Reversal of Fortune

Halloween is right around the corner, at least that’s what my kids tell me. They’re already working on a route that will allow them to knock on the maximum number of doors in a two-hour period. They’ve begun testing the tensile strength of grocery bags to see which brand will withstand the most weight in chocolate bars. They’ve already informed my wife and I that we need to pick them up early from their respective after school programs and have dinner waiting for them on the table, so they can hit the streets at 6 pm on the dot.

While it’s a bit perplexing to me that kids who can’t remember they had a book report due until I’m dropping them off at school can put so much preplanning into one evening over a month away, I won’t discourage them a bit. After all, Halloween is for kids. As a grown-up my involvement has been curtailed into bumming the odd Snickers bar off of my kids. But I can watch H-- and N-- and remember how exciting the last day in October was for me as a little boy all those years ago.

The two most impressive things about Halloween as I recall them are the candy distribution system and the fashion show. There was something so perfect about being able to knock on someone’s door and have them hand you a treat, no questions asked. If everything in life worked that easy, this world would be a much more pleasant place to live. And it was always fun to see my friends unmasked at the end of the night. Usually I could guess who was who early in the evening by observing the gait of their walk or by listening to the sound of their voice, muffled as it may have been by a cheap plastic mask. But there were always a few who managed to somehow stay anonymous. Sometimes I was surprised to find out that Frankenstein was the kid from down the street who was scared of his own shadow or, even more disturbing, that the prom queen who had been shadowing our group all night was my best friend’s older brother. They say you can’t judge by appearances, and I guess that’s doubly true on All Hallow’s Eve.

Jesus’ teaching ministry must have appeared to people as if some crazy Halloween parade was snaking its way through the backwaters of Israel. The in-crowd got tricks played on ‘em, and the physically and spiritually poor who weren’t even usually invited to the party walked away with all the treats. And wise people couldn’t shake the sneaking suspicion that everybody’s masks were coming off before this whole thing was over. At the end of the night Jesus gathers them around the campfire for a chilling tale from beyond the grave. Hear the story of The Rich Man and the beggar…

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. (Luke 16: 19 – 21)

Eighties music was just as much about fashion as it was about the songs. I recall Prince and the Revolution, all decked out in purple, putting on these over-the-top concerts. Well, purple was a sign of opulence long before his royal badness made it his trademark. In Roman times, purple came from an expensive dye that only the richest people could afford and wearing it was actually subject to government regulation as to who could wear it and how much they could wear. So when Jesus mentions that the rich man wore purple it means that he was wealthy—deliriously wealthy—and possessed influence and power. This man was filthy rich and didn’t lack for anything.

Contrast that with Lazarus, the other guy Jesus mentions. You couldn’t find another person more different if you tried. He’s homeless, he’s ill, and he’s starving. It even mentions that dogs came and licked his wounds—to our culture that would be like saying he had rats crawling all over him.

At this point in the story neither of the characters interact with each other. That’s because they’re separated by means of a gate. The rich man is on one side whooping it up at a dinner party. Lazarus is on the other side suffering from starvation and disease in the gutter.

The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. (Luke 16: 22 – 23)

Jesus should have been a writer for The Twilight Zone. He came up with these twists in his stories that would have given Rod Serling a run for his money. This parable isn’t any exception. A complete reversal of fortune occurs in the afterlife. The rich man is now the one in the place of torment; the beggar discovers himself as the guest of honor at a party.

We can’t assume that it’s because the man is rich that he finds himself in hell, because Abraham was wealthy and he is pictured as being in paradise. Neither does the story imply that the rich man committed heinous and evil acts. His only sin was allowing a beggar to starve to death when he could have prevented it.

So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' (Luke 16: 24)

The rich man pulls rank; he probably doesn’t know any different. Even in hell he assumes that Lazarus is at his beck and call to serve him. By referring to Abraham as father, he’s not so subtlety pointing out that he’s a Jew—one of the chosen people. But pedigree doesn’t matter anymore.

"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.' (Luke 16: 25 – 26)

I was trying to work a conflict out with another person one time and it was obvious that it wasn’t going anywhere. I’ll never forget that this man ended the discussion by saying how is it that I can be wrong if God is blessing me so much? I hope that even the rosiest of circumstances would never prevent me from self-reflection. In the same way, the culture of Jesus’ day thought that if things were going good for a person that was proof that they had God’s favor. If someone was ill, poor, or experiencing a personal crisis they were assumed to have done something horrible to be so deserving of God’s judgment, and as such didn’t really warrant much consideration or compassion.

Have things really changed that much today? I don’t think so. We blame poor people for being poor. If she just got off her lazy butt and got a job-- ! Never mind that maybe she never finished high school. Never mind that childcare may cost more than the minimum-wage paycheck she’ll bring home at the end of the week. We’re so good at insulating ourselves from other people by pinning all their problems exclusively on personal responsibility. That’s a naïve view of life.

Most of us would never dream of attributing another person’s crisis to the judgment of God. But when the crisis is our own, it becomes a different story, doesn’t it? We assume that something dreadful in ourselves has caused God to abandon and make him deaf to our cries for help.

The other evening I took part in a spirituality program at Mount Saint Benedict Monastery. It was a reflection on the life of Thea Bowman, a remarkable African-American nun who radiated love for God and other people. Music was an important expression of Sister Thea and we were treated to a performance on videotape. It was an old Negro spiritual called Wade in De Water, and it contained a lot of imagery from Isaiah 43: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. The song connected with me because I very much feel lost in the current of life these days.

Sister Thea described God as the one who troubles the waters to move us out of complacency and into another stage of life and development. That just blew me away. Over this last year I've seen the troubling waters in my life as something to be fought against and overcome. But to picture God himself as stirring up the water for a purpose was something that honestly had never crossed my mind. Saint Paul, who never seemed to have things going his way either, said it another way: we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him. It’s an important fact to hold on to, even if the present troubles allow us to do so by only be the slightest strand.

We’re told that a chasm kept the rich man and Lazarus apart. I don’t think it was something new to the afterlife. Truly, there always was a chasm separating the rich man and the beggar—a chasm of apathy. And that chasm still exists today whenever I am indifferent to the suffering of the people around me. The difference between myself and the rich man is that I still have the option to cross the abyss and treat a person with dignity and compassion.

"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment. '

"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'

" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' " (Luke 16: 27 – 31)

Abraham’s voice echoes down through the ages to me today. I don’t need a sign from God to convince me I need to help a person in crisis, because I’m already well aware of what the scriptures say about helping the needy. My problem is most likely is one of vision. Do I see the beggar outside of my gates? Or have I trained myself to not make eye contact?

Jesus once said that whatever we do for the least of people is also done for him. Mother Theresa demonstrated the love of Christ to thousands of people in the slums of Calcutta. Faced with an overwhelming task, she and her Sisters of Charity kept themselves centered by always reminding themselves, “We see Christ in the poor.”

After the resurrection, the risen Christ joined two of the disciples on a journey. They didn’t know it was him, though, even though they walked a number of miles together and talked together. It wasn’t until after they shared a meal together and offered this weary traveler a place to bed down for the night that they recognized him as Jesus.

Who is lying outside my gate? Let me pray for the compassion to cross that chasm and respond to my brother or sister, like me, created in the image of God.