Proper 21: September 26, 2004

Currents in Theology and Mission, August, 2004 by Sarah K. Bunge

Amos 6:1a, 4-7

Psalm 146

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Luke 16:19-31

First Reading

"There was a rich man...." When you start reading this Sunday's Gospel, people might think you have accidentally repeated last week's. Unfortunately, this parable is not quite as vague or nearly as ambiguous as last Sunday's. This week's is clear--crystal clear and awfully scary. Faced with these condemning texts, our challenge (from Amos) is to have our faith claim "not be an idle song." Jesus' intent in sharing this parable was not to scare the daylights out of everyone, even though he did a good job of that, but to motivate them toward equitable distribution of the world's resources. Our proclamation this Sunday must help people move from the place where the parable leaves them to a place of hope and invitation. We must accompany our people from a place of guilt to absolution, fear to repentance, shame to sacrifice.

Our epistle reading offers many good vantage points for faithful stewardship: set your hopes on God; God provides; we came to this world with nothing, we will leave with the same; be content with the simple bare necessities of life; fight the good fight. Ever wonder why stewardship is so tough? Just look back at that list! Each of those ideas flies smack in the face of our capitalistic nature and national rallying cry of competition. Capitalism is so totally ingrained in the hearts, faith, dreams, and priorities of the American people that Timothy's letter and Jesus' parable will seem downright ludicrous. How do we accompany the movement from "what's mine is mine" to "God has given graciously to me; I want to give to others"? In our nation the bumper sticker and t-shirt slogan "He who dies with the most toys, wins" gets far more airtime than Timothy's "we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it."

Fighting the good fight is precisely the battle we have between our two vying masters: God and Mammon. We can scarcely grasp the concept, barely imagine what life would be like if we did not concern ourselves with material issues and store up treasures, pensions, and savings accounts here on earth. This is more than a ten percent tithe; this is total, radical commitment. Our commitment to our master must be clear--in our pocketbook, our calendar, our house, our family, all that we do. The rich man chose his master; he serves Mammon. He lost the good fight, maybe never even fought. What would the rich man need to have done to change his fate?

The rich man does not have a name in this story, but surely everyone in the town knew his name. He was the one the boys wanted to be like, the one the women wanted to marry. I imagine he was the Gordon Gecko of his time, swallowing up farms, carpentry businesses, and fisheries with reckless abandon, disregarding the people who formed them. The no-name rich man is contrasted with the named beggar, Lazarus--a form of the Hebrew name Eleazar, meaning "God has helped." While unrelated to the Lazarus character found in John's Gospel, the two name-twins are both helped by God and raised up to new life. For this diseased beggar, Jesus departed from his standard operating procedure of not naming parabolic characters. This sore-infested homeless man is the only parable character given a name.

By naming Lazarus and not the rich man, Jesus' story completely contrasts with worldly understandings of who's who. As was his style, Jesus again reminds us that heaven is the opposite of this world in many respects, especially when it comes to rating an individual's worth in society. "Bill Gates, Donald Trump, the Middle Eastern oil guys, and Oprah" were some of the names my high-schoolers listed for rich people in our society. The room went silent when I asked them for names of the people in our town who beg, or are homeless. Vague references to "that one guy who sleeps behind Menards" and "that crazy lady always asking for change when I come out of McDonalds" were sounded around the room, until one young man said "my real dad." Mouths quickly turned off and light bulbs of cognition simultaneously turned on. We all understood what Jesus was saying: God cares about everybody, even and especially those that society would rather not notice and definitely not name.

Lazarus the sore-infested named beggar does not ever speak in the parable, illustrating the communal silence we like to maintain for the socially rejected. Homeless are not to be seen or heard, do not have value, do not need to vote, do not have rights. The poor are viewed as a menace to society whose only talent is lowering the property values of their neighbors.

Pastoral Reflection

Gorgeous irony and a beautiful reversal of agony and comfort take place in this story. How much the rich man wants just a small sip of water after denying similar simple comforts to the man he now envies. I imagine if Lazarus were quoted in this story, his request from the gate would have been the same as the rich man's: "Dip the tip of your finger into water and cool my tongue." The imagery of this story provides the most powerful illustration of the lesson "Do to others as you would have them do to you" found earlier in Luke 6:31.