This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Luke 16:19-31. The English Standard version supplies the passage with the heading “The Rich Man and Lazarus.”
It’s a parable Jesus told. In it, Jesus says the opposite of what Psalm 1 says. You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, during the Sunday service, we read from Psalm 1. Most of us just repeated it like parrots.
Psalm 1 says people who learn and obey the law prosper. Psalm 1 teaches the theology of those who said Job suffered much because he sinned much. Psalm 1 teaches the theology of the Pharisees and of the rich man in Jesus’ parable. It’s the opposite of what Jesus taught: Blessed are the poor …
It’s not just Psalm 1. Some years ago, my wife and I attended a dinner given by one of our friends. She’d spent most of her life working in a Christian institution, walking beside the poor and needy. She wasn’t rich. But she was grateful for the life God had given her. For her 70th birthday, she hosted a thanksgiving dinner. She was very generous.
She gave a speech. I was shocked by the Bible portions she chose as the basis for her thanksgiving. She chose Deuteronomy 28. Her meditation was in two parts.
The first was based on a blessings verse:
1 If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God …
The second was based on a curses verse:
15 However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you …
I was shocked. Her theology sounded like the theology of the Pharisees and of the rich man, as depicted by Luke. A theology in which health and wealth are seen as rewards given by God for good behaviour. Scholars have a name for it. They call it Deuteronomic theology.
Of course, it’s no sin to be rich and no one wants to be thirsty, hungry, homeless, and sick. We all long for comfort. We all believe that God is like the best of fathers and mothers – he never wants to see his children hurt.
We all also know that many of God’s children live, move, and breathe in slums.
We all also know that Jesus was homeless, mocked, slapped, severely beaten, and crucified. And Jesus told his disciples to expect hardships.
The Bible is filled with accounts of suffering. There were also rich people in the New Testament churches – but they cared for the poor, unlike the rich man in Jesus’ parable.
In the parable, the rich man lives in a fine house. He dresses in the finest clothes, eats the finest food, owns the finest of everything. Probably gives large sums of money to the Temple. Sacrifices the finest animals to God. At his gate lies Lazarus,[1] on the street. He’s dressed in his wounds. He’s skin and bones, has nothing to eat because the rich man sends away his leftovers to the city dump. Both die. Lazarus goes to heaven; the rich man goes to hell. But he can see Lazarus. And he can speak with Father Abraham, who stands in for God. The rich man asks God to order Lazarus to go to his brothers and warn them to care for others more than he did. Because he doesn’t want them to come to hell and suffer like him. God says no, they can read and obey the Bible. The rich man says no, they don’t read the Bible. But they’ll listen if a man comes back from the dead and tells them what it’s like. God says, no, if they won’t listen to Moses and the Prophets, they won’t listen to a man come back from the dead.
Do you remember what Jesus did when he came back from the dead and travelled with the two dejected disciples on the Emmaus Road? He showed them what Moses, and the Prophets, said about him. You can read it in Luke 24:27.
One of the perplexing things about our lection for today is that suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Jesus speaks about marriage and divorce. It’s in verse 18, just before our lection. Why is it there?
I believe it’s there to remind us of Deuteronomic theology. In Jesus’ day, some Pharisees interpreted Deuteronomy 24:1-4 as a way to escape one marriage and enter another. But Jesus tells them that breaking a marriage vow is a sin. So, Jesus is warning us to be careful not to use scriptures like Lego bricks to build the type of God we want.
It’s too easy to forget Deuteronomy 15:7, which reads:
“If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother.”
Happily, our friend, who hosted the dinner, did not forget that verse. Although she did, like most of us, object to paying higher taxes – which are often needed in order to improve the lives of the poor and suffering.
This is how preacher Fred Craddock[2] summed up Jesus’ message:
“wherever some eat and others do not eat, there the kingdom does not exist, quote whatever Scripture you will.”
Peace be with you.
Note: If you’re wondering, how we should read Psalm 1 and Deuteronomic theology, Bible Scholar Walter Brueggemann is an excellent guide. In his book, “Spirituality of the Psalms,” he says ““the Christian use of the Psalms is illuminated and required by the crucifixion, so that in the use of the Psalms we are moving back and forth among reference to Jesus, the voice of the psalm itself, and our own experiences of dislocation, suffering, and death.”
Note: Psalm 1 remains inspired scripture. We have to learn to read it through the cross. Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann’s “Spirituality of the Psalms” is an excellent guide through the Psalms. Here’s a little introduction to it by Sylvia Purdie, published in www.conversations.net.nz.
[1] This is the only recorded parable of Jesus in which there are proper names.
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