Dives and Lazarus
KarlLB
Shipmate
This has come up in a number of conversations on social media recently, usually evangelicals insisting that non-belief is a matter of not wanting to believe rather than actually having intellectual issues with belief, often forced by a literal interpretation of Romans 1:19-20 ("since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.")
The Romans passage is for another time, but what I'm thinking about here is what I think is a misuse of the parable.
I think it ignores the framing - Lazarus is in "the bosom of Abraham" because he suffered in life - not because of any belief he had or didn't have. Dives is "in torment" also not because of any beliefs he had but because he ignored Lazarus's plight.
So what is it that Dives' brothers don't believe that they have Moses and the Prophets to teach them, and that someone returning from death won't convince them of?
I'd suggest it's not anything to do with adopting the right beliefs about or in God. It's the importance of caring for the poor and marginalised. If they don't get that message from the Law and the Prophets, they won't get it from Jesus' resurrection either.
If anyone stands accused by this parable, therefore, it's not atheists, agnostics or any other non-Christians. It's Christians who supposedly believe in Jesus but have no care for the marginalised, the poor and the oppressed - or, worse, actively support their oppression.
Thoughts? Am I talking crap?
The Romans passage is for another time, but what I'm thinking about here is what I think is a misuse of the parable.
I think it ignores the framing - Lazarus is in "the bosom of Abraham" because he suffered in life - not because of any belief he had or didn't have. Dives is "in torment" also not because of any beliefs he had but because he ignored Lazarus's plight.
So what is it that Dives' brothers don't believe that they have Moses and the Prophets to teach them, and that someone returning from death won't convince them of?
I'd suggest it's not anything to do with adopting the right beliefs about or in God. It's the importance of caring for the poor and marginalised. If they don't get that message from the Law and the Prophets, they won't get it from Jesus' resurrection either.
If anyone stands accused by this parable, therefore, it's not atheists, agnostics or any other non-Christians. It's Christians who supposedly believe in Jesus but have no care for the marginalised, the poor and the oppressed - or, worse, actively support their oppression.
Thoughts? Am I talking crap?
Comments
What I do know from sociology of faith actually covers a broad spectrum of meanings, of which belief is only part; I am here using belief to mean intellectual assent and faith as the broader concept of self-affiliating to a religion. They almost could be swapped around in English. Faith encompasses: belief, loyalty, trust, admiration, affiliation, etc.
If we take the loyalty aspect of it. Certainly, saying the right things helps, but what about last Sunday's Gospel reading, Matthew 21:28-32? The younger is saying all the right things but is not obeying the father's request. God is quite explicit in his requests, and what you list stands out among the priorities.
Dives takes a dive (oops!) because he's a hypocrite--he ignores human need right at his gate, though YHWH is super concerned about the poor and those who suffer. Lazarus, well, he's not really the primary focus of the parable, and we get basically no information about him except the fact that he suffered, and is apparently not a hypocrite, being the foil for Dives. But I don't think we're right to say therefore his suffering is what got him to paradise, just because it's all that we know about him. It's more likely IMHO that if we had asked Jesus, he would have said, "Because he belongs to YHWH, duh" and looked at us like we missed the point. Which we would have done, because the parable's not about Lazarus.
I went and grabbed the text because my brain isn't working so well right now! It's here, from Luke 16:
My attention was caught by the words, "Child, remember..." This is a direct response of Abraham, and it's not to a question about "Why am I here, and Lazarus over there?" Instead it's a response to "send Lazarus" to relieve Dives' suffering. I think Abraham is saying, "What you've just asked is totally inappropriate and impossible. First it's inappropriate because of sheer justice--you got all the good stuff in life and it was the reverse for Lazarus, so don't think he should be your servant now, that's messed up. And it's also impossible, because there's this huge chasm separating us, so even if Lazarus wanted to go, he couldn't."
