The thing about parables is the story does not have to be true for the lesson to be valid. We often use parables in the form of fairy tales, Disney movies, or even scriptural stories to teach children important lessons about life. Adults too can benefit from parables.
Consider the scriptural parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The story involves a beggar (Lazarus) living outside the front gate of a wealthy family’s estate. Every day, the members of the family pass Lazarus as they enter the beautiful estate compound without giving Lazarus any consideration. Finally, the patriarch of the family dies and is condemned to eternal suffering. He is made to suffer as Lazarus suffered because he had every opportunity to relieve Lazarus’ suffering and chose instead to offer him scorn and indifference. He is told every member of his family who does nothing for Lazarus will suffer the same fate. Therefore, his suffering is deepened by the realization that his example will condemn all his loved ones to eternal damnation.
What is the lesson of the rich man and Lazarus?
For years I thought the lesson was to do unto others as you would have them do to you. Most recently, I have come to understand that wealth necessarily causes deprivation. To accumulate resources beyond our capacity to use, denies resources to other people who desperately need them. Therefore, the morale of the story is not the rich man’s lack of generosity, it is the rich man’s gluttony that caused Lazarus’ deprivation.
In America today, we are the rich man because our wealth is derived from our disproportionate, non-sustainable extraction of global resources for ourselves. And Lazarus is the billions of resource deprived people who are slowly migrating to the front gate of the American estate.
Where once our front gate was opened wide :
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”*
Now we close the gate, build walls, and offer scorn to the refugees who only seek the promise of what America used to be.
*Public Domain Excerpt from “The New Colossus” written by Emma Lazarus, and posted on a plaque on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
7 replies on “The wisdom of parables…”
Totally agreed, you shift my view here. The lesson about how scarcity works is applicable today as in Lazarus day. Yes.
What is true has always been true. The only question is when we recognize the truth right before our eyes.
Sorry for the late reply. Agree, very good points. I am still looking for answers as to how we can change this and have not found anything good yet. I wish I could be optimistic and hopeful.
The problems are so pervasive we are resigned to do nothing unless we take the first two critical steps…realize where you are is not serving your highest purpose, then stop contributing to the problems by living based on the values that undermine your highest purpose. Jesus died so all of us would be saved, not just the descendents of the twelve tribes of Abraham. All He asks from us is to love each other as He loved us. So as we makes choices each day, don’t focus our interest on ourselves & family alone…always keep in mind our brothers and sisters in creation. Advancing our individual self interest is not WJWD.
Of course I strive for this individually. Your blog posts seem to suggest a much larger movement that would require a nation or the world to embrace this. What I am saying is I am not optimistic that a handful of people or even a relatively small movement such as Zeitgeist will have any influence on changing things nationally or globally. Perhaps we should discuss this offline sometime soon. 🙂
Consider the anatomy of change. When Thomas Jefferson borrowed from John Locke to write “we hold these truths to be self evident that all men were created equal”, no contemporary society in the world was organized on that core value. Today, virtually all societies profess equality as a core virtue.
The point of my blog is to broadcast in a clear voice we are undone by the modern values we have accepted as truth. As individual people accept this premise, we will change the values that organize our society. This is how major fundamental change occurs.
As faithful men, we know when it comes to God, what is true has always been true. It is not coincidence that the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty was written by a woman whose last name is Lazarus.