I really think it's both. I have to watch out for turning parables into proverbs. I think irony and ambiguity are less "the point" than true to life and a need to think twice before jumping to a point. - Thanks for your comment!
Sometimes the memory of Jesus’s Rich Man and Lazarus surfaces like the faces of the distant poor on my TV or on the envelopes of charities’ mass mailings. But the poor are “with us,” as Jesus said, and are like the advancing cars in my side-view mirror—closer than they appear. Like the parable's rich man, I pass the poor every day. Thank you for presenting this parable in the context of a fresh take, at once balanced and challenging. My cutting a few checks to some of the world’s Lazaruses won’t make this parable go away.
Some specific thoughts on two of your points:
“Lazarus is the only person named in Jesus’ parables. . . . He was a human ignored at the gate, his name meaning “God helps,” his presence an accusation.” History usually remembers the names of the rich and powerful. In Jesus’s parable, now that you mention it, Jesus reverses this historical tendency.
“We often tell the parable as a morality play: the rich are damned, the poor saved. But Jesus’ story is stranger and sharper. It does not canonize poverty or demonize wealth; it exposes the blindness comfort breeds.” While visiting one of our daughters, we’re taking a “rich man’s” tour of middle California. Tour buses and the landscapes they choose to travel are like what you describe as “the market’s veneer”: they often present a curated version of an area to prop up the rich’s worldview and to protect our sensibilities. I have enough money to remain blind, and I often spend it for that purpose, sometimes even when I give.
Two more lines I can’t put down:
“The rich man could see Lazarus—covered with sores and starving—at his gate, yet chose not to care, or only to feel guilty. His sin was not ignorance but inertia.”
“Loving our ‘neighbor’ became abstract—systemic—more important than the one next door.”
Side note: I wonder if Dodd’s emphasis on the “now” made room for some of his critics to emphasize (or even to simply include) the “now” with the “not yet.” I don’t know enough about theology to know.
Thank you again for presenting me with the gospel.
C. H. Dodd’s “realized eschatology,” with its focus on the Kingdom of God as already present and operative in Jesus’ ministry, did invite later theologians to balance that “now” with a renewed emphasis on the “not yet.” Scholars like Joachim Jeremias and Oscar Cullmann responded by formulating what’s often termed “inaugurated eschatology.” Cullmann, for example, spoke of the “already and not yet” to capture both the decisive victory of Christ (the “D-Day” of salvation) and the ongoing anticipation of its final consummation (the “V-Day” still to come).
So yes: Dodd’s concentration on the “now” of God’s reign created the theological space—and the critical motivation—for others to restore the eschatological tension between present realization and future fulfillment. His work didn’t deny the “not yet,” but his focus on the realized aspect pushed others to make the balance explicit.
Thank you! It sounds like Dodd laid some modern foundations for the overall "now-and-not-yet" understanding that is helping me so much. I'd like to read Dodd's Parables of the Kingdom. I've enjoyed reading Robert Farrar Capon's Kingdom, Grace, Judgment on Jesus' parables (as well as Buechner's Telling the Truth, which shares Capon's knack for surprises and his often playful tone).
Wow, the part about parables defying neat definiton really resonated. Do you think we're just bad at parsing them or is the ambiguity the point? Such a smart read!
I really think it's both. I have to watch out for turning parables into proverbs. I think irony and ambiguity are less "the point" than true to life and a need to think twice before jumping to a point. - Thanks for your comment!
Sometimes the memory of Jesus’s Rich Man and Lazarus surfaces like the faces of the distant poor on my TV or on the envelopes of charities’ mass mailings. But the poor are “with us,” as Jesus said, and are like the advancing cars in my side-view mirror—closer than they appear. Like the parable's rich man, I pass the poor every day. Thank you for presenting this parable in the context of a fresh take, at once balanced and challenging. My cutting a few checks to some of the world’s Lazaruses won’t make this parable go away.
Some specific thoughts on two of your points:
“Lazarus is the only person named in Jesus’ parables. . . . He was a human ignored at the gate, his name meaning “God helps,” his presence an accusation.” History usually remembers the names of the rich and powerful. In Jesus’s parable, now that you mention it, Jesus reverses this historical tendency.
“We often tell the parable as a morality play: the rich are damned, the poor saved. But Jesus’ story is stranger and sharper. It does not canonize poverty or demonize wealth; it exposes the blindness comfort breeds.” While visiting one of our daughters, we’re taking a “rich man’s” tour of middle California. Tour buses and the landscapes they choose to travel are like what you describe as “the market’s veneer”: they often present a curated version of an area to prop up the rich’s worldview and to protect our sensibilities. I have enough money to remain blind, and I often spend it for that purpose, sometimes even when I give.
Two more lines I can’t put down:
“The rich man could see Lazarus—covered with sores and starving—at his gate, yet chose not to care, or only to feel guilty. His sin was not ignorance but inertia.”
“Loving our ‘neighbor’ became abstract—systemic—more important than the one next door.”
Side note: I wonder if Dodd’s emphasis on the “now” made room for some of his critics to emphasize (or even to simply include) the “now” with the “not yet.” I don’t know enough about theology to know.
Thank you again for presenting me with the gospel.
C. H. Dodd’s “realized eschatology,” with its focus on the Kingdom of God as already present and operative in Jesus’ ministry, did invite later theologians to balance that “now” with a renewed emphasis on the “not yet.” Scholars like Joachim Jeremias and Oscar Cullmann responded by formulating what’s often termed “inaugurated eschatology.” Cullmann, for example, spoke of the “already and not yet” to capture both the decisive victory of Christ (the “D-Day” of salvation) and the ongoing anticipation of its final consummation (the “V-Day” still to come).
So yes: Dodd’s concentration on the “now” of God’s reign created the theological space—and the critical motivation—for others to restore the eschatological tension between present realization and future fulfillment. His work didn’t deny the “not yet,” but his focus on the realized aspect pushed others to make the balance explicit.
- Thanks for your encouraging response!
Thank you! It sounds like Dodd laid some modern foundations for the overall "now-and-not-yet" understanding that is helping me so much. I'd like to read Dodd's Parables of the Kingdom. I've enjoyed reading Robert Farrar Capon's Kingdom, Grace, Judgment on Jesus' parables (as well as Buechner's Telling the Truth, which shares Capon's knack for surprises and his often playful tone).
Wow, the part about parables defying neat definiton really resonated. Do you think we're just bad at parsing them or is the ambiguity the point? Such a smart read!