I have been away quite a while—the new position as
division chair has added a tremendous number of other duties that have taken me
away from scholarship quite a bit—but it seems a good time, based on what we
have seen in the United States this week, to return to receptions of the Rich
Man and Lazarus parable, although the parable of the Good Samaritan seems
perhaps even more pertinent now.
In previous posts in this series I looked at how the
parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus should be interpreted in its first-century,
historical Jesus, and Lukan contexts. Those results, not surprisingly, were
contested by a few readers, whose complaints, in my view, were a result of
their having domesticated the radical teachings of Jesus.
An example to the contrary:
My Religion 100 students read Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited last week. I
highly recommend that timeless book, and, perhaps after finishing this series on
the Rich Man and Lazarus parable, I will write more fully about Thurman’s use of Jesus's parables in that book.
In his book, Thurman argues that, in some respects, much
of contemporary Christianity has domesticated the teachings of Jesus (e.g., “American
Christianity has betrayed the religion of Jesus almost beyond redemption”; p.
88). Jesus was a poor Jew who was member of oppressed minority, and his message
was to those who, like him, were disenfranchised, who had their “backs against
the wall,” and it is this aspect that helps make Jesus’s message especially
relatable today to people who similarly are disenfranchised and have their own backs
against the wall: This is the position of
the disinherited in every age, Thurman points out. Jesus proclaimed that
the poor are worthy in God’s sight, are children of God, and God cares about
and for them. This, Thurman argues, gives
the disinherited a self-confidence in their own worth, a new courage and power
to face up to and work against oppression. They have the assurance from
Jesus that God loves them and will take care of them.
I won’t yet discuss the
other aspects of that book, but Thurman does use the parable of the Good
Samaritan effectively to illustrate how love of God and neighbor, even one’s
enemies, is the central ethic of Jesus’s message.
Okay, in the next post I will discuss the use of the
parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus by Macrina the Younger (ca. 327-380).
Dr. David B. Gowler
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CAN I HAVE A YES OR NO? THE PARABLE OF LAZARUS AND THE RICH 'LITERAL OR SYMBOLIC? THANK YOU SO MUCH
The form of the narrative, including the fact that Luke situates it in a collection of parables (starting in Luke 15). Luke clearly thinks it is a parable, as do subsequent interpreters (e.g., Codex Bezae makes it explicit). Even the opening of the parable is similar to other parables (anthropos tis; a certain man). That form is used in several parables: Good Samaritan, Great Dinner, Prodigal Son, Dishonest Manager, the Pounds. Some people point to the fact that Lazarus is given a name to say the story if "literal," but the name Lazarus is also symbolic: "God helps." And not all parables are called parables by the authors of the gospels, and, in contrast, some things that aren't parables are actually called parables (some similitudes are labeled as parables by Gospel authors such as Luke).
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