Spiritual Parables sometimes present the ‘rich’ person as a hero of justice, sometimes as a miserly villain. Today’s Parable from the Beloved Son of God has mighty imagery. The extravagance of the rich man is played off against the utter destitution of the poor man. The rich man is not a miser. His problem is that he is numb to the presence of the poor and inattentive to their needs. While Lazarus starves, he has Sunday lunch seven days a week. Where Lazarus is covered in sores, the rich man is covered in the finest threads. Lazarus lies at his door and it is a door that never opens. The rich man needs to become more sensitive to the poverty and suffering in front of his eyes.
Death brings a reversal. The rich man is given a proper burial while beggars rarely are. But instead of saying that the body of Lazarus was devoured by beasts, the story has angels carry him to the bosom of Abraham. Now Abraham was a rich man of the first kind – generous, heroic and a master of the art of hospitality. No poor person would ever have lain unnoticed and unattended at his door. His door was open and the poor would have been clothed and sat at his table.
In some teaching stories, when the rich man finds himself in hell, he sees the error of his ways and asks for a second chance. But this story does not go in that direction. The rich man is not interested in repentance or second chances. When he asks ‘Father’ Abraham for help, he is told that the real children of Abraham are those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and create for the lonely a home, a community where they belong. The rich man will not get the hearing he wants. Notice too how he can now see Lazarus very clearly and that he calls on him for help! Abrahams’ reply gives no explanation for the reversed situation but he empties the rich man of his last vestige of hope by pointing to the uncrossable gulf that makes help impossible. The time before death is the time for repentance. The message of the story is clear. Don’t waste your precious time: repent NOW!
The rich mans’ torment cannot be relieved but he might be able to save those he loves from the same fate. But his request to send a resuscitated Lazarus to warn them, only galvanises the storyteller to drive his point home all the harder. The way of change is not to fear the future but to listen and act on the prophets call for justice now. The rich man is not convinced. People will change if they see something spectacular, like say, a resurrection. Abraham is now the one who is not convinced. Moses and the Prophets are the key to understanding the life, death and resurrection of the Beloved Son of God. They don’t need something more. They must attend to what they already have. The story ends by stating clearly that the rich man’s fate was sealed when he refused to listen to Moses and the Prophets. They were absolutely clear that caring for the poor of the earth is the only show in town. But the rich man misunderstood his wealth and saw it as an advantage over the poor. When he did this, he put himself at odds with God’s purposes.
This story, although it unfolds and is told in the afterlife, is not intended by Jesus to scare his hearers, or to try and paint a picture of life beyond the grave. The real target of the story are the assumptions and attitudes of people living here and now on planet earth. Vivid stories about heaven and hell are told to make clear the truths that may be obscured in the murky dealings of the world. The way the world works is not the way God works. The class systems and social arrangements of the world are not sanctioned by eternity. Any theology that sees wealth as a blessing from God and poverty and sickness as a divine curse is mistaken. And if this theology is used to keep the gap between the rich and the poor as wide as possible it is insidious. The Beloved Son of God teaches His disciples to rearrange the wealth of the earth in such a way that all people share in them. Abraham thinks the rich man should have known this all along – and he is right. There is no excuse for his appalling behaviour. Something more is not needed. There is enough already.
The directive to bridge the gap between rich and poor is clear; but how we should do it isn’t always so clear. Change can only come from those who have heard the Parable and ask themselves, how, in this situation change can be created. Every disciple has to know how to translate spiritual truth into social fact. On one side of the door, the rich Feast, on the other side of the door, the poor starve. Who holds the Key? The answer is to be found in the universal truth that doors can only be opened from the inside.
