“Child, remember that during your lifetime
you received your good things…” (Luke
16:25)
If I were a Socialist revolutionary (which some people actually think I am), the parable Jesus teaches in the Gospel appointed for Pentecost 16 in the RCL (Luke 16:19-310) wouldn’t bother me so much. I could just say that the day is coming when the rich will be overthrown and the poor of the world will rise up and that’s the way God wants it. Amen. But, like all of Jesus’ parables, it’s a little trickier than that. On the surface, it looks like Jesus is saying “Rich people are going to burn in Hell.” But then we have to ask just how much cash constitutes “rich.” I mean, compared to Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, I’m as poor as a gnat. But if you compare me to someone who just lost their home in the flood in Pakistan, I could pass as comfortably well off.
So what’s going on here? I think it would’ve helped if the guys who compose the RCL had added verses 14 and 15 as a preamble for this parable:
The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.”
Once again, Jesus is attacking the Powers that Be. He’s taking a swing at their presuppositions and self-righteousness and trying to get them to see things in a different light. In the world of the text—and in our own time, too—prosperity was seen as a sign of God’s favor. You’d think that Jesus’ challenge to this notion would but the idea to rest, but you’d be wrong. Even today a slick bunch of televangelists are still spewing the slop that God wants all God’s children to be happy, healthy, and successful; therefore, living a good, God-fearing life will ultimately net you riches and joy beyond your imagination. There’s a gang of boneheads on TBN like Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland who are peddling this mush and making millions doing it.
As good Lutherans, raised on the doctrine
of grace, we know wealth doesn’t equate to virtue. The problem is, it’s still
tough to get out of our heads the idea that poverty equates to vice. Just this
past week I got a knock on the church door from a guy who has been pestering me
for years asking for cash or gift cards or some kind of assistance. This time
his story was he’d lost his job and was homeless again. Even though I’ve
threatened to call the cops on his sorry butt in the past, I gave him the buck
I had in my pocket and sent him on his way.
I guess it’s pretty easy to avoid being troubled by someone else’s humanity if you can convince yourself they don’t deserve to be helped.
But the parable still eats at me. Maybe Jesus is telling us that, even if we can’t do everything, what we can do we should do.
A few things always stick out to me about this parable. First, even as the rich dude is roasting in the flames, he actually knows the poor man by name. So it’s not like he can claim he’d been ignorant of the man’s need. Second, Jesus says Lazarus “longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table.” The word “satisfy” in the Greek is the aorist form of the verb chrotaxo (crotaxw) which quite literally means “eat one’s fill.[i]” That means the rich guy had so much food at his disposal that Lazarus could’ve dined to his content on the leftovers. There wasn’t any scarcity here, just a lack of generosity. Thirdly, the rich dude knows he’s supposed to be generous. He doesn’t end up in Hades and say, “Dang! Did I miss the memo about sharing my wealth? I didn’t know I was supposed to care about other human beings!” To the contrary, this guy had the words of Moses and the prophets to guide him.
Finally, the great Lutheran New Testament scholar Barbara Rossing suggests that we might want to cast ourselves in the role of the five brothers.[ii] Doc Barb always likens apocalyptic stories to A Christmas Carol. You know: the part where Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come if the shadows he sees are the shadows of what must happen or only of what may happen if he doesn’t get his act together. Abraham tells the rich guy his siblings have Moses and the prophets to warn them about their behavior. We, too, have Moses and the prophets—and someone who was raised from the dead! When we look at the world, the needy, and our own lives, we have to conclude there’s only a limited amount of time to do the right thing.
Our loving God has put the ball in our court. Let’s use our time, talents, and treasures to God’s glory while we can.
So glad you stopped by this week. Please come again.
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