Scripture: Luke 16:19-31
There have been several noteworthy moments in my life when I have heard the voice of vocation calling — moments when God, or divine fate, or the events put into motion at the time of creation that shape the conditions of our lives and our living has offered me an opportunity to become more fully myself.1
The first time I felt compelled and convicted to become a minister as a vocational calling was in 2018 when, while serving as a college chaplain — a student I knew asked me if I would baptize them. Not being able to take part in the sacramental act of baptism, yet experiencing a feeling that something in me wanted to become partner to the Spirit in sacramental ministry — it set me on a journey toward paying attention to that part of me.
The call of vocation in our lives is not always so profound. Some people talk about reading a book or going to a museum and then seeing the world in a whole new way that changes everything, or finding a passion or a service project that actualizes something they hadn’t known in themself before.
It’s possible for a person to go through life and not hear the voice of vocation inviting them to become more fully themselves. I don’t think it happens often. But perhaps it happened to the Rich Man of Jesus’s parable this week — perhaps he never heard the voice of vocation, the pursuit of possibility, the attraction of actualization, or the call to character until after his mortal life had ended. The desire to become something more is hiding at the heart of our parable today.
I have thoroughly enjoyed our five-week voyage through some of the lesser-known parables of Jesus during the month of August.
Folks have been mentioning to me things like, I’m still thinking about that “parable of the pearl,” and that “parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector” is a good story for our own time.
We’ve learned that the Gospels include about thirty-five parables of Jesus from his ministry. The most famous of which have shaped our culture. Many people know what you mean if you call someone a Good Samaritan, or a Prodigal Son. People may even know something about the “power of a mustard seed,” or what happens to lost sheep when they have a good shepherd. The author Octavia Butler wrote bestselling books called “Parable of the Sower” and “Parable of the Talents” drawing on the power of Jesus’s parables for our own time.2
[On that point, I used to teach a course on these two Octavia Butler books — if anyone wants to do an Octavia Butler book group together, let me know.]
The parables we have studied so for this month—the Parables of Leaven, Pearl, Pharisee and Tax Collector, and the Woman Seeking justice—do not have the same name-brand cache. And I was ready to include “the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus” into this category of hidden parables. After all, it features a less-famous Lazarus — not the well-known Lazarus who Jesus raises from the dead, but a different Lazarus who a Rich Man asks to be sent back to life to warn his brothers about perils that await them.
But I read and reread this parable this week, and it struck me that this parable about the poor man and Lazarus has a surprising amount in common with a very famous story — none other than Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
For those who are familiar with A Christmas Carol, who may have read it in a class like Mrs. Armstrong’s English class like I did — the Rich man of Jesus’ Parable is a clear Jacob Marley, a deceased man who asks that perhaps word could be sent back to people to warn them to change their selfish and closed-off ways.
In the Parable, we hear Abraham reply to this request to ask people to change their ways, “Have they not Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them” — we can almost hear a Scroogian echo: “Are there no prisons; are there not work houses; those who are badly off must go there.”
So perhaps a parable has snuck into our list of lesser-known parables that is not so-lesser known. Perhaps today’s parable has had more cultural importance than we know.
Charles Dickens published a book of eight parables of Jesus,3 so there is a strong likelihood that Dickens knew and was inspired by the parables of the rich man and Lazarus — and some of the power of A Christmas Carol comes from the fact that there is one major difference between the stories:
In Jesus’s parable, the story ends with the Rich Man suffering, and no opportunity to send word back to his family. There is no repair of his situation. Dickens on the other hand gives Jacob Marley and Ebenezer Scrooge a second chance — a chance to repair with Scrooge’s nephew and their employee, Bob Cratchet . . . and of course, Scrooge makes good on the chance to keep Tiny Tim alive.
Historians say that Charles Dickens’s story had a tangible impact on his society: charity increased — especially toward children, benevolent giving skyrocketed, even the annual celebration of Christmas was reinvigorated with new energy.
There’s something about redemption and second chances, that is very on-brand for Jesus, that makes Dickens’s story powerful.
Why does Jesus not offer the same second chances in his parable? Why does his parable end where it begins, without transformation; just regret?
I would suggest that Jesus knows that one story is not enough to achieve the beloved community. It’s why he has many dozen parables, and sermons, and actions, and illustrations.
We can look to the teachings of Jesus in their totality to fill in what individual stories are lacking.
For example, the parable of the pearl we read several weeks ago had an economic focus — a rich merchant sells everything he owns and buys a single pearl of great worth. Jesus invites us to reassess our relationship to items and wealth through this story. And we can read the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus with the Pearl parable in mind.
To the Rich Man, Abraham says, “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.”
This seems to be a message for our time. The chasms keeping us apart from people who think different, or act different, or look different is vast — but they’re not impossible to transcend.
A great chasm has been fixed between God’s people, so that we cannot travel freely. But the parables offer us a roadmap for how to live in this time of growing division and hostility.
Be smart; be unexpected; be radically kind; take the powers that are applied to you and turn them back where they came from; lead with love.
Lead always with love.
Live always with love.
And God will go with you.
God’s love will go with you always. —Amen.