The Gospel According to P.T. Barnum

"The Gospel According to P.T. Barnum"
Luke 16:19-31

Contrast of the two men in the parable:
Rich man Lazarus
no name         we are told his name
--identified only by what he has,
not by who he is

dressed in the latest fashions   full of sores; licked by dogs

feasted every day desired the droppings from the table

rich         poor

sat at the table lay at the gate

died        died

in hell; surrounded by flames   held in Abraham’s lap

buried carried by the angels



In the conversation between Abraham and the rich man, the rich man calls Lazarus by name.  So the rich man knows who Lazarus is.

Even in death, the rich man’s only evaluation of Lazarus is that Lazarus should serve him:  “Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool my tongue.”  The rich man’s contempt for Lazarus carries over to the grave.

Mother Teresa once wrote in her book, Words To Love By,
If you are preoccupied with people who are talking about the poor, you scarcely have time to talk to the poor.  Some people talk about hunger, but they don’t come and say, “Mother, here is five rupees.  Buy food for these people.”  But they can give the most beautiful lecture on hunger.

That’s how I see the rich man’s contempt being carried out and cloaked in religiosity.  I can see the rich man giving nice talks about the hungry poor and the destitute, then coming home, stepping over Lazarus, and sitting down to a table laden with amazing food.  The rich man shows his real evaluation of the Lazarus’ of the world in his “cool my tongue” comment.

Lazarus never speaks.  He has another--an advocate in Abraham--to speak for him now.  The once powerful rich man must now deal with others more powerful than himself.  Those who are powerless--who had no voice--in this life, discover their voice speaks through others more powerful than they can imagine.

All the contrasts of this life are reversed at “the lap of Abraham.”  Does that mean that people who receive their good things in this life are doomed to hell in the next?  Or is it the exorbitant, self-absorption of the rich man that went along with his wealth?

The “huge chasm” between hell and Abraham.  Earlier in the parable there is the distance between the rich man’s table and the gate where Lazarus lay.  Do the divisions we make in this life remain in the afterlife?  The separation of wealth and poverty.  The “great chasm has been fixed...”  What creates those huge chasms, or who fixes them?  Are they the deep ditches of our own making?

Those left alive.  For the rich man there are five brothers who are carrying on the Miley Cyrus self-indulgent, self-addictive lifestyle.  Lazarus evidently doesn’t have anyone left behind after death.  Our only question is, was there another “Lazarus”--another unfortunate with a name who took his place, laying at the gate the rich man left behind?

“Warn them...”  Warn them of what?  That there’s a hell?  That there are eternal consequences to earthly actions and attitudes?  To share with the less fortunate?  “...so they won’t end up here in this place of torment.”  Change for the sake of hell avoidance?  Scare the five brothers with the threat of the fires of hell?  That’s tract mentality.  Jesus didn’t want people to be motivated by the fires of hell, but by acts of compassion and love for those whom the world banishes to outside the gates.  Out of sight, out of mind.

The rich man only has a “pay-off” mentality about his relationship to God.  That is, if he does such-and-such, like ignoring the poor and hungry, he gets the pay-off hell.  But if he can get to his brothers, they can be motivated by the promise of the pay-off of being at the lap of Abraham.  To think that if your good deeds are simply a means to get into heaven, or to avoid the fiery torment of hell is missing the point.  Remember what Jesus says to those who come to him bragging about all their good deeds, saying, “Lord, Lord, I did all this great stuff in your name.”  And then Jesus says, “And do you know what I’m going to say?  You missed the boat.  All you did was use me to make yourselves important.  You don’t impress me one bit.  You’re out of here!”  (Matthew 7:22-23).  Jesus is looking for a different motivation than earning heaven or avoiding hell.

The brothers need their attention redirected to what was in front of them all along:  Moses and the Prophets.  Moses was the one who acted as God’s voice when the Hebrew people were being oppressed:  “...the affliction of my people...I’ve head their cries...I know all about their pain...”  (Exodus 3:7).  Moses is sent to be a voice for a people who have had their voice squelched, only to moan and cry out.

The prophets were called into action by God when the rich and politically and religiously powerful had lost their moral compass.  Without a “true north” these misguided leaders led the people in all kinds of moral and religious buffoonery.  The prophets led moral and religious reformations, helping the people find their true name and identity as God’s people, in spite of the rich and powerful.

So the rich man is saying his brothers need a warning; but Abraham is telling the rich man that the five brothers clearly have enough “warning” always with them in Moses and the prophets.  The rich man immediately nixes father Abraham’s pronouncement.  Which is part of the rich man’s problem.  Here he’s talking to one of the main patriarchs of the Jewish people, and the rich man is telling Abraham he’s got it all wrong.  That kind of arrogance was a huge issue--a huge blind spot--for the rich man.  Maybe that’s what got him in hell in the first place.  And maybe that’s what created the deep ditch between where the rich man and Lazarus was.

The rich man’s alternative:  send Lazarus back from the dead.  Question:  would the five brothers even know Lazarus?  Would they even know he died?  And that he had actually come back from the dead?  Walking past their now dead brother’s gate each day,  did they even see Lazarus there?

