“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
(Luke 16:19-31, NRSV)
I heard Jesus’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus many times growing up. My Sunday School teachers often used it to illustrate the uncrossable gap between Heaven and Hell and to scare me into accepting their version of Jesus, but there’s so much more here, and in this era where systematic oppression and inequality are on everyone’s minds, I think this parable merits a second look. Many times in the gospels, Jesus challenges authority and encourages his listeners to see the world through eyes unclouded by hate, but there’s a subtlety to this parable: Jesus isn’t just talking about the world to come, the world after death. He’s talking about how prioritizing wealth, comfort, and status over justice affects us in the here and now.
Jesus talks about the rich man’s feasts and fine robes while Lazarus aches and hungers with only dogs to keep him company. (And sure, I would argue that dogs likely make for better company than the rich man’s snobby party guests, but Jesus is speaking to a very different context.) Still, in all his suffering and poverty and sickness, there’s one thing Lazarus has that the rich man does not: a name.
Later traditions would ascribe the rich man a name (Dives, which itself means “rich” in Latin), but I think this misses the point of the parable. While the rich man defines himself by wealth and luxury and privilege to the point that he has no name other than “the rich man,” Lazarus has an identity apart from his poverty and pain. In a reversal of our expectations, Lazarus is the more free of the two, and by the parable’s logic, it’s not his goodness or even a relationship with Christ which gains Lazarus a spot in the caring arms of Father Abraham; it’s Lazarus’s ability to renounce the things of this world. Rather than being “the poor man” or “the sick man” or “the hungry man,” Lazarus is Lazarus, while the rich man has no such name. The rich man knows nothing of himself apart from his wealth, and thus, he misses out on the comfort of Abraham. He learns too late that compassion, humility, and rejection of status are the paths to Abraham’s bosom, not the false security of a mansion and feasts and finery.
Much of the current suffering around us is the result of people clinging to status, security, and wealth, which were always fleeting to begin with. In particular, white Americans like myself have spent centuries trying to prove and enforce our superiority (which never truly existed to begin with), and the centuries of bigotry have left us with countless systems which skew unjustly in our favor– the police, the home loan industry, the education system, you name it. Hell, much of Southern history has been flat-out rewritten to preserve whiteness as a mark of superiority and lionize the white men who betrayed this country to protect the institution of slavery. The current state of the U.S. is what happens when we prioritize security and power for the few over justice and love for all: we lose ourselves and hang our whole identities on something which carries no true eternal significance. We are the rich man in the parable, and much like him, we need to open our doors to Lazarus so we can get to know him and learn from him while there’s still time to cross the chasm.
Because he has existed outside the myth of superiority and status, Lazarus needs no identity other than his own. He doesn’t need to be rich or powerful or even safe. Yes, he still suffers at the hands of an unjust system in need of correction, but he has a name. Can we say the same of ourselves?
While it’s certainly good for individuals to step away from the myth of superiority into the freedom of justice, there are bigger structural issues to consider too. We cannot simply change the color of our skin or pretend race no longer matters, but there are positive changes we can make. We have systems in this country which must be reformed (if not completely dismantled). Currently, we’re focusing on the police, but there’s no program above reproach. If we want to get to a place as a culture where we don’t need to define ourselves solely by wealth or race or whatever other marker of status, where these things can come second to our true names, where we can be distinct and diverse without being divided, and where the same opportunities are truly open to all, then we (i.e. white Americans who are starting to wake up to the injustice of our culture) should be prepared to work our asses off, and we’ve been putting it off for far too long.
White Americans are not Lazarus in this parable.
We’ve wronged Lazarus.
We’re the rich man.
And things don’t end well for the rich man.
But repentance and change are still possible.