The Parable I Thought I Knew

“The very rich are different from you and me.”  ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Yes.  They have more money.”  ~ Ernest Hemingway

     I was giving myself a break this month.  School was ending.  Paperwork was piled high.  Another class was graduating.  Some teaching staff were shifting.  So, hey, why not give myself an easy blog-writing task this time around?  Why not reflect prayerfully on a single parable, “The Rich Man and Lazarus,” and jot some basic thoughts about how it edifies me?

     A sound plan.  But, man … who knew this was a controversial parable?  Who’d have guessed it has depths to it that Jesus’ audience could grasp but which require deeper study on the part of a modern reader?  And who knew it would awaken that still, small voice within me that sometimes stirs and whispers: “With your whole mind.  You’re to love Me with your whole mind, so no treading water”?

     God knew.  Easy month?  He’s smiling at me as I dive in.  It’s for my own good.

 

I’VE GOT ISSUES

     The story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is found only in the Gospel of Luke.  It’s positioned within a stretch of a half-dozen parables in a setting that starts with chapter 15 and ends a little way into 17.  The parables are interspersed with direct teachings Jesus addresses to a diverse crowd.  Sometimes He’s talking to the tax collectors and sinners gathered.  Other times He’s addressing the Pharisees in attendance.  Still others, Luke records, He’s talking directly to His own inner circle of disciples.

     You know the tale in chapter 16: A rich guy (who’s sometimes called Dives, although that’s simply the Latin for “rich man” and not a name) relaxes and feasts every day while a beggar named Lazarus sits outside his gate, longing for table scraps.  After they both die, Lazarus is escorted by angels to the “bosom of Abraham” while the rich man winds up in a fiery Hades.  The rich man begs Abraham to let Lazarus pass along the merest drop of water but gets turned down.  Then he begs that Lazarus be sent back to Earth to warn the rich man’s brothers about the afterlife.  That request is also denied.

     It seemed a simple enough story to me.  Issues arose, though, when I turned to Bible commentators for deeper study.  (I always turn to commentators, ancient and modern, since there is wisdom in many counselors [Prov. 11:14] and since no scripture is of personal interpretation [2 Pet. 1:20]).  John Calvin’s commentaries reveal that he didn’t consider the story to be a parable at all, but instead saw it “to be the narrative of an actual fact.”  Martin Luther, who does see the tale as a parable, doesn’t consider “the bosom of Abraham” as an actual state of the afterlife, but instead as a metaphor for the Word of God; the hades of the rich man he sees as a symbol of a judged conscience.  More than a millennium before these two gentlemen were born, the prominent Christian theologian Hippolytus saw the bosom of Abraham as an actual place for souls – not heaven, as I’ve always assumed in my amateur readings, but a segment of the Jewish sheol holding the souls of the righteous.

     That’s a lot of input to juggle over just one aspect of the account Jesus shared.  It turns out many more issues abound.  I limited myself to pondering just seven.  Follow me as I tiptoe through a few of them.  There’s no finesse or subtle point to the sequence in which I consider the issues here.  I’ll just follow the order the Lord brought them to mind as I read and studied.  Spoiler alert: I won’t get through all seven. 

 

Issue 1: Is this parable even a parable?

     John Calvin’s dismissal of this story’s status as a parable and his acceptance of it as a history rest on a single point: It’s the only parable with a named character, Lazarus.  Truthfully, it was that very point that first caught my attention, too.  But Calvin gives no further rationale for reaching his conclusion about the tale being real history, and he even abandons his insistence on its historicity once the narrative moves to the afterlife.  That part, he says in agreement with Luther, is all metaphor.

     The use of a name is, indeed, a one-off quirk among the parables of Jesus.  Yet in the parables, one-off quirks abound.  There’s only one mention amid the parables of goats, only one parable mentioning a widow, only one starring an enemy weed sower, only one about ten virgins (and not, as the NRSV mistranslates, “bridesmaids”).  No one questions the parable status of those stories.

       John Wesley agrees with Calvin, asking in his “Sermon 112” why Jesus would say “there was a certain rich man” and “there was a certain beggar” if there were not, in fact, such “certain” men historically.  His misstep is surprising here, especially for a man who knew all three Biblical languages and another five besides.  Anthropos tis, “a certain man” in biblical Greek, is also used in the parable of the “certain man” who had a prodigal son, the parable of the “certain man” who planted a fig tree, and the parable right before this one in Luke about a “certain man” who was a dishonest manager of his master’s money.  Certain men pop up throughout the parables.  Calling a character “a certain man” in Greek does not seem to bring that character to life historically in any other parable.

     Calvin and Wesley would need a little more evidence than “one off-ism” and “certain-man spottings” to convince me that this story – placed, remember, in the midst of a string of recognized parables – was somehow Jesus veering off into sharing a meaningful newsflash from real-life events.  That style of history-sharing seems outside the regular approach of the Man who always taught with parables (Matt. 13:34).

     Epilogue to this issue: I’m kind of irked at Wesley for claiming in “Sermon 112” that this story is “not a mere parable.”  Mere?  There is no such thing as a mere parable of Christ’s.  But Wesley and I will work this point out in the future when we’re chilling together in the Kingdom.

