Trading Places

The 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

In the gospel today, Jesus tells his famous parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The story shocks us because its logic is so direct. One person enjoys wealth and pleasure in this life, while another suffers poverty and disease. In the next life they find their fortunes reversed. They’ve switched roles. Can it be true? Does God really reverse the fortunes of the haves and the have-nots? Is the truth really so direct, so stark, so simplistic?

This business of switching places has always made for an interesting literary device. Mark Twain used it in The Prince and the Pauper. In that story, Tom Canty is a pauper who trades lives with Prince Edward, the son of King Henry VIII. By the end of the novel, the two can’t wait to get back to their “real” lives.

Then there was that wonderful movie, The Parent Trap. Haley Mills played identical twin sisters, Sharon and Susan, who switch places and scheme to get their divorced parents back together. The girls also grew to miss their true identities.

And that TV show that makes me cringe—Wife Swap—where families with completely different values and lifestyles trade wife and mother for two grueling weeks. The contestants may learn something along the way, but they too can’t wait to get back to their own lives where they belong.

If we can generalize from these examples, it appears that most of us like our lives. We’ve created the kinds of relationships and attitudes and ways of doing things that we prefer. So wouldn’t it be a terrible, horrible loss if all that had to disappear when we cross the threshold into eternal life?

Now, what if we imagined the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in a contemporary context with new characters? Let’s pretend that the role of the rich man in our own version is played by a person who tries to live a “by-the-book” Christian life. Then let’s picture Lazarus’ part is played by someone who is considered by the Christian to be disordered, evil, unworthy of God’s love and salvation. This person, for example, might be a politician who wants to keep abortion legal. It might be somebody who’s divorced and remarried outside the church. It could be someone who’s gay and who wants his love recognized and respected. It might be an infertile couple so desperate to have a baby that they conceive by in vitro fertilization or even use a surrogate mother. It could be someone who supports stem cell research or women’s ordination or giving communion to Presbyterians. You get the idea. Well, the “good Christian,” trying to be a very good Christian, uses the Bible and Church teachings against this other person and in fact condemns everyone in the same boat. Wouldn’t it be ironic if that good Christian, upon death, wound up in Hades… while the other one was escorted to heaven by the angels?

Or, this scenario could be reversed. Maybe any of those Lazarus types in my list of characters, knowing that they aren’t so hot in the eyes of the good Christians, don’t treat the good Christians very well. Instead, they vilify them as their “enemies” every chance they get. But just think: if those “enemies” sat outside our gate wounded and in need of help, and we walked past them and ignored them and did nothing, wouldn’t we be just as guilty as the rich man in the parable?

Hmmm. It appears that whether we’re a saint or a sinner in our own eyes or in the eyes of other people, it’s clear that our lives in Christ are meant for doing good, for being generous, for sharing, for taking care of one another. So the moral of the parable is not that the outcasts will be lifted up in the next life while the in crowd gets trampled. Rather, the lesson is that all of us must use our hearts, our voices, and our purses to support our neighbor in need… and equally important, we better check our moral superiority at the door. In the last analysis, we are no more than a human being—one of God’s children—who must be there for our brother or sister human being.

As Paul reminds us in his letter to Timothy, the key to a faithful life is righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. If we’ve got something to give, Christ obliges us to give it or else we can meet the same fate as the rich man.

On this Lord’s Day, we’d all do well to take a peek into our heart and our conscience and consider how Jesus Christ would regard the quality of our love and generosity. If death were to come for you today, would you be happily snuggling in paradise with Abraham and the angels… or might you be in torment with the rich man? Thank God, it’s not too late to fix things.