Who’s going to heaven and who’s going to hell?

In a nation fascinated with end times and the judgment day – that birthed the Millerites in the 1800’s and put the ‘Left Behind’ series atop of the New York Times bestseller list today – it can be easy for Americans to read one of the most popular parables in the Bible, the one about the Rich Man and Lazarus, and get so caught up in the eschatological details that its plain message becomes obscured.

Our desire to seek religions that clearly tell us who’s in and who’s out may be an expression of our fear. It may be our pride. It may be our lack of self-esteem. Or it may be our unconscious desire to preoccupy ourselves with conflict as a way of avoiding the difficult demands that Christ puts on us – not the least of which is the point of this parable: sharing.

This well-known story, unique to Luke, tells about a well-fed and well-dressed Rich Man, and a very poor, suffering man named Lazarus. The latter lay at the rich man’s gate while he sumptuously feasts on and ignores Lazarus. So after they both die, Lazarus is in heaven and the Rich Man is in hell. We note the freaky features of this arrangement; the two are able to talk but not visit, the great patriarch Abraham is readily on call to chat, and not a pitcher, bucket or cold water hose is preferred as relief from hell’s fires, but a finger dab of water will do just fine.

Libraries full of imaginative speculation and theological generalization about heaven, hell, and judgment have emerged from these details, but precious little gets hammered home about the main point. The Rich Man was condemned for being indifferent to the plight of the poor. With more than enough opportunity, but not nearly enough concern for his neighbor, the Rich Man found himself in unbearable suffering. While some take this literally, others metaphorically, Jesus seems to be saying that the place this indifference takes us is not a happy one.

This week, as world leaders and aid workers flocked to the United Nations to give glowing updates on the Millennium Development Goals, we are reminded that the Lazarus’ of the world are still sitting outside our gates. And the Church has no option. We are not a body of indifference, but a body of hope, the Body of Christ, called to plunge itself deeper into the center of the world’s suffering and anguish, where the rich see, hear and share. In what ways are we fighting back indifference and heeding the voices of those laying outside our gates?

Reading
Radical – David Platt
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
My Stroke of Insight – Jill Bolte Taylor