 

Issue 2: Is the afterlife the tale’s main point?

     There’s an interesting twist, however, to the “parable/not parable” discussion when we enter the world of modern commentary.  I encountered any number of sources insisting the tale is not a parable based on the fact that it shows the reality of hellfire as part of the rich man’s punishment.  Those trying to cast the story as a parable, say the not-a-parable crowd, are trying to erase the doctrine of eternal flames for the unsaved.  Therefore, the story is an historical event.  That, along with Calvin’s idea about the use of names, clinches it.

     That point of view isn’t off-base.  When I researched viewpoints of modern commentators, I found the most detailed, passionate arguments in favor of parable status for “the Rich Man and Lazarus” coming from those who had a doctrinal stake in the rich man not literally suffering in hellfire.  Those included:

• Sects teaching mortalism, a Reformation-inspired belief that our souls sleep after death, awaiting reawakening at the last trump, only after which there will be hellfire for the unsaved;
  
  
• Sects teaching annihilationism, the idea that the dead in Christ are “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8), but that the unsaved are truly dead and gone from creation, annihilated;
  
  
• Sects teaching purgatory, a post-death promotion system that lets you gain back heaven if you missed out on it at first swing;
  
  
• Sects teaching universalism, the idea that nobody is eternally damned, and that all are saved through the sacrifice of Christ.

 

     For those holding the above beliefs, the story is required to be a parable.  In fact, to steal Wesley’s terminology, it needs to be a mere parable, so that its imagery of the afterlife can be dismissed as symbolic window dressing in support of a more real, but more metaphoric message Jesus is getting across.

     Those arguing against this viewpoint (I know!  Commentators arguing?  So hard to believe.) push back by clinging to the Calvinist name-claim and the Wesleyan tis (“certain.”)  There’s also some discussion of how the story being told in the past tense proves it's a history, but a few minutes of Scripture searching reveal that that, too, is common to numerous parables.  After past-tensing, tis-claiming, and name-dropping, the must-be-history commentators wax prosaic on the importance of literal hellfire and literal separation for eternity.

     Therein lies a new issue, the burden of literalism when superimposed on a parable.  If the hellfire and the eternal separation of the story are literal, historical facts, then there are other elements of the account that need to be accepted as literal:

• That angels, like psychopomps, escort the souls of the dead in a very Hermes (Greek) and Anubis (Egyptian) way
  
• That disembodied spirits in the afterlife have eyes to lift up and tongues to be cooled
  
• That those tongues could be touched with literal water in the spiritual realm
  
• That the inhabitants of Abraham’s bosom can watch the suffering of those in Hades
  
• That conversations can be held across the great chasm separating the two realms
  
• That any of the damned, as in this story, can initiate conversations with the saved at will

 

     In a parable, we don’t expect every detail to be literal.  But if the account being shared by Jesus is an historical event, we can expect all the details above to be realities.  And that might shake up some parts of our teleology and eschatology, the Kingdom come and coming.

     Darrell L. Bock makes a sound point about interpreting scripture in the Fall 1997 edition of the Southwestern Journal of Theology: “… as a matter of method, one should determine genre and then doctrine” (emphasis mine).  In other words, knowing what type of writing you’re reading in the scriptures will help you better understand, interpret, and apply that scripture in your life.

     I’ll explain that in a little more depth.  Consider the Bible verse, “Blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”  Atheists like to quote that line in an effort to show the Bible as an immoral text.  The verse occurs in Psalm 137 – a poem, maybe a song, written from a viewpoint of utter despair during the Hebrew enslavement in Babylon after the destruction of their temple.  Without doubt, it’s from a time of the darkest night of the Hebrew soul.  A sense of betrayal, injustice, fury, revenge … so, genre: lamentation poetry.  When seen in its historical context and proper genre, it’s obvious that that single verse isn’t intended as a guideline for crafting moral doctrines about interacting with enemies, Hamas and Netanyahu’s behaviors notwithstanding.

     It’s from that perspective that Darrell Bock recommends Christians accept the story of the rich man and Lazarus as the parable it is.  His commentary reminds readers that parables are filled with actual facts and elements from real life.  To call an account a “parable” is not to call it “an unbelievable fairy tale, false in every way.”  The setting may be partially make-believe, but the characters are people just like us.  Their situations may be fictional, but the message Jesus gives us through them is all too real.  The message is what’s real.  The setting may not be.

     “Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”  That’s a line borrowed from the poet Marianne Moore by one preeminent scholar of parables, John Dominic Crossan.  For Crossan, that’s the essence of the parable genre.  We’re the real toads represented in Jesus’ parables.  The setting Jesus creates, whether a road to Jericho or a bosom of Abraham, that’s the imaginary garden, and it isn’t nearly as important as the message the characters bring to life for our edification.  So, crafting doctrines of the afterlife from setting elements of a parable may not be our wisest approach to rightly dividing the word of truth.  There are plenty of other scripture passages giving us solid information on the nature of heaven and Gehenna.  Parables have a different kind of power, the kind that really makes them more than “mere” parables.

