From the Daily Lectionary for Monday in the Twenty-Fourth Week after Pentecost
Luke 16:19-31
“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.’”
If you weren’t convinced in the prologue of Luke’s Gospel that it is about a social and economic reversal, then Luke provides this parable. You will remember that it is Mary, the mother of Jesus, who prophesies that “the poor will be filled with good things, while the rich are sent away empty.” And moreover, three-fourths of Luke’s parables address the issue of wealth, and the system that keeps that wealth in the hands of the elite few. For Luke the stakes are higher than mere socio-economics. They have cosmic significance, a matter of heaven versus hell.
At the heart of Luke’s Gospel is the critique of the system, its coercive abuse, and its callous indifference toward the plight of the poor who comprise the vast majority of the population. Not only is this system damaging for that majority, but it is damaging for the elite as well. All lives can’t matter until the lives of the poor matter.
The remedy according to Luke is found in the message of “Moses (the Law) and the prophets,” that is to say, love your neighbor as you love yourself. According to Jesus’ teaching, that is the message of Judaism, the very Word of God, in a nutshell.
The further implication in this passage is that things will not be set right in the hereafter. Now is the time to address the inequities of wealth and power. Our life’s work as people of faith is not to aspire to heaven, but to bring heaven on earth. Hell is now, and heaven is now, and the way we treat our neighbor, both personally and institutionally, determines which it will be. To aspire towards a heavenly utopia in the “next life” is to abdicate our responsibility in the here and now.
There is, as Luke puts it, a “fixed chasm” between those who have and those who have not. We see it in our own intractable social and economic order. Only Love can bridge the abyss that is caste and self-interest and indifference. It is love only that can raise the dead to life. That, in a nutshell, is our vocation.
A Prayer in Times of Conflict (BCP p. 824)
O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to engage one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
