Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’” (Luke 16:19-31)
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This is Part 1 of The Rich Man, Lazarus and Justice
There are three narrative elements that are inescapable about Jesus in this week’s reading. First, the Jesus of Luke’s gospel was a theist, not an atheist. While I believe atheists can follow Jesus’ ethics and values (see here), the Jesus of the story believed in and taught the existence of God. Second, the Jesus of this story often refers to an afterlife. Humanists who do not believe in another life beyond this one can still embrace and promote the ethics in the Jesus story such as the golden rule, nonviolence, and economic justice. The Jesus in the story spoke of things such as laying up “treasure in heaven,” being rewarded at the “resurrection of the righteous,” and the meek “inheriting the earth.” After all, Jesus was a 1st Century Jewish man who lived in a world where these ideas and beliefs were overwhelmingly prevalent. This was the prevalent metaphysical worldview, the water that they swam in. And third, the Jesus of these stories spoke of being rewarded in that afterlife for following his “kingdom” teachings on how we relate to one another now in a kind of great reversal. He spoke of both an intrinsic reward in the present life for the choices we make and another reward in the “age to come” when that reversal took place for those who followed his teachings. This week touches on one of those occurrences: the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
This story uses the then-popular belief in a future, great reversal. This is where we will begin in Part 2.
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