What put one on this side of the wall and one on that side of the wall? Chance?
Gospel Reading: Luke 16:19-31
For Sunday, Sept. 19, 2010: Year C - Ordinary 26
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
From "Mending Wall," by Robert Frost.
Just another game? One on a side? It comes to nothing more?
On one side is the rich man clothed in purple and making merry everyday. On the other side is the poor man covered in sores, the dogs licking at the open wounds, wanting only to eat the crumbs that fall from the table of the rich man’s daily feasts.
On the inside is the Rich Man. On the outside is poor Lazarus. But there is a gate. Without a gate there is no grace. Lazarus lay outside that gate. A gate can let other people in. But a gate can also let you out.
There is a separation in the story.
On the one side is life on the other side is death. In the story things are one way on this side and they are reversed on the other side.
There is a great chasm. On the one side the Rich Man is in torment in the fire. On the other side is the poor man
in the bosom of Abraham. Rich Man to father Abraham. "Send Lazarus. All I want is the drip that falls from his finger to cool my tongue." Father Abraham to the Rich Man, "No grace for you. Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed. So that one who wishes to cross over from here to you would not be able, nor can they cross from there to us."
You dance with the rung that brung ya.
Let’s clarify. The Rich Man is rich. What did he do to get rich? Nothing. In this first century world one did not change social status. There is no pulling ones self up by one's boot straps. No earning one's way up the social latter. You dance with the rung that brung ya. He was born that way. Purple. He was royalty.
The poor man was poor. What did he do to get poor? Nothing. He was born that way.
Wrong assumption.
Notably absent, but often inferred, in this story is any moral righteousness and/or sinfulness ascribed to the Rich Man or Lazarus. A modern reader of this story often assumes the Rich Man is a transgressor of the law and the poor man is righteous by virtue of his vulnerability. Wrong assumption. The assumption of the first century hearer of this story would have made the opposite assumption. The Rich Man is righteous by virtue of his richness. The poor man is a sinner by virtue of his being covered in sores.
What did the Rich Man do to land in Hades? Nothing. What did poor Lazarus do to be taken up in to the bosom of Abraham? Nothing. Those first hearers would have been scandalized. The Rich Man is made to suffer is condemned for no reason. An eternity of torment and he has not been accused of any transgression of the law. The first hearers would not be scandalized by Lazarus condemned to a life of suffering before he was even born, before he had a chance to transgress the law. Funny.
That is just the way it is.
In life, by an accident of birth, the Rich Man gets to make merry every day. In life, by an accident of birth, poor Lazarus suffers outside the gate with the dogs tormenting him. In the next life the Rich man suffers, tormented by fire. In the next life Poor Lazarus lives luxuriantly in the bosom of Abraham. That is just the way it is.
Why do they make such good neighbors?
What do we make of this parable world?
I do not like it. What if the real world was like this?
The Hardest Question
What if, by accident of birth, some were born into prosperity and some, by accident of birth, into suffering? By accident of birth, some born in to privilege and some born in to poverty? By chance and not by sin some were beautiful and comfortable and confident and smart. And some by chance and not by sin some were unattractive and irritating and scarred and not that smart. As an observer of this world, one could not judge the privileged as righteous; one could not judge the socially impoverished as guilty. Especially knowing that in the next life it could easily be reversed. What put one on this side of the wall and one on that side of the wall? Chance? And in the next life, one on the side of the pine trees and one on the side of the apple orchard? Chance? In a world like that all one can hope for is a gap in the wall. There is something that does not love a wall?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question.
