The Rich Man and Lazarus
Climacus
Shipmate
I had always assumed this was a parable. On another, Orthodox, site some people mention praying for the rich man's soul, so they believe it was real. What are your thoughts?
To add another question, how deep do you read the fact those in Abraham's bosom and those in torment can communicate?
edit: added "some"
To add another question, how deep do you read the fact those in Abraham's bosom and those in torment can communicate?
edit: added "some"
Comments
I did see a lovely bit of speculation somewhere that imagined Jesus telling this parable first in the company of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, their young brother--and adding the name in, just to make the boy giggle. I've done things like that myself.
Anyway, because it IS a parable, I would not take the communication scene as a literal representation of what can or does happen in the afterlife. If it were so, surely the damned could make the lives of Abraham and Co. absolutely hideous just by complaining nonstop?
I take it to be a necessary plot device to allow Jesus to make his point, which is that people are going to believe what they want to, even if somebody should rise from the dead.
(I did find it interesting that Abraham refers to "those who would go from here to you"--suggesting that there are people among the blessed who would willingly travel to hell if they could. Why? I assume because they'd like to help.)
https://youtu.be/FBHgrR6Ft04?si=7p1pz6EH8VcIWcKA
(Dives, the traditional name of the rich man, Latin for “rich.”)
One of my favorites, @The_Riv!
I find that beautiful.
Sounds like a very interesting programme, Nick Tamen!
Thank you for that piece, The_Riv. It was beautiful to listen to. It has raised a question on classical music in my mind I'll post upstairs.
It's not going to work without a "Jesus said". Which is the same as parables and not of say the feeding of the 5000+.
I guess if you needed an earthly core to the whole story (why?) you could do something funny with the valley Gehenna gets it's name from. But at that point the version weve got is so different (dead rather than dying) we're basically back at a story anyway. Could be a fun creative writing prompt.
Regarding the brief earthly bit, it happens every day and there are scores or real-life Dive-like and Lazerus-like characters. I could well believe there was a specific case that everyone was thinking of, or a well known generic (tommy atkins the soldier), or that he just needed a name to humanise 'Lazerus'
For the other bit, it's very human (set me up with the premise, and there's a 50% chance I'd fill it similarly, the other would be more universalist or a more bitter Dives) , but it would be in any case.
However as a parable you do get some insight into the mind of Jesus (especially as Lazarus is semi-redundant). I can certainly imagine some liking the unparable of Lazarus being a rejected as a scrounger by the righteous here and hereafter (I'm glad it's not like that)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl3xFnoDZ_I
(The melody is also the hymn tune Kingsfold )
If you like RVW, that's a really wonderful album/CD!
Back to the parable, which does seem to have inspired some creativity, maybe because it is such a colourful story. Not, I think, to be taken literally, but as an Awful Warning about how to treat one's neighbour...and a reminder that all of us will, sooner or later, rich or poor, meet Death.
I count myself lucky to have conducted it -- once.
I find it interesting to think about how the original audience reacted. The foreshadowing bit at the end ("even if one were to rise from the dead") would have been fairly meaningless to them at the time. But what they surely caught was the almost whimsical twist in the tale: The very warning that Abraham says cannot be conveyed IS being conveyed, by Jesus, through the parable!
Wikipedia says of Lazarus "Lazarus of Bethany (Latinised from Lazar, ultimately from Hebrew Eleazar, "God helped"" - nothing to do with lepers.
Sorry - tangential...
He does that in other places too, like Matthew 13.
But even though the whole thing seems designed to shut the ordinary people OUT, he is in fact telling this to the disciples who are charged with passing on this information to the whole world--both by preaching and ultimately through the New Testament. In both cases they'll be passing on all the explanations of the parables, etc. that Jesus gave them privately to the whole world, publicly--and Jesus knows that, intends that, as he made clear during the Last Supper discourse.
And just to add another layer of twistiness, he's quoting the Isaiah passage which is God saying "I'm so over these people, they're never going to get it"--but he does so in the context of calling a new prophet--and that one of the greatest prophets, Isaiah.
Yes. It's particularly galling for those of us on the edge of faith, wanting more but not having it, to get a sort of "well if you want believe me just because I say it's true why would I provide any evidence for it?", which actually cuts right across how my mind actually works - it is actually quite amenable to evidence. But the culture this was spoken into - and the immediate audience - might have been quite different.
It can be a challenge to find the safe channel between the Scylla of trying to apply every saying of Jesus as if it were addressed to one personally, and the Charybdis of avoiding any application by finding someone else it applies to other than us.
I wonder how Jesus would share this story if he told it today. (Something about a rich man shooting his phallic symbol in space while refusing to give aid and comfort to the family living under a blue tarp).
I think the Orthodox praying for the Rich Man is an indirect way of admitting we find ourselves more on the side of the Rich Man than Lazurus
The focus of the parable is on the contrast between the rich man's wealth and Lazarus's poverty, and the ultimate reversal of their fortunes in the afterlife. It emphasizes the importance of compassion, humility, and the dangers of ignoring the needs of others.
From Wiki:
*The rich man in his castle* is a line from the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful by Cecil Frances Alexander:
The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly, and ordered their estate.
The line is often omitted from modern hymn books because it can be interpreted as God creating people in an unequal way. However, Alexander intended the line to be inclusive and reflect the society of her time. She was inspired by her visit to Markree Castle and wanted to highlight the equality between rich and poor in God's eyes.
Yes, and that's probably why the verse is mostly omitted. If you believe in a god who makes everyone, no matter what their status might turn out to be, then the rest is not so problematical.
(It's a rather silly hymn, anyway. When was the last time you gathered rushes by the water?).
I'm tempted to wonder whether this is something that happens in the US and with converts from highly literal forms of fundamentalist Protestantism ...
But then you find highly literalist and poorly catechised Orthodox believers anywhere.
What I suggest it indicates - as well as an extreme literalism among some people - isn't so much a tendency to 'side' with the rich rather than the poor - although we can all do that - but rather an impetus towards universalism and compassion, a desire that all might be saved.
After all, I can't remember which of the Fathers it was who said that we should pray for the Devil and the demons to be saved.
Overall, I'd be very careful with the online Orthosphere as it can be full of cranks and toxicity.
In this instance it sounds like a misplaced application of a universalist aspiration to a parable taken as a literal historic event.
One of the interesting things about this parable is that Lazarus is saved. We get no explanation about how this was accomplished. Lazarus is never depicted as repenting of his sins or holding the correct theological beliefs when he died. Since Jesus is telling the story he obviously hasn't died for Lazarus' sins yet. There seems to be an understanding (rarely stated explicitly) in the Second Testament that the poor are all saved. They just are. Lazarus has salvation because he has nothing else. This tends to create all kinds of havoc with most modern systems of soteriology.
Mr Cheesy, late of this parish, used to say there were two gospels - one addressed to the poor and downtrodden, and one to the rich and the oppressors.
The first is the gospel of assurance that you matter and God is on your side.
The second is the gospel of repentance.
There's something in that.