazarus, that he chose to shield his eyes so as not to have to see what was uncomfortable and unsettling for him, that he excluded Lazarus from his vision, and in doing so, he divided himself from a brother whom God had given to him and entrusted to his care.
There is an African word, "Ubuntu," that means "humanity," in a grand sense of the word. Ubuntu carries with it the idea that "I am because you are, and you are because we are." Ubuntu conveys a picture of humanity that is utterly dependent upon the plight of one another; that we are all connected, and that we can only be good in ourselves if we first know that others are good in themselves. Nelson Mandela, talking about ubuntu, once said, "Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question…is, are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?"
This is where the story of the rich man and Lazarus leads us. It pushes us toward a faithful vision of ubuntu. A vision where we seek and celebrate good news for all the Lazaruses in our midst, where we are good because others more vulnerable than us are good.
For it is through the heart of God our creator that we are all interconnected, each of us, rich and poor, bearing the image of God. It is in the body of Christ that we are all joined together, from the strongest to the weakest. And when one member of Christ’s body suffers, so does the whole body suffer. But when the weakest members are lifted up, so are we all lifted up.
Brothers and sisters, grace abounds in this world. For all. Yes, for rich and for poor. None of us is beyond hope. But it is by God’s grace that we are called not to look inward at our own selves, but to have new eyes to see one another and to seek good for one another. To seek hope for those who need it the most. To cross boundaries and cross chasms, putting the good of others ahead of our own good. Because this is God’s good news. That those who need it most are not forgotten. And that no one is outside of the life that really is life, the hope we bear in Christ Jesus our Lord. May God give us eyes to see one another and to see those who this world so often overlooks. May we seek good for one another, and in doing so receive the good that God promises for us all.
Amen.
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