Caught in the Story
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
We all know the “problem” with Jesus’ parables. It’s tempting to collapse them into easy-to-digest platitudes. Tamp down their complexity. Turn stories meant to surprise, shock, and destabilize into bland moralism to which we can all agree. We should be loving like the Good Samaritan. We should repent like the Prodigal Son. Gordon Fee, in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, says parables are like jokes, meant to “catch” us in their meaning. They’re sneaky that way, coming up from behind so we don’t have time to build up our defenses. We don’t as much interpret the parables, as they interpret us, holding a mirror to us so we can see ourselves in a different light. They reveal our motives, locate our affections, call forth a response. We find, in these deceptively simple stories, that we aren’t just listeners, but participants, ourselves, in the stories Jesus tells—participants with crossroads to face and choices to make if we are to follow Jesus. These parables should come with a warning: Don’t be so sure you understand what this means. Certainty is a sure sign that you probably don’t.
This week’s parable, for instance, can be read for what we might think is the “punchline”: Don’t be like the rich man and ignore the poor or you will pay for this in the afterlife. Don’t be “that guy”! (Truthfully now, though, how many of us have read Jesus’ parables, just trying to figure out how not to be the “bad guy” in the story?) Getting ourselves into this story requires discipline, patience, so don’t try to “arrive” too quickly at the interpretation. Wait for the questions to emerge, the complexities to reveal themselves. Sit in that uncomfortable place and allow yourself to be “caught” in the story.
Some questions that emerged for me from this parable: Why does it seem as if Jesus is making caricatures of the rich man and Lazarus? Why the extreme portrayals? Doesn’t that make us less likely to see ourselves in them? The rich man is not just “rich”, he’s obnoxiously rich. Wearing purple, the color of royalty, and feasting sumptuously, not just on special occasions, but every single day, this man is obviously not a proponent of “quiet luxury”. Even in Hades, burning in the flames, he behaves like a petulant king, ordering Lazarus to go and fetch some water for him, like Lazarus is his slave. Who does this guy think he is, anyway? Clearly, the afterlife hasn’t changed him one bit. And the poor beggar, Lazarus? He is the picture of misery—too weak to stand, he lays at the rich man’s gate, hoping for a measly bread crumb to be tossed his way. He’s covered in open sores, with only some lapping neighborhood dogs offering him any kind of comfort. Lazarus desperately needs someone to show him mercy, but he will not find it, until he dies and is carried away by angels to Abraham’s side.
Another question: Why the proper names? What is significant about calling the poor man, “Lazarus” and the heavenly figure, “Abraham”? This is apparently the only parable in the gospels in which the characters are given names. Usually, Jesus will begin with something like, “There was a man who had two sons…” Or, “There was a landowner…” Or, “There was a widow…” Perhaps in naming “Lazarus”, which means “God helps”, Jesus is making a point here about the way it is with God. The billionaires may dominate our headlines, but in the economy of God, in the right-side-up way of the Kingdom of Jesus, it’s the poor who are lifted up; they are the ones who are seen and named. They’re not embarrassing liabilities, anonymous statistics, but those deserving of compassion, even honor. Certainly, this is a theme in Luke, beginning with vulnerable Mary herself, who is compelled to sing about how God has looked with favor upon her lowliness, as the firstborn of the new creation literally grows in her belly. If this is how salvation comes, through the “nobodies” whom God chooses, then naming “Lazarus” here fits. He is a “last” that has become a “first”, a true son of Abraham.
But here, for me, is the “catch”: Who is the figure in this story who utters Lazarus’ name? Yes, Jesus, to be sure. But also the rich man! Notice, the parable doesn’t say: In Hades the rich man finally meets Lazarus, who the rich man has never seen before, and now suddenly everything is clear! That’s not what happens. The fact that the rich man knows Lazarus’ name, has seen him at his front gate, and still has done absolutely nothing to help him—not even a spare crumb to toss—is condemning. The rich man cannot claim ignorance. His blindness to Lazarus is willful and practiced.
But there’s more: The rich man knows Abraham’s name too. He calls him “Father” and presumes on the relationship, expecting a few divine favors from the patriarch. But can this rich man be called a true son of Abraham? Having Moses and the prophets apparently did nothing to change him or his view of Lazarus, who when alive, went unnoticed at his front gate, no great chasm between them. Yet.
Amy-Jill Levine, in Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi says of the rich man, “Knowledge without action will count for nothing. He refused to recognize on earth that Lazarus too was a child of Abraham and so should have been treated as a welcome member of the family. He had the resources; he had the opportunity; he had the commandments of Torah. He did nothing, and he still does nothing.” This rich man is neither teachable nor, at this point, reachable. Not even Jesus rising from the dead will be enough for him and his five brothers to repent.
Chilling.
That’s what wealth does to us; it deadens us to discipleship. It masks the cost of real repentance. It casts illusions about our security so that we don’t see how our own conversion is joined to that of the poor. So we can wax on about the “Great Reversal” theme in Luke, quote Amos and Isaiah extensively about God’s heart for the poor, even “know” the poor by name, and still remain unchanged. Hard-heartedness might not look like Pharoah, Judas, or Hitler—you know, the “extremes”. It might look like a Church too preoccupied with its own well-being to notice who is being crushed right now. It might look like disciples who know too much about Jesus, but act too little like Him.
What will it take to repent? How will we be caught in this story? Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Church. Amen.