A Hellish Story

                The stories of Jesus are often misunderstood and reduced to mere “earthly stories with a heavenly meaning.”  Not the least of these is the Rich Man and Lazarus.  This, however, is decidedly not an “earthly story with a heavenly meaning.”  It is not even, as N.T. Wright describes some of Jesus’ stories in his book Simply Jesus, “a heavenly story with an earthly meaning.”  It is indeed a “hellish story.”  Each one should take care lest he miss what the Son of Man has to say to our generation.

                I can only speak for my tradition, but most often this story is seen as nothing more than a proof text carried around in our back pockets like a familiar hanky which we believe gives “Jesus’ answer” to the question, “Where do we go when we die?”  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  First we usually concern ourselves with whether or not this story “actually happened” or whether it is “just a parable.”  For our present discussion, let us set both of these things aside.  Where we go when we die is a much more difficult topic than many care to admit, and whether the story is a parable or not is irrelevant.  Jesus’ point remains the same.  We must ask ourselves, “What did Jesus mean?”  and “Why did he tell the story in the first place?”

                Of the many difficulties reading Jesus stories, we will name only two.  First, many of us misunderstand how Jesus used them. After the style of Nathan (cf. 2 Samuel 12:1-14), they were often prophetic judgments against the wicked.  A few examples will suffice.  After telling his Parable of the Tenants the audience knew very well about whom he spoke.  “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them” (Matthew 21:45; cf. Mark 12:12).  Even on occasions where it is not explicitly stated that the parable was directed against his audience the fact remains too obvious to miss.  After his Parable of the Two Sons in the same chapter (Matthew 21:28-32) Jesus speaks directly to his audience.  The you is emphatic.  “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.  For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him.  And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him” (vv. 31, 32).  And who can doubt whether or not the Pharisees felt condemned by Jesus’ image of the elder brother in Luke 15?  This was Jesus’ way.  Therefore, when we arrive at the following chapter we should not think that he sets aside this habit to tell an unrelated and esoteric story about “where we go when we die.” 

                Second, we have a habit, not only with Jesus’ stories but with all of scripture, of ignoring context.  This is perhaps most evident in our treatment of the gospels.  The gospel accounts’ anachronistic order presents difficulties, but it also presents us with it a very important point which should not be overlooked.  If the gospels are not in chronological order then the writers are not merely penning history “as it happened”; they are making conscious decisions about when they will record which stories and where.  In this way the gospels are more like art than history.  The gospels are carefully crafted compendiums of events in the life of Christ.  Accepting this, attention should be paid to the order of the things even though they are out of order.  It is no coincidence that just verses before a story about a rich man Luke adds this editorial aside, “The Pharisees (who were lovers of money) heard all these things, and they ridiculed him” (16:14).  Nor is the placement of Jesus’ response an accident.  “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.  For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (16:15).  What is more exalted among men than riches?  Still yet, what is more abominable in the sight of God than the love of money (Luke 18:24, 25)?  Then, with seemingly no connection at all, Luke turns to the Law and the Prophets, John, the gospel, and in an even more abrupt change of topic, divorce and remarriage.  This rapid change is startling to readers, but we must remember that Luke is an artist at work.  Like an impressionist painting, it can only be appreciated if we take a step back and look at the whole picture.  Otherwise we see oddly placed globs of paint; otherwise we turn these sections into pithy sayings out of context.  But these rapidly shifting colors are from the same palette the Master uses to paint what we call The Rich Man and Lazarus. 

                Once again, here are the colors: the Law and the Prophets, John, the gospel, divorce and remarriage.  First: the Law and the Prophets and John.  Both pointed beyond themselves to something else; both of these also found themselves in opposition to Jesus’ target audience, the Pharisees (Luke 3:1-9; Matthew 3:1-10).  Incidentally, John’s preaching also had something to say about the love of money.  “Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what shall we do?’  And he said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.’” (Luke 3:14).  Tellingly, Luke, who alone records The Rich Man and Lazarus, is also the only writer who includes this detail of John’s preaching or that the Pharisees were, in so many words, lovers of money.

Second:  the gospel.  The gospel is the announcement that the thing, or the person, to which the Law and the Prophets, indeed John himself, pointed has actually arrived (cf. Luke 4:21).  All that they said comes to a head in Jesus (cf. Luke 24:27, 44), and the Law is a faithful guide.  Indeed, “it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void” (Luke 16:17). 

