“Success is not a name for God,” Martin Buber said. Before him, Jesus shared a parable about the idol of wealth, paralleling the lives of Lazarus and an unnamed though well-dressed rich man.
The contrasting lives of the two men have been framed for millennia, but have American Christians failed to see the lesson in this cautionary tale? The answer is proof of the power of capitalism.
It’s not the first, but one of seven examples in Luke’s gospel. The Nazarene’s depiction of the rich is decidedly unflattering.
In their exchange, set in the afterlife, the rich man speaks with Abraham at a hellish distance that some would argue is no different than the cruel gulf experienced by Lazarus when he was alive, a victim of the rich man’s lavish lifestyle and gross entitlement (16:19-31). Unsurprisingly, many North American Christians read this story and still blame the impoverished for the economic disparity, though the federal minimum wage has been stalled at $7.25 per hour since July 24, 2009.
Their response affirms another story of the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps’ kind. It centers hard work and personal responsibility over mutual aid and communal salvation.
Frankly, capitalism is not a morally defensible economy and ensures the rich man and Lazarus will never be in proximity. This is only the case when Jesus is telling the story. Because ultimately, mammon is of no benefit to either man.
But don’t tell that to Americans who remain obsessed with wealth. It might cause a crisis of faith. “Materialism is the new spirituality,” Lauren Greenfield, the photojournalist and author of “Generation Wealth,” said in an NPR interview.
Greenfield wrote in the introduction of the coffee table book bound in gold silk, “We now live in a society where our highest public servant is a real-estate developer and reality TV star who lives in a penthouse on the sixty-sixth floor emblazoned with his name and decorated in a Louis XIV style, with ceilings painted with 24-karat gold, marble walls, and Corinthian columns.” Trump might be rich in status, but based on courtroom testimonies, he is morally bankrupt.
Those who voted for him seemingly have no interest in the disparity—moral, social or otherwise. Still, there are lessons to be learned as his administration tries to put a freeze on federal funding of what some consider “progressive initiatives.”
While a federal judge blocked the freeze on federal grants and loans, “Administration officials said the decision to halt loans and grants was necessary to ensure that spending complies with Trump’s recent blitz of executive orders,” Chris Megerian and Lindsay Whitehurst reported for the Associated Press. The Trump Administration has since walked back that statement in a memo, but not before creating chaos and panic for millions of Americans.
While some leaders argue about the poor planning and rollout of this executive order, I wonder if Lazarus will have to come back from the dead to convince those isolated, insulated, and indifferent due to their riches that this is not the best course of action. With the permission of Father Abraham, will the ghastly presence of a walking dead man change their minds about an economy that necessitates the need for the haves and the have-nots?
The redistribution of wealth, also known as Sabbath economics, is critical as it reminds us that we are stewards of this world, not owners. It redefines our possessions and invites us to regularly deconstruct systems of hierarchical wealth and power. This would require us to interrogate our relationship with money.
In fact, on this day in 1690, in the colony of Massachusetts, paper money was first issued. Since then, the paper trail has been bloody and littered with failed attempts at community.
On this same day in 1787, an uprising in the same colony in opposition to high taxes was defeated. It was called Shay’s Rebellion and was named for Daniel Shays, an officer in the American Revolution. The radical demand for a stronger government would lead to the Constitutional Convention in the same year.
Two years later, on this very day, George Washington would be elected to serve as the United States’ first president. And since billionaires were seated front and center at Trump’s second inauguration, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that Facebook was launched on this day too in 2004.
It’s all coming together for some and yet the civil rights gains of so many Americans are unraveling. I wonder, if time is money, then how much have African Americans lost as they watch their government walk back on promises they protested for?
Because on February 3, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to vote regardless of race, was ratified. It was written to ensure the civil rights of the formerly enslaved.
On the backs of Africans and later African Americans, the U.S. economy was established, but it never replaced the exploitative model. Instead, American capitalism created systemic discrimination, historic inequality and a wage gap that has never been closed.
In response, a majority of Americans elected the rich man. You know his name. But what about Lazarus?
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.