When I was in Santiago, Cuba, a few years back, I noticed little statues of poor Lazarus in the doorways of churches, with coins scattered around the statues, left by people who were themselves praying over an illness of someone they loved. There's a photo of one I saw on the cover of today's bulletin. It was one way of these churches NOT ignoring those in need lying at their gates. The money was then collected and used for those who had need. It's a quaint little superstition, and it leads to money being collected to help the poor. But it IS a superstition.
The problem with this, if you really take this kind of thing seriously-- and some people do-- is that it is engaging in what is called “magical thinking.” One type of magical thinking is called superstition—where you see a baseball player always eating chicken before a game, or avoiding stepping on the baseline, or not shaving during the play-offs, because he believes it will bring him luck. Sometimes this kind of thing is light-hearted.
I once knew a strict Baptist woman whose house had been on the market for so long that she went and bought one of the specially made St. Joseph figurines and buried it head down next to her “For Sale” sign—and boom- the house sold. She was aghast—and her world was rocked. It’s a real thing, too, here in St. Louis. Don’t believe me? Just google “St. Joseph sell your house.” The thing is, when your house does sell, you are expected to bring St. Joseph into your house and give him a place of honor at your new home. She worried that when her Baptist friends would come over, they would be shocked to see a Catholic saint sitting on her mantle, so she made a little chef's hat for him as camouflage, since he was wearing an apron and holding what looked like a lump of dough in his hands. Voila! Now he was Imo, of Imo's Pizza!
But the prosperity gospel is bad enough in terms of its thinking that we human beings can manipulate God to do what we want by way of any magic formula. Even worse is the idea that if wealth and health and good fortune is a sign of blessing, then the obverse must also be true. The poor, the ill, the dying must be being cursed by God. They must have brought their misfortune on themselves through sin. This second belief also then removes the expectation that those who do have wealth should do anything to help the poor, since to do so would be violating God's will. I know it sounds crazy--but I have heard this come out of the mouths of a lot of people in my life when questioned about their beliefs.
Our circumstances in life are not the result of God's blessing or cursing us. Bad things happen to kind people. Good things happen to hateful people. And none of this is the result of actions by God. And the worst thing about the prosperity gospel is that it leaks out into our secular life-- just replace the word God for "my own hard work." Even when it is obvious that no matter what, community goods helped them get there.
Amos is addressing a society that is at peace and experiencing great prosperity-- for a few. The words Amos speaks are pointed in addressing a kingdom that is enjoying newfound wealth and peace-- and yet also experiencing a huge chasm in their common life due to that wealth. Where once all lived basically equal lives, now the rich have summer homes and winter homes, and devote themselves to feasting on fine foods, while the poor labor day by day, and are not themselves receiving their fair share of the prosperity. Interestingly, it is also a time when religiosity among the wealthy also flourished-- even while they violated the very heart of the Torah by believing themselves to be a separate class, especially favored by God. Amos, speaking for God, derides and condemns the way the rich exploit the poor in the harshest of terms.
In our gospel fable of the rich man and the beggar at his gate, Jesus chips away at the edges of this kind of thinking, just nibbling around its corners, as it were.
Let's be clear: Jesus is telling a fable here. He is using tropes and characters that are familiar to everyone at his time. We are tipped off by the use of the term "Hades," a Greek concept which good Jews did not believe in. They did believe in Torah and the Prophets, however. Prophets like Amos, who also is being used by God in our first reading to criticize a society that has strayed from a community model of caring for each other to an individualist model of a tiny wealthy upper class hoarding most of the wealth while the great mass of workers barely scrapes by. Somehow that seems like a scenario that we might recognize.
Jesus symbolically condemns the prosperity gospel by using his fable to condemn those who do not use their means to care for those less fortunate. The difference between the two symbolic characters Jesus creates in Luke 16 could not be more stark-- nor could we miss the signs of whose side Jesus is on. Each day the rich man averts his eyes from the beggar, beset by open sores, at his very own gates, as he goes about preparing his daily feasts. The rich man is nameless, but the poor man is named "Lazarus," meaning "God Is My Helper." Yet, from our perspective, we hear the name "Lazarus" and think of Jesus's friend whom Jesus raised from the dead.
Speaking of death, the one thing both men share is that they are mortal. When both die, there is a stark reversal of circumstance. Suddenly, and for eternity, the beggar is in the bosom of Abraham in ease and honor (recalling Jesus's observation from August 31 about humility in choosing places of honor), while the rich man is in torment. The rich man reinforces why he is in torment with his continued attitudes that Lazarus should serve him, as the rich man tries to convince Abraham-- from Hades-- to make Lazarus tend to soothe his suffering or become an errand boy to warn the rich man's brothers of what fate awaits them if they ignore the divinely sanctioned claims of those in need all around them. That rich man stepped over the poor beggar every day. And ignored the need staring him in the face. The need that Torah commanded him to alleviate. The same teaching that Jesus lays upon all who follow him. It's not enough to pray that God helps those beset by poverty or illness. God has made us God's agents in the world to do that ourselves, as we claim to be the Body of Christ in the world.
Yet is this a story about death-- or about life? I think we DO miss the point if we think following Jesus is about taking care of ourselves and "going to heaven" after we die matters more than how we try to live like Jesus. Whether we believe in heaven or hell-- or Hades-- or not, the fact is that what we do with our lives matters, and how we respond to the human needs and suffering we know exist all around us-- is what matters.
How we recognize the divine image in everyone-- rich or poor, saint or sinner, citizen or migrant, even friend or foe-- matters. It matters because the most important part of the life of faith is not in what we believe, but in what we do when that belief takes root within us, in all its implications. At the heart of the life of following Jesus, not just "believing" in him, is the concrete and mindful ways we truly seek to live in unity with each other, regardless of race, class, origin, or wealth-- and especially, for the way we care for the "invisible" ones lying at our very gates.
Jesus asks us that question every day. Every day is a day to work toward recognizing the mercy and grace God offers us, and let that mercy and grace come to full flower in the way we use what is most precious in this world for the benefit of those most ignored and forgotten.
As Creation itself reminds us, the way of life is the way of giving. Nature is in balance when each creature in the web of existence gives as much as it takes. This is the path of life, abundant for all, which God first gives each of us. In order to live a life abundant, we are called to give abundantly. Not so we will win a prize. So that we live a life of meaning and purpose-- and follow in the way of Jesus.
Amen.
Readings:
Preached at the 505 on September 27, and at the 10:30 Eucharist on September 28, 2025 at St. Marton's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.