Third: divorce and remarriage (16:18).  This seems to us an abrupt change but really Jesus is continuing the thought from verse 17.  Jesus’ coming, which was prophesied by the Law and the Prophets, preached by John, and proclaimed in the gospel, was not to “abolish the Law” but to “fulfill” it, “not a dot” will pass away (Matthew 5:17, 18).  This is parallel to Luke 16:17.  There, as here, the statement is very shortly followed by talk of divorce (Matthew 5:27-32).  His point in both places is the same: the Law of Moses is brought to fulfillment/perfection in Jesus’ ministry and teaching, including the laws for divorce and remarriage.  Jesus’ kingdom is not just about inner piety, forgiveness, or a new sense of God’s presence.  His kingdom encompasses everything, things like politics and ethics, even mundane things like a meal with the family, games, and sex.  And, as we are about to see, money.

                With these things taken together—Jesus’ prophetic use of parables, the Law as a faithful guide, and the context set against “lovers of money”—it is evident that The Rich Man and Lazarus had a target audience and Christ has impeccable aim.  “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.  At his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table.  Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores” (16:19-21).  Here’s the picture: a rich man eats all he wants every day.  Lazarus, a poor man, has no food.  All he wants are the crumbs from the rich man’s table but that man despises the poor and will not share his excess.  Got it?  Good. 
               Now comes the great reversal (as is typical of Jesus’ stories).  The poor man gets all he wants to eat and the rich man does not even have a drop of water.  “The poor man died and was carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom.  The rich man also died and was buried” (16:22).  The idea of being in Abraham’s bosom is lost on some Westerner’s.  Here it indicates two things: 1. eating a meal and 2. eating that meal at the place of honor, the right hand of the host, in his very bosom (cf. Matthew 8:11; John 13:23).  The fate of the rich man was not so.  “And in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.  And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame’” (16: 23, 24).  The rich man ironically calls Abraham “Father.”  Shouldn’t a son of Abraham be at Abraham’s banquet?  Do not miss this.  It was the Pharisees which were so quick to remind Jesus, as well as John, that they were sons of Abraham (cf. Matthew 3:9; John 8:33).  Jesus’ aim is right on target.  He continues his story.  Abraham informs the rich man that the state of things cannot be changed (16:25, 26).  The rich man has chosen his way; he has made his bed and now he must lie in it.  “Fair enough,” so the rich man thinks, “there may still be hope for my brothers.”  “And he said, Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.  But Abraham said, They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’  And 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 hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (16:27-31). 
               Here is where our globs of paint come together.  We can imagine what Lazarus might say if he were to go to the rich man’s brothers.  “I sat at your brother’s gate every day and begged for his scraps, yet he would not hear.  Now he is tormented without so much as a drop to drink and I am feasting with Abraham.  Beware lest you see the same fate.”  But Abraham says, “They have Moses and the Prophets for that.”  The prophets had carried Lazarus’ message ahead of him (Deuteronomy 15; Amos 4).  “You misunderstand me,” says the rich man, “I know they, like me, have ignored the Law but if someone rises from the dead surely they will listen to him.”  “No,” says Abraham, “they won’t.”  Jesus prefaced this parable by saying that the Law and the prophets which John preached pointed to him (Luke 24:44-46).  That Law is a trustworthy guide which shall not pass away.  Not even a dot.  Marriage, money, Jesus, resurrection, and all besides.  It’s in there.  Jesus now puts this message in the mouth of Abraham.  It is a message that the Pharisees would hear loud and clear.  They would have known what Jesus was saying and why.  They were lovers of money and had rejected the poor.  They were warned by the Law and the Prophets that mistreating the poor would have disastrous consequences, but they would not hear.  One greater than Moses brought the same message.  Still they would not hear.  But surely, if that one were to die and be resurrected (as Jesus certainly would be), surely then they would listen to the message?  But they would not.  If they will not trust Moses, they will not believe in Christ though he be raised from the dead.  Jesus says as much on other occasions.  “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.  But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:46, 47).  The Pharisees justified their love of money before men (Luke 16:15a; cf. also Matthew 15:3-6), and though they stood condemned by Moses, nothing, not even resurrection, could change their minds.  But God knows their hearts.  They are abominable in his sight (Luke 16:15b). 

`               The Pharisees, we can be sure, did not miss what Jesus was saying and neither should we.  The poor are everywhere and everywhere ignored.  We may not be able to give clean drinking water to the hundreds of thousands who live without it, but why can we not spare a bottle for the fellow on the corner?  We may have mouths to feed already, but why neglect the many who have no parents to feed them?  We should remember that pure religion cares for these who cannot care for themselves (cf. James 1:27).  Hopefully, Christians have begun to nod their heads.  But we must be careful.  We may be in the company of the Pharisees, nodding our heads in agreement while “justifying ourselves before men” as to why we needed that $20 more than the man on the street.  The Pharisees claimed to accept the Law, but they rejected the Christ.  Many of us claim to accept Christ, and yet we reject the Law.  “How dare you, sir!” someone may say, “I am a Christian!”  Yes, I know.  And sadly, nothing, not even the resurrection of Christ has convinced us to take the Law seriously.  “Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker” (Proverbs 14:31).