March 4
Readings – JER 17:5-10; LK 16:19-31
Jeremiah reflects to us what may be an all too common sentiment, “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings.” While I do not, ultimately, believe that, it sure can feel that way sometimes. We put our trust in people and they let us down. And just when we hope someone is going to be different than the rest…ugh!
And Luke’s gospel offers us the story of one person letting down another in “Lazarus and the rich man.” It’s the story of a rich official and the poor man who sat outside his gate begging for scraps. It is both a story about individual choices and about the systems of power that they both live in. The story tells us that both die, and the rich man goes to hell and Lazarus to heaven and there’s a chasm in between them that cannot be crossed. When the rich man – who assumes privilege even in the afterlife! – tells God to send someone back to warn his family, he’s told, “No.” “They have the law and the prophets,” God says and even a miracle won’t convince them.
There are so many layers to this reading from Luke. For an excellent unpacking of this text, I highly recommend Ched Myers’ reflections. His work has deeply informed so much about how I think about a story like this (in ways that I never thought or had been taught!). https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2016/09/22/the-rich-man-and-lazarus-warning-tale-and-interpretive-key-to-luke/
This is not your traditional gospel story. Rather, it’s a warning tale about affluence in the face of abject poverty and a deep critique of guarding privilege in the face of oppression. It is a story about the rich man’s loss of humanity and his inability to see the humanity in the man outside of his gate.
Let’s be clear. Poverty is a form of violence, and it has become so “normalized” in our culture that those of us who do not live in poverty likely view “the poor” as a fixture in our society. Even think of that word – a fixture. We spend countless hours collectively trying to “fix poverty” while devoting very little time and energy to trying to fix the real core of the problem – affluence and greed. And we also know that poverty is not equally distributed. While white people make up the largest group of people living in poverty, we also know that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), women, queer and trans folks and people with disabilities are more likely to end up living in poverty. This is no accident. Our systems are functioning as they were designed to function.
William Sloan Coffin once said during a sermon given at a college, “It is one thing to graduate from college and know that there are rich people and there are poor people. It is an entirely different matter to graduate from college and have come to understand that there are rich people because there are poor people.”
Let’s just sit with this because I think this is where Jesus is taking us today. He wants us to locate ourselves back in this relational equation.
Martin Luther King Jr. observed that the rich man does not seem to be condemned for being rich, per se, but the condemnation comes because Lazarus remained invisible to the rich man and because the rich man would neither empathize nor ask fundamental questions about the existence of Lazarus (or the existence of the rich man’s affluent lifestyle in the face of it).
While this could be a story about any form of privilege, it is one specifically about wealth. Ched challenges us by saying, “Our society is more than twice as disparate as was the one to which Luke originally addressed his gospel.* The obvious questions provoked by this tale are: Where, who and how are the “rich man” and Lazarus today? Why do we aspire to the Affluenza of the former and scapegoat (or ignore) the misery of the latter? And how long will we live peaceably with the chasma mega, the great divide?”
For today, find some way to not live peaceably with the chasm.
* In case you were wondering, over a roughly seven-month period starting in mid-March to December of 2020, as millions of Americans lost jobs, went on unemployment, sought out help from food pantries and went without, our nation’s 614 billionaires grew their net worth by a collective $931 billion. (USA Today)
4 Comments
Joan Chandler
I feel guilty and helpless about this because I don’t know what to do about it. Jesus appears to be saying that even someone coming back from the dead would not convince the rich people. Is the message for us to recognize that we are the rich and to reach our hand to the poor within our reach? But then, how much good will that do when the problem is systemic?
Mike Boucher Author
I can really appreciate that sentiment Joan, and I know that guilt is often a first response for me. Helplessness and a sense of being overwhelmed often show up right in there as well. Your reflection to reach your hand to the poor within reach sounds like a really good start. Not always a flashy or feel good option, I know, but it is a fundamental grounding.
While the problems are systemic, people have immediate needs as well. For example, there’s a growing local movement to put up mutual aid food boxes throughout the city – where those who can put food in do so and those who need the food take it. This addresses an immediate need. In terms of systemic issues, it’s important for us to keep thinking about why people are poor. I have really been inspired by Rev. William Barber and co chair Rev. Liz Theoharis’ work on the Poor People’s Campaign (https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/). This is geared towards state and national level change and tries to pick up on the work and vision of Martin Luther King. Given the complexities of the problems, there are no quick solutions. In my view, we need to keep taking small and consistent steps and that we make the way by walking it. During Lent, if we are in a position of having ‘more than enough,’ perhaps a step we can take is to keep redistributing that excess (stuff, money, time) closer to those who we know need it.
Barbara Simmons
I think like systemic racism, systemic property can overwhelm us. I used to feel that I could never do much to eliminate poverty. I would send a check here and there to help a feed the hungry cause and hope it made a difference. But I think what is necessary is to never ever lose sight of this problem. Being engaged in movements such as the Poor People’s campaign, using our voice to vote for elected officials who can enact laws that favor the poor, and really working to understand what it is like to live as a poor person is a start. Treating the poor with dignity and worth is what Jesus would want. Another thing that helps me when I feel my response to the poor is inadequate is to think of Mother Teresa’s quote, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”
Mike Boucher Author
Barb, I am highly considering having an auto-reply that simply says, “What Barb said!” Thanks for this reflection and for the reflection to “never lose sight of the problem.” Like many of the isms (and poverty is DEEPLY tied to them all), the more we can be conscious of how it operates and see it in our daily life and interactions, the more we find the pressure points to intervene (and there are many). Thanks for your daily wisdom on the blog.
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