Just Another Rich Man

OK, this one is troubling.  It’s the story of a rich man and Lazarus, the poor man just outside the rich man’s gate.  (Luke 16:19-31)

The rich man “was dressed in purple and fine linen and . . . feasted sumptuously every day.”  On the other hand, there was Lazarus, “covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table.”  It is quite the contrast.

Lazarus died.  The rich man also died and was buried.  Only in his torment in Hades does the rich man realize the chasm between him and God.  He asks Abraham to have Lazarus bring him water.  Abraham refuses.  “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things.”  Then he asked Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers so that they would not meet a similar fate.  Again, Abraham refuses.  “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” 

The rich man’s torment in Hades is not what is meant to catch our attention or even scare us.  What ought to scare us is the detail in the parable that the poor man has a name, Lazarus, and the rich man does not.  Something about the rich man’s life leaves him nameless.

It is not, I think, that the rich man was bad.  We certainly have no reason from the parable to think so.  It is not, I think, that the rich man had great wealth.  I see no reason to think from the parable that the rich man is punished for his wealth.  It is not, I think, that the rich man’s gain was ill gotten.  Again, the parable gives us no reason to think so.

The point is that names are superfluous unless we are in relationship with one another.  I do not need to know the name of someone with whom I have no contact.  I do not need to know the name of someone who does not affect my life.  I do need to know the name of those I love.  And without love, I myself might as well have no name at all.

It seems to me that the rich man’s failure is that he bypassed the opportunity to love Lazarus because there can be no love without sharing.  His failure to share the scraps from his sumptuous table is startling given the picture of the man just outside his gate, covered with sores, starving, and fighting off the dogs.  Sharing is what gives us a name.  It is what makes us who we are.  Otherwise, we’re just another rich man unknown to anyone who cares.

Peace,
+Stacy

I’m Too Old

Charlie Skinner is a character on a TV series called “Newsroom.”  He is played by Sam Waterston, one of my favorite actors.  Skinner is a bit crusty and rather heavy-drinking.  But he also has vision and a heart for adventure, and he knows when he’s getting sabotaged.  He is willing to take risks to pursue that vision, even in the face of resistance, and that’s what I admire most about him.

It is in the face of such resistance that he delivers a line to which I have already referred back many times.  “I’m too old to be governed by fear of dumb people.”

It’s a little bit shocking at first.  One should be careful about dismissing people who see things differently as dumb, of course.

Still, I wonder if Jesus wouldn’t have liked Charlie Skinner.  He himself once told a parable about a rich man and his property manager (Lk. 16:1-8).  It’s a little bit shocking, too.

The rich man was displeased that the manager was squandering his property, and so he called for an accounting.  The manager, realizing he was about to be discovered, quickly called in his employer’s debtors and used his authority while he still had it to reduce their debts to the rich man so that they would owe the manager a favor after he had been dismissed.

The rich man found out about it.  You would think he would have been furious.  Instead, he commended the manager’s ingenuity.  “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”  (v. 8)

It turns out smart really is the new rich.  It was the old rich, too.

The church is ambivalent about smart, I think.  Sometimes we find smart people too “in their heads” and not enough “in their hearts.”  The church has a significant anti-intellectual streak from time to time.  Jesus also said, after all, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”  (Mt. 11:25)  There are times when smart gets very much in the way of seeing as Jesus might. 

Still, I think Jesus may have had an appreciation for smart people, at least that they had their usefulness.  Maybe he didn’t want them to get too big for their britches, but a little smart in the service of the reign of God isn’t such a bad thing either, because the reign of God is something there is always going to be resisted by “the children of this age.”  And not just by dumb people.   

But here’s where Charlie Skinner certainly has it right.  Life is way too short to be governed by fear of just about anything.  Smart sometimes helps us get beyond it.  In fact, the more fearful we get, smart turns out to be just about the only way out.

Peace,

Three Parables

There is a series of three parables in the fifteenth chapter of Luke.  They come together because they are meant to be read together.  Most unfortunately, our lectionary separates the third from the first two.  The first two are the reading for this week (Lk. 15:1-10).

The first two involve a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep behind to go in search of one that is lost and a woman who searches diligently for one of ten silver coins that has been lost and then throws a party to celebrate.  In both cases, Jesus asks a question:  Who would not do likewise?

The correct answer is no one.  I know we like to assume it is everyone, but I don’t think anyone who actually heard Jesus tell these stories would have made that mistake.

A shepherd with 100 sheep leaves 99 to go in search of one.  It’s a sweet picture, but it would be insane.  No one in their right mind would put 99 sheep at risk, leaving all of them at the mercy of the wolves, to go in search of one.  For one thing, it makes no economic sense at all, and sheep in Jesus’ world were not pets; they were commodities.  But even if you want to project compassion onto the shepherd’s motives, it is not compassionate to put one sheep in harm’s way, to say nothing of 99, in order to rescue another.

And the woman with the coin is certainly just a matter of economics.  She loses one coin and searches diligently for it.  Perhaps anyone would do that.  It makes perfect sense.   But what does not make sense is to throw a big party to celebrate finding the coin when the party probably cost more than the coin that was lost.  The woman would have been better off financially to just leave the coin lost. 

And that’s where the third parable comes in, the one that is saved for the next week’s readings.  We know it as the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Now a son or daughter, everyone would indeed agree, is of much more value than a sheep or a coin.  And the lost son in the story clearly did break his father’s heart.  But unlike the shepherd or the woman, the father does not go looking for him.  That, I suspect, was as difficult for Jesus’ hearers to understand as it would have been for them to fathom the shepherd leaving the flock or the woman’s response to finding the coin.  At least it is difficult for me to understand.  If Jesus had pointed out that the father did not go after the boy and again asked those around him who would not do likewise, I suspect they once again would have exclaimed, “No one.” 

Nevertheless, I think Jesus knew what he was talking about.  At least when it comes to lost sons or daughters, they rarely come home by pursuing them.  Pursuing them, in fact, quite often has the opposite effect.  Keeping a distance, and maybe even increasing it, works better.

It’s much harder to do.  But, God knows, it’s probably the only way.  One can only hope it works as to us.

Peace,
+Stacy

The Parable of the Potter

Jeremiah learned something about God by observing a potter working at his wheel.  (Jer. 18:1-11)  What he learned is worth looking at.  The message is not what it may appear at first.

This is what Jeremiah observed.  “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.”  (v. 4)  The overall message has to do with God’s ability to punish the disobedient and save the repentant.  We rightly see God in the potter, but perhaps not so rightly see the nation of Judah, and by extension, humanity, in the vessel.

The human part of the analogy is not the vessel. It’s the clay.  God destroys the vessel, but God keeps the clay.  The clay is reworked and neither destroyed or even replaced.

One should not read into this that God is pleased with the human side in the parable of the potter.  There is a message of judgment to be sure.  But there is something much more important, much more surprising, and much more hopeful.  The really stunning thing about this story in the Bible is not that God judges the vessel.  It is that God and the clay are responsive to each other.

The clay is shaped at the potter’s hand.  When it is spoiled, it is reshaped.  God is not content with the vessel that is less than God intends.  So God reworks it.  God responds to the clay.  The vessel may start out badly but be righted into a vessel that pleases God.  The clay responds to God.

The creation is in God’s, the potter’s, hands.  But the result takes the potter and the clay together.  God is the potter.  We are the clay.  Fulfilling God’s design takes both, each responding to the other.  Creation is on-going.  We do not work alone.  Neither does God.

Peace,
+Stacy