the seductive power of wealth is a rejection of faith
Proper 21C | Luke 16:19-31
I don’t know about you, but I think this parable is giving “if you thought the last parable was a doozy… wait until you hear this one. So there are these two guys. . .”
Last week we heard about a dishonest manager who cheats and steals, right? And just in case we started to get the wrong idea about what Jesus meant to tell his followers about all of that, he lays it out there. You can’t serve two masters at the same time. It’s not going to work, because one is always more important. So don’t even try serving both God and mammon.
Mammon. That’s the word derived from Aramaic and Greek that Jesus uses here. Now, the New Revised translation uses the word wealth, I suspect because mammon isn’t a concept we’re terribly familiar with. Wealth, however, doesn’t speak to the bigger, more holistic concepts that Mammon does. Mammon speaks to the whole financial, wealth-creation system. It is the desire to hoard resources and cheat one’s neighbors and win the game of Life and finish with more money than the other players. It is what motivates us to care about quarterly reports always going up and thinking that a rising stock market means things are better for us personally and corporately and is always good. It’s a way of excusing immorality as a good business decision. All of that — greed and selfishness and anti-social dispositions — is rolled into this concept of mammon, especially the corrupting desire to gain wealth. In short, it is about greed and power.
Mammon is a traditional word that invites us to see that it isn’t just that money is an idol, but that the whole wealth-creating system is a corrupting force that goes against the will of God. So Jesus has some words about that.
Some of Mammon’s tricks
And then this morning, we have a story about a wealthy man stuck on the other side of the great chasm from the poor man. One of them is apparently in Hades and the other is in Heaven. So this is a total cautionary tale. But before we dive into it, we need to settle up on two things.
1. Remember the fancy dinner
It was two chapters ago, Luke 14, that Jesus went to a fancy dinner at the home of a Pharisee. And on his way in, who does he meet? A sick man who was being ignored. He was sitting in the doorway, legs swollen with edema. The rich guests were probably just stepping over him.
And Jesus heals him. But first, he asks if it’s OK to heal on the Sabbath. That is bold, right? He asks outright. And they are silent. So Jesus heals the man and sends him on his way, saying to the crowd, including these other guests to the fancy dinner party, who wouldn’t take care of their own in this situation? Again, silence.
This act is transgressive. It would make Jesus ritually impure. So it’s like getting into a ditch in your nice clothes on the way to a dinner party and then tracking your mud into their living room. You just don’t do this. It isn’t acceptable behavior. Now add the idea that mud reflects righteousness.
And we all know that Jesus has a different interpretation about Sabbath than the Pharisees, but add to your consideration this one additional suggestion — that they would care for their own property on the Sabbath. And which, given that these are land-owning men, includes members of their family.
So, rich men, poor man, Sabbath, property.
2. The Pharisees mock Jesus over the previous parable
Now, remember that, from the middle of chapter 14 on, Jesus is talking to a crowd. The poor and outcasts are leaning in and the pharisees and scribes are scoffing. And then, in chapter 16, Jesus tells a parable to his disciples. But it is still in the middle of this crowd. And he tells the disciples that the choice is between God and mammon and then, right after the lectionary cuts us off, the text continues in verse 14:
“The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.“
— Luke 16:14
They ridiculed him.
Why? The simple answer is that they love money. But that doesn’t carry the weight right. I suspect they mock Jesus for suggesting that dishonesty begets dishonesty and faith begets faith. It is a lot like what happens to me when I quote Jesus and people snort, “how would that work in the real world?”
They introduce a move here, in the space between last week’s parable and this week’s in which they pretend to be realistic and mock Jesus for a pipe dream. But Jesus’s response suggests that he’s the one paying attention to the rules in light of God, not mammon.
That is what Jesus is on about before diving into this parable about a rich man and a poor man. And it is the poor man who gets Abraham by his side.
Notice Father Abraham.
It is to him that God makes a covenant, a promise. A nation.