Of course Dives doesn't get it. Because the very next thing he asks ("send him to my father's house") shows that the only thing he cares about is the impossibility bit--the chasm. He keeps ignoring how inappropriate it is for him to ask the least favor of Lazarus at all! Let alone the fact that he's not asking Lazarus anyway, he's asking Abraham to order Lazarus around. It's just so wrong--a hangover from his days on earth, when he used to be "up" and Lazarus "down."
Now here at least Dives does focus on the issue of eternal destiny, for his brothers anyway. He says, "I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’" What exactly does Dives want Lazarus to say to his brothers? Stop ignoring the needs of the poor? Could be. Because deeds usually follow the heart. And if Dives' brothers are as unconcerned about the poor as he was, they will be just as much hypocrites in their following of YHWH as Dives was--and wind up in the same place. And of course "Moses and the prophets" were hammering on the needs of the poor" all over the place.
There's this, too. Dives seems to assume that his brothers will recognize Lazarus if he rises from the dead, and listen to him! But I see no reason why this would be true. If Dives could ignore a man dying at his gate, covered in sores and licked by dogs, his brothers are highly unlikely to notice a poor man who rises from the dead--why would they look at him in the first place? I don't think they would. And Jesus himself qualifies as a poor man, given his status as a homeless travelling rabbi who probably owned no more than the clothes he stood up in. My understanding is that, after Jesus rose from the dead, he didn't bother appearing to any of his enemies (most of whom were well-off and powerful, like Dives) with the possible exception of his brothers--and that's a much murkier situation anyways. But Caiaphas, Annas, Pontius Pilate, etc. seem to go on their merry way to the end of their lives without any visits from Christ--and Jesus seems to have planned this ahead of time, if John 14:22 and its answer mean what I think they do.
Id expect us to have everything we need to explain their respective fates in the parable. In which case we basically have anything implied by their names, their respective wealth and Dives independence.
That said the parable, subverts itself at the end. What the hearers must have heard a hyperbolic divine excuse, the readers know God far exceeds (and if that bit of the parable that says help-not-happening is 'wrong'...)
“Fools say in their hearts,
‘There is no God.’”
(Or as Robert Alter translates it, “The scoundrel has said in his heart,
There is no God.”)
That seems to suggest that the concept of not believing in God was not unfamiliar, even if not openly announced.
And syncretism was always a thing, especially (as I understand it) among wealthier or more powerful people. While those to whom Jesus spoke may have been faithful worshippers of YHWH, I suspect the idea of rich and powerful people being a bit less . . . orthodox? selective? . . . was also not unfamiliar.
That said, I agree that this parable isn’t at all about not believing in God, much less in Jesus.
Wait, when were Jesus’ brothers established as His enemies? 😮
Maybe not enemies exactly, but thorns in his side, perhaps.
That’s fair. I think Psalms 14 and 53 are describing people who perhaps give lip service, but who live as though there is no God.
I think when they try to take him away (and Jesus declares the disciples his family).
And the weakness of the case is good for her main argument (if James not an enemy then we basically accept that James isn't an exception, and what does that leave?*).
*There is potentially the soldiers, Paul might try to get a tenuous claim in, and of course just because there is no record of a Caiaphas and Pilate getting a surprise visit doesn't mean it didn't happen. Maybe we should also consider any infernal elements associated with the harrowing of hell.
But contast to the recorded visits to friends.
Also assuming that it is about "not ignoring the marginalised", how does that fit in whit the rest of the barrel (that's a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, we probably need a constraint) and how does it contrast.
I think @Lamb Chopped already provided it above? Albeit it's a different in emphasis rather than wholescale different reading.
“Assume” may be the wrong word, at least in my case. “See as a reasonable possibility” is probably closer to the mark.
In my case, seeing it as a reasonable possibility is informed by tradition going back to the earliest centuries of the church that the brothers in question were Jesus’s half-brothers—sons of Joseph by a wife before Mary. Not that I hold to that as unquestionably the case, much less insist on it; rather I see it as plausible. Other possibilities are also plausible.
This and other ideas about the exact relationship between Jesus and his brothers were discussed in a recent thread (starting here) and in this thread.