He said to them, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”  –Luke 16:31

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) is quite a story, isn’t it? Some would say “a hell of a story!”  It is as story about sin, even though the word is not used explicitly. Sin is identified as distance and separation; often the imposed distances that separate God’s children from one another and God’s will for us together.  But because this parable comes from Jesus, it is also a salvation story–it’s gospel! In the kingdom of God you never have the reality of sin without the promise of salvation.

You know the details. Two people inhabit the same world, even the same locale, in very different conditions: a rich person and a poor person.  One has a nice home, great clothes, more than enough to eat.    The other fights off extinction, seeking fallen crumbs from the rich one’s table, his woundedness offered a salve only by the dogs.  The physical barrier is a gate, maybe a door. A matter of inches.  But the emotional and spiritual distance might as well be thousands of miles, even the distance between disparate galaxies.  They are separated.  In the world that God created and infuses with God’s love, how is this possible?  You know the answer.  So does Jesus.

The poor man dies; not particularly surprising.   Poor people die in undignified circumstances all of the time.  But then one verse later, the rich man dies. For a startling instant in the story, they are equal, albeit in death.  None of the rich person’s advantages matter anymore.  This is sobering enough, but Jesus tells the story with a vividness that moves into an even more startling reversal of fortunes.  In Jesus’ imaginative rendering, Lazarus (he has a name!) is carried away by the angels to the bosom of Abraham.  He is in the embrace of the patriarch of faith, an original recipient of God’s deliverance to a promised land.  Ah, the last shall be first, finally!  By comparison, the cursory nature of the rich man’s obituary is shocking: “The rich man also died and was buried.”  Imagine if that is all there was to say.

It is the next section that really seems to disturb contemporary church folk.  The rich man is in Hades, the place of the dead, and described as “being tormented.”  I think he is confronted with the spiritual poverty of the life he has lived, particularly as he looks up and sees Lazarus close to the side of Abraham.  They are within eyeshot of each other, though a “great chasm” separates them.  I wonder if this is the first time the rich man has seen his neighbor, really seen him, though Lazarus had been near all along.  Now, ironically, it is the rich person seeking mercy, not wanting to be isolated or forsaken.  Who can blame him?  We find that he and Lazarus really share much more than what was realized before.  The man calls out to Abraham and begs him to send Lazarus with water for his thirst.  Damn.  In spite of my previous hopes, the rich one still doesn’t see Lazarus. He sees, at most, someone to serve his needs, someone he could give a job to as a waterboy. Like Simon Wiesenthal in The Sunflower.

Abraham patiently explains that the rich man has received his “good things”, his comfort and advantages, already. All the while Lazarus has received none of of those good things in his life.  And while food, clothing, and a good home are not condemned, the lack of those things for Lazarus is described as “evil,” according to Abraham.  In many societies, including ours, such disparities have been accepted as “normal;” it is “how the world is.” But it is not how the Realm of God is.   It is not considered “normal” in lives where God truly  reigns.

To his credit, the rich man is not just thinking about himself.  He begs Abraham to send Lazarus  to his brothers to warn them so that the siblings don’t wind in such vacuous circumstances.  The siblings are people of faith.  Abraham responds, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.”  Listening, seeing, feeling: these will be key.  And there will be no errands for the newly comforted Lazarus.

Let’s pause and ask ourselves, “How do I hear Jesus’ story?”

1.  Did you love this story when you heard it, because the suffering man who died destitute and ignored is finally receiving the loving care, dignity, mercy and communion that God intended for him from the day he was born?   Did you think, “It means God will really set things right in the end!”?
2. Conversely, did you hear this as a “go to hell” story?  A story of eternal condemnation and punishment for getting it so badly wrong?  A bad news story, something you hope the Bible Study leader will move past quickly?
3. Or did you feel discomfort, but resolve to explore more deeply what that might mean?

These are very different responses to the same tale.  Whatever perspective we have individually may be a reflection of where we are presently.  If we want a different perspective, we will likely need to risk movement.

Note that before death and after, the “chasm” between the rich man and Lazarus doesn’t really change. It’s just that the experiences of the distance have been reversed! According to Abraham, God doesn’t fix such distances between one another–we do, in life.

I’d like to give the rich man some love. I don’t think he’s heartless.  I suspect the rich man has been giving Lazarus some of the scraps from his table of abundance.  I doubt Lazarus would stay outside the door if it were not the case. Poor people may be poor; they’re not stupid.  Some of the most industrious people I’ve known have been unhoused folk.  They learn the hard work of moving from where they have been sleeping to the places where you might get the meager blessing of a sandwich and a cup of water on Tuesday afternoon, a cup of coffee and a roll on Wednesday, a bowl of soup Friday evening.   Often crossing long distances and multiple neighborhoods.   So maybe the future that God is beckoning us all to is not limited to sharing scraps, but about sharing life, compassion, and reverence.  When Abraham tells the rich man that the chasm remains fixed, that no one can go from there to here, it’s not punishment.  What he’s really saying is this: Once Lazarus is dead, and you are as well, it’s too late for you to open up and change direction and do what is right and good and selfless.  You could have done that at any time while you were alive!  The tragedy is that you didn’t.  Lazarus died from neglect and lack of a real brother or sister.  Like millions of others.  And you, dear child, remained blind to the very end.   Now you can see not only his need but your own.  And it is pretty late.

The parable is an uncomfortable picture of the world we live in today: its people, its divisions, its suffering and excess.  Its lack of vision.  It becomes a blessing, a for-giveness for Jesus to confront us with the truth.  He trusts us, you and me, to act on the truth he gives us.

The good news is that God cares about all of us; that God is working each and very moment to heal this world and draw all people into the bosom of the Divine.  Such distances continue to remain, sometimes right in our own  neighborhood.  But we can yet live with the kind of intention and newness Jesus opens to us.  We can still cross over those sinful distances from here to there.

Richard Rohr has said of the Christian church: “We made the teaching of Jesus largely into an evacuation plan for the next world . . . so that we don’t have to take this world seriously–this life, this earth, what’s happening now.”  But that’s everything that is vital, isn’t it?  If a story like this frightens us about our own personal future, making us anxious about “going to heaven” and avoiding damnation, then we are identifying with the rich man, yes?  And misunderstanding God. Lazarus is still of little primary concern; he’s not “us.”  But the church can yet be a prophetic community infused with God’s love and transforming power!

I contend that ultimately this will be a good story, if a difficult one.  It illuminates.  It digs deeper. It fosters sight.   It compassions us.  Spanish/Salvadoran theologian Jon Sobrino,  from whom I have learned much, says that the oppressed are “the mediation of God” because they break down our normal self-interest and humanize us.  We begin asking, “What does it mean to be human with other human beings in the midst of this reality?”  Sobrino adds,  “That’s why those who do approach the poor get the real feeling that it is they who are being converted rather than those to whom they seek to render a service.”

Perhaps there is an offer of new life for the listener.  Salvation can be the healing of my blindness and my culture’s blindness to the reality of a common future of all God’s children, and to the unbroken love of God.  Salvation can mean receiving the assertive, loving care of Jesus for the inner distortion, brokenness, and fear that have previously taken up residence within me. Salvation is discovering the presence of Jesus in any and every person I meet. Salvation is a new conversation.  In the here and now.