My post on The Dishonest Manager generated some discussion on the nature of wealth, our relationship and use of it and Jesus’ condemnation of wealth, at least in certain circumstances. In one of my comments to Marie Rehbein I stated that “Jesus does condemn the improper use of wealth in The Rich Man and Lazarus.” Marie answered my comment, saying, “Interestingly, The Rich Man and Lazarus, is one {parable} that I had wanted to mention.” She went on to offer a spiritual reading that her husband had presented and that interpreted the parable in the context of the Church and its misuse of its (spiritual) resources.  For me, however, The Rich Man and Lazarus does not deal with the Church and its misuse of spiritual resources, as for instance I would read The Dishonest Manager, at least in some ways, but with the call to use our material resources wisely because of the implications they have for our spiritual life, for our salvation, for eternity.

Money is what it is, agreed upon forms of currency which contain stored value, and which are used to pay off debt and to obtain goods and services. At least today, in and of itself, the paper and most coins have no inherent value, but even when coins have value, such as gold and silver, their value is not eternal but ephemeral. We agree upon the value contained in metal and paper. Our lives have inherent value, in and of themselves, not because someone assigns them a number, or because our bodies are made of precious metal. We are worth something to God; we matter to God.

The Rich Man in the parable, found in Luke 16:19-31, ignores Lazarus and his suffering; the Rich Man assigns no value to Lazarus; he is worthless to him. Yet, Lazarus has great value to God, as do we all. Our value does not rest in money, in the things we own, in the villas and chalets in which we summer and winter, our cars and planes, our buildings and parties, but in our very being. And when the Rich Man ignores Lazarus he ignores his humanity. My last phrase is vague and intentionally so: the Rich Man ignores both Lazarus’ humanity, but also his own. By choosing the false reality of money and wealth, and ignoring his suffering neighbor, he loses himself and he ignores God. How do we know he ignores Lazarus? Apart from the fact that Lazarus lies at his door, yearning for food, which indicates that the Rich Man should have seen him, after the Rich Man dies, he calls out to have Lazarus by name to come to him and give him comfort. If he knew his name, could he have not known his humanity, that Lazarus was a person just like him? Could not Lazarus have rightly asked, “now you remember my name?”

Prestige, fun, power and parties, amongst other things, can all be purchased with money, which, because they are all tangible things and attract many people, makes money seem so real, more real than God, or love or eternal life. And certainly more real than some sick, worthless beggar who you can more easily just walk by or step over. Indeed, it turns people into commodities. Some have value to us – What can they get me? What do they give me? – and some have no value to us – they offer us nothing we need.

It is Lazarus who finds himself in the bosom of Abraham, comforted. Why is he now in comfort? Is it simply because he suffered and received “bad” things not “good” things in this life? Is that sufficient for the eternal reward? Or is it that in being present to the Rich Man, he was showing him not just his own humanity, the humanity of Lazarus, but the humanity of the Rich Man himself. Was his presence a witness to the love of neighbor and love of God? The Rich Man, it seems,  had given up not just on Lazarus and not just on God, but on himself. Now it is true that all we are told and so all we know is that the Poor Man is in eternal comfort and the Rich Man is now in eternal despair. So perhaps the better question to ask is this, if the Rich Man had shared his “good” things with Lazarus in this life would they both be comforted in the bosom of Abraham?

John W. Martens

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.