The rich man’s take on religion is P.T. Barnum showmanship.  Only the splashy and dramatic is what gets people’s attention.  Send Lazarus back from the dead.  It’s the “greatest show on earth.”  How do you get someone’s attention and convince them there is another whole reality that exists that they have paid no attention to their whole lives?  Do something really flashy, really eye-popping.

What if Abraham honored the rich man’s request and sent Lazarus back from the dead and the five brothers didn’t respond?  They may have gone, “WOW!” but kept on living how they were living.  Or, they might respond for a little while, but then back themselves slowly into their past lifestyles.  Then something even more spectacular has to be tried the next time to get their attention.  How many busses or canyons did Evil Kenevil have to jump over on his motorcycle until no one cared anymore.  Evidently Abraham doesn’t seem interested in allowing himself to get trapped in that circus, can-you-top-this mentality.

“They have Moses and the Prophets to tell them the score.  Let them listen to them.”  But that’s not good enough, is it, for us.  It should not surprise us that the really big money making movies, the ones that really sell at the box office are the ones full of special effects--amazing, glitzy, powerful images, created by computer enhancement and then superimposed over and taking the place of the ordinary.  The ordinary, the real, just isn’t good enough anymore.

How long will it be before our perceptions get so attuned and distorted by computer enhanced entertainment that we won’t be able to distinguish what’s real anymore?  When will we cross the line and lose complete touch with reality?

No, that’s not enough!  If only someone from the dead would go to them, they would listen and turn to God.  So Abraham said, “If they won’t pay attention to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen even to someone who comes back from the dead.”

In other words, “Here’s what your brothers have already, rich man.  It may not be flashy, but it’s solid and it’s real.  It’s not a one time wowser, but it’s stood the test of time.”

One lady wrote into Reader’s Digest saying that her husband asked her to help him shed some unwanted pounds.  So she stopped serving fattening snacks when he watched TV and substituted crisp celery.  While he was unenthusiastically munching on a stalk of celery one night, a commercial came on showing a woman spreading gooey, chocolate frosting over a freshly baked cake.  When it was over, the husband turned to his wife and said, “Did you ever notice they never advertise celery on TV?”

There really isn’t much that’s flashy about celery.  It certainly doesn’t create the come-on that a chocolate frosted cake does.  Celery is ordinary looking and unappealing next to a piece of cake.  “They have Moses and the prophets.”
“That’s not good enough; send somebody back from the dead!”
No to celery; yes to chocolate frosted cake.  No to the ordinary; yes to special effects.  No to reality; yes to virtual reality.  No to the prophets; yes to P.T. Barnum.

Moses and the prophets are just as substantial as someone rising from the dead.  It isn’t the big, splashy events that get people’s sustained attention.  It’s the accounts of everyday people like Moses and the prophets who take God’s words and God’s ways seriously, day in and day out.

And therein lies the point of the parable.  The main question here this parable begs us ask is, “What do we have available to us to help us make wise choices regarding the living of our lives?”  Then there is the follow-up question:  “But, what do we choose instead?”  What are the resources that have been made available to people by God, but which are completely by-passed?

I am constantly astounded at how I/we make life choices not based on tried and true information and reflection.  If all the Tom Clancey spy novels are even half way correct, the ones who are going to be the winners in the end are the ones who collect the most information, know how to put that information together so it’s useful, access what’s been discovered, and then make the wisest decision based on all that.

But for most of us, uninformed, unreflective life choices not based on tried and true historic principals are the rule rather than the exception.  We don’t take the time to deliberate.  We compress our horizons down by our own self-defined ways.  We are unable or unwilling to determine what the consequences will be of our choices.  We remain blissfully ignorant about the Biblical resources available to us to supply us with the information we need to discover the best life path.  We just meander through our days, thinking we’re smart and that we know what we’re doing.

The rich man in the parable abruptly discovered that the life choices he made had much more far reaching consequences than he ever imagined.  A lot of people still haven’t figured that one out.  He had climbed the ladder of wealth and success, and when he got to the top, he found out his ladder was up against the wrong wall.  For the rich man, sadly and painfully too late, he found out that those choices had to do with how he used/misused his wealth; and, how he treated/mistreated those around him, especially the poor and hungry.  He discovered, through his conversation with Abraham, that had he paid attention to life lessons and life directions gleaned from Biblical men and women who had gotten it right, he wouldn’t be in an eternal fix.  The rich man found out that leading an compassionless life created an compassionless and isolated dead end for himself.

And he also found out that there was nothing he could do to fix it for his five brothers who were still alive.  They are making their own life choices as well.  And they would have to discover the Biblically historic path of compassion themselves if they were going to make better informed choices for their path in life.

So the point of the parable lies not with Lazarus.  Not with Abraham.  Not with the rich man.  Lazarus and the rich man are dead.  We, the listeners, are not dead.  If this parable is for the living, then the point of the parable lies with those who are still living in the parable:  the five brothers.  That’s who Jesus wanted those who listen to this parable to pay the most attention to.  We are still living.  We are making choices every day about the path and direction our lives take.  They are choices that involve being compassionate or compassionless.  And those everyday choices have eternal consequences.  That’s where our focus must be in this parable.