Dear Friends,

This Sunday’s Gospel reading is challenging. In it, Jesus tells a parable in which two people have died. One is carried to Abraham’s bosom; the other to Hades. The poor man goes to heaven; the rich man to the underworld.

None of us like the idea of Hell. Worse still, this text appears to suggest that one of the characters is sent there because his works are found lacking.

But it is not wise to look to this text to come up with a theology of the afterlife. Jesus is speaking parabolically: he’s drawing on everyday assumptions to construct a provocative story that will illustrate a point. The main idea of this text is not to expound upon where people go when they die. Instead, Jesus is upending a commonly held assumption of his own day.

In first century Israel, apocalyptic is the milieu. Hades, Gehenna, Hell is the fate awaiting sinners. Jesus’ audience would not have been scandalized by the possibility of a shadowy fate for the ungodly. The scandal for Jesus’ contemporaries is that Lazarus, the poor man, ends up in heaven.

The assumption at the time of Jesus was that the wealthy had means because they were righteous, and that poor had little because they were ungodly. In this parable, Jesus subverts this age-old assumption.

In another Gospel reading, the disciples see a blind man and ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” In response, Jesus dismisses their question. A similar upending of commonly held beliefs is true in the parable of “The Rich Man and Lazarus”: “God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.” (Rom. 11:32)

Grace and Peace,

Ben