The Pharisees are trying to claim a kind of ownership of how the people define the covenant. They aren’t the priests or the scribes. They also aren’t inherently the most literate or trained. It is like the more recent concepts of orthodox or evangelical, which is to say, a way into authority; particular vision for tradition. And that gives them a kind of public authority to speak for the children of God. These are the true believers! Many suggest Jesus was a Pharisee, too!
God made the covenant with Abraham and then, through Moses, the covenant is ordered. We receive our commands, our laws, and then, through the prophets, our conscience.
In this parable, it is Abraham who attends to Lazarus and walks with him on his path.
This is the visualization, the manifestation, the representation of choosing between God and mammon. It is poverty and God over wealth and earthly satisfaction.
This is as much about that other parable as it is about the Pharisees mocking Jesus for saying we must choose God’s way over the earthly satisfaction of power within the Hebrew people and over their corner of the world under empire. God or power.
Notice, too, the blindspot.
It is curious, I think, that this nameless rich man, who is being tortured, can even see Lazarus and Abraham. That he can see them from his location. We imagine it is a river of fire, because it is called Hades, from Greek mythology rather than Hebrew theology. But there they are, a long way off, probably a long way up. But close enough to shout. Closer than that, even, because they have a conversation. And the rich man calls out to Abraham, like he could get an audience. Perhaps he can appeal to the man’s humanity, his dignity, and get some leniency. He’s a pillar of the faith, so maybe he could get a word in for him.
Notice how the man doesn’t address Lazarus. He doesn’t speak to him, but to Abraham. He wants Abraham to talk to Lazarus, get him to come across this great river of fire we’re putting between them and somehow do all of this incredible gap-jumping, I suppose, like a Superman leaping tall buildings in a single bound, he could do that maybe. All things are possible, they say. Have the man come to him in death as men came to him in life. It’s a strange request of a dead man, but normal under mammon. Shows his hubris, doesn’t it? His sense of entitlement.
That isn’t going to work, Abraham tells him. So he appeals to his decency again, Get word to my family. Don’t let them join me in this terrible fate.
And Abraham says, Well, they already have warning, don’t they? The public witness of the faithful. Scripture. The very grace of God. That’s enough for Lazarus, isn’t it? For the people who love God with all their heart and mind and strength. Yes indeed, it is enough.
We have enough to go on.
And that’s why this feels like an epic troll on Jesus’s part. That these people, so sure of themselves, ridiculing Jesus for suggesting that a little lying makes them into liars and yet a little faith can make them faithful. Just pick God over mammon. And they laughed at him for suggesting that.
Some of us know a thing or two about being mocked for our faithfulness. For saying you know, when Jesus tells us that God is love, it means we should probably love. Maybe love should seem like love. Or when Jesus tells us to feed the hungry and politicians strip the food away. And when we go to city council and appeal to the city to treat people experiencing homelessness like they are people and the good ol’boys from the police and fire departments and the mayor’s office are whispering in the back like we’re the nuisance here. Or when we confront our brothers and sisters in Christ for buddying up to power, proclaiming Christian nationalism as if that weren’t trying to split the baby between Christ and nation, between God and wealth, between faith and supremacy. Like the girl in the meme “why not both?”
Well, because mammon doesn’t share, friends! Mammon loves power. It loves the mocking and the pyrotechnics and the gold and the rings and the power suits and the security forces and the billy clubs and the cluster bombs and the depleted uranium munitions fired by us into Iraq twenty years ago and the supposed security that comes from the genocidal slaughter of your neighbors as you steal their land and call your occupiers simple farmers.
We have enough to go on. Love God and your neighbor as yourself. On these hang all the Law and the Prophets. Not one. Or the other. Not one and then the other. On these two, the same, together. Like loving God in our neighbor.
We have enough to go on, friends. To choose God over mammon. God over wealth and ownership, property and certainty, hoarding and exploiting. In choosing God, we choose freedom and love, hope and mercy, joy and contentment, relationship and community. And on top of that, we also get God.
It isn’t a hard choice. The mistake is pretending we can do both and force our way into heaven. No friends. The gate is already open. We choose to walk through it.