Andrew despairs at Jesus telling an old story:

Do you know, I really wish Jesus hadn’t told that story!

Not for the reasons you may be thinking, I assure you! There’s not a trace of guilt here.  Coming from a working family in a working village, I’ve never known wealth and privilege like that.  Ours was a day-to-day existence, and we knew how to look out for one another. Had to, really, ‘cos we never knew if it would be us falling on hard times next.  And, we may well be thought of a backwoods Galileans, but we know our scriptures, you know! We understand full well what God requires of us!  We even care enough to try and put it into practice – unlike some, so it would seem.

No, the reason I wish he’d not told that story is that I fear he’s wasting his breath. 

Unlike some of Jesus’ stories, this one isn’t original.  It’s a well-known folktale around these parts.  I’ve heard stories of visitations from the afterlife many times before; each one coming with the warning that if we don’t change our ways, it’ll not end up well for us in the hereafter.  Scary stuff, if you want to take it literally.  But comforting for some; to know that there will be this great reversal and those whose struggle in this life is ignored by those who could help them will end up on top, enjoying all the riches they have been denied, feasting as special guests ‘resting in the bosom of Abraham’, while those who have had it easy will find their comeuppance indeed!

But even this can be misconstrued.  There’s some who say if there’s going to be this great reversal in the next life, then it’s better to be poor here and now, surely?  Maybe the poor should suffer with dignity, cos there’s pie in the sky when they die.   

For some, this is just an intellectual game – a light hearted picking up on the flaw in the argument.   They don’t really mean it.   But for others, this is just far too convenient.  It gives them an easy way out – a justification for doing nothing to help, and an appeasement for those who are left in suffering.  “Why lift the poor up now if it means they will only lose out in the end?   Surely, it’s better for them if I keep my riches to myself, don’t you think?  In fact, I’m doing them a favour!”    What rubbish! … and most know it’s a load of rubbish!  But some will always find a way to twist things to their advantage… even if it is a complete misrepresentation of the story!

Others, I’ve heard, miss the plot entirely when they take this as a literal description of life after death, not an allegory. They are convinced that Jesus is simply telling us what it’s going to be like when we die.  I am not at all sure that it is.   As I said, Jesus is repeating a common folk tale. He’s using an accepted idiom to make a point. It doesn’t mean he wants it to be taken literally.  And most of all he didn’t mean for us to turn this into a theological treatise about life after death.  He was making a very important and valid point about how we should be living now.

As I remember it, Jesus has changed the usual telling.  Normally, when the rich man asks for messengers to go and warn their relatives, those messengers are actually sent.  Jesus did not allow that.   He refused flatly to let anyone cross the great divide. “Too late, my friend”, the rich man is told, “you should have thought about this before!”

For Jesus, the focus of urgent attention is always the present, not what happens in the afterlife.  It’s what we do here and now that matters; how we treat our neighbours, how we respond the cry of the poor, how seriously we take the call of God to “do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God”.

The idea that messengers from beyond can change our minds is always an entertaining one. I expect it’ll appear time and time again in all kinds of fiction, challenging the ‘scrooginess’ of the careless rich. It’s such a good motif.  But Jesus refuses to use it.  He’s not convinced.  “Why would they listen if a man came back from the dead”, he asks, “if they will not listen now?”   

Where I come from up north (in Galilee), we have a saying ‘There’s none deafer than them that don’t want to hear’.  I guess Jesus agrees with that.  It’s been laid out clearly since the time of Moses, he tells us.  We have everything we need. The time to pay attention is now!

Still, I do think that if we stepped out of fiction and actually saw this happen, then it would definitely grab our attention.  If someone came back from the dead, we’d surely sit up and listen!  Such an amazing miracle would change everything, wouldn’t it?  No-one could ignore that, could they?

Not that we’ll ever know. Like that is really going to happen!

(Oh, and I can’t wait to tell our friend in Bethany that Jesus used his name in this story. I wonder what he will make of that?)