     Yeah.  I’m still looking at you, John Wesley.

 

Issue 3: Did Jesus use local folk tales to craft this parable?

     Once upon a time, or so the tale goes, an Egyptian was miraculously reborn to an infertile couple as Si-Osiris.  One day, his new father told him the story of a rich man who died and was given a wondrous funeral, while a poor man nearby was simply buried in the ground.  Hearing how sad the event made his father, Si-Osiris magically whisked him off to see Amnte, the Egyptian land of the dead.  There they saw the rich man, living in torment.  There as well was the poor man, living in luxury.  The poor man’s good deeds had far outweighed his bad, while the opposite was true of the rich man.

     Once upon another time, or so the tale evolved after it had traveled from Alexandria in Egypt up to Jerusalem, there was a poor scholar, never named, and a rich tax collector named Bar Ma’jan.  Because of one good deed he’d done, Bar Ma’jan was given a lavish funeral.  The unnamed scholar had a simple burial.  However, one of the scholar’s friends soon after had a dream: the poor scholar was in the afterlife, living in an opulent garden with refreshing, flowing streams.  Bar Ma’jan was trapped out of reach of the stream, unable to get even a single drop of water.

     The second of those tales was popular throughout Palestina in the time of Christ.  I. Howard Marshall, in his thorough COMMENTARY ON LUKE, records that there are at least seven attested versions of this story in Jewish lore during the first century.  It appears that Jesus used the story, improved it, and put a whole new Kingdom of God spin on it.

     It isn’t unthinkable that Jesus might use nonbiblical sources for His teachings.  In various epistles, Paul cited non-religious insights of the Greek writers Meander, Epimenides, and Aretus, while Matthew, Luke, Jude, and the writer of Hebrews all borrow lines or full tales from nonbiblical religious apocrypha.  You may recall that Paul even usurped an altar “to an unknown god” (Acts 17:23) in Athens, using it as a launching point to share the Gospel with the citizens, saying (truthfully) he’d come to proclaim the God unknown to them.  So, seeing Jesus do something similar seems to be in line with the teaching styles of the era.

     Using the familiar to introduce the new is good teaching technique.  Where I come from, it’s called “employing an anticipatory set to scaffold new learning.”  And knowing where the story came from … knowing that the people knew several versions of it as part of their daily folklore … clears up a few issues for modern readers and reveals some awesome Jesus-only twists:

• The poor beggar seems to have made no confession of faith or compliance with the Law to make him worthy of an afterlife of paradise.  However, because the folklore showed all versions of the poor man as a kind person, a doer of good, and humble, the crowd listening to Jesus didn’t need those extra details.  They knew a reversal was coming.
  
  
• The rich man, Bar Ma’jan in popular lore, doesn’t seem to have done anything evil, at least not directly.  Is he being damned just for being rich?  For being a little lazy?  True, he lounges in  porphyra, the purple robes of royalty and bossos, an Egyptian loan word for underwear made of expensive flax-based material that’s satiny and luxurious.  But porphyra and bossos alone can’t be inherently sinful.  The good wife of Proverbs 31 also wore those two elegant garments (v. 22).  Thanks to street lore known by the crowd, though, the rich man’s backstory of greed and selfishness were already built into the tale Jesus borrowed.
  
  
• More evidence of the rich man’s guilt: In the common folklore versions of the tale, the rich man never seemed to know the poor man in his own story.  Not true in Jesus’ telling.  Twice in the afterlife, the rich man refers to Lazarus by name.  That's clear evidence he knew who it was suffering outside his gates.  This isn’t just a reversal-of-fortune tale; the rich man is paying for his sin of conscious neglect.  In addition, we now see a very good plot reason Jesus chose to use a name in this specific parable.
  
  
• But Jesus pulls reversals even before the big one in the afterlife, adding more depth to the tale.  His parable takes away the name of the rich man and grants one to the beggar, the opposite of the common lore.  The rich man loses his identity; the beggar becomes real, becomes named.  “Lazarus” means “God helps him.”  Lazarus’s very name suggests the fuller message of the Gospel.  No, Lazarus did nothing to “earn” paradise.  It is God who helps him, God the one who makes the moves, God whose unearned grace is gift.
  
  
• Capping off the twists, common lore always gave the rich man a luxurious funeral.  The poor men of the folklore versions were always simply buried.  Now it is Lazarus who is carted off in honor, escorted by ministering spirits (a nod to the Egyptian origin of the lore) while the rich man is the one who is "just buried."  Lazarus was never poor, Jesus shows, in any way that really counts within the context of eternity.

 

     You’ve been patient watching me juggle only three of my seven “issues.”  Four remain, but I’ll keep them in my heart since I’ve reached my acceptable word count for one blog post.  Had I added more, I might have named this post “Rich Beggars Need Bread-Crust Napkins.”  Study the parable on your own to learn why.

     I’m sure the Lord is still smiling at my thinking I’d shrug this off as my easy month.  I smile back at Him with all the heart He touched, with all the soul He saved, with all the feeble weakness that I call my strength.

     And, I pray, with all my mind.

 

Marana Tha,

 YoYo Rez / Cosmic Parx