Comments on: The Lazarus Lesson https://mnisly.com/the-lazarus-lesson/ My Faith, My Family, and then there's Birding Fri, 14 Feb 2020 12:27:14 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.6 By: Merle https://mnisly.com/the-lazarus-lesson/#comment-58 Fri, 14 Feb 2020 12:27:14 +0000 http://mnisly.com/?p=1404#comment-58 In reply to Mary.

Thanks, Mary. I feel that Jesus, in both those teachings about caring for others, didn’t saddle individuals with responsibility to solve poverty or suffering as a global problem. Rather, I hear him warning us that if we ignore the needs on our doorstep and in our personal space we are in deep trouble.

]]> By: Merle https://mnisly.com/the-lazarus-lesson/#comment-57 Fri, 14 Feb 2020 12:21:49 +0000 http://mnisly.com/?p=1404#comment-57 In reply to Josiah.

Thanks, Josiah. I certainly agree that a simplistic, literalistic reading of this story or other teachings of Jesus will likely lead us to inconsistencies. I hope that we can find the punch line in his stories, and take that seriously as a core value. In this case, a person who was able to do something about the suffering right on his doorstep did nothing but pamper himself. And Jesus makes it clear that God isn’t impressed with that. Maybe we don’t need to dig much deeper than that.

]]> By: Josiah https://mnisly.com/the-lazarus-lesson/#comment-56 Fri, 14 Feb 2020 08:05:19 +0000 http://mnisly.com/?p=1404#comment-56 Questions like these tormented me while working in Africa. I have never doubted my salvation as much as I did laying awake at night in the heat, thinking about all the beggars that I walked past. And wasn’t I living in more luxury than the man in Jesus parable? And yet, the people who cautioned me not to give indiscriminately were not wrong. I stayed there long enough to see the harm that could be done by giving to indiscriminately. This teaching of Jesus unsettles me. It has pushed me, more than any other teaching in Scripture, away from a straightforwardly Literal interpretation of scriptures. To take Jesus literally, we would need to give to all beggars all the time. But once the beggars of this world caught on, we would all be broke, and they would all be temporarily rich. This may not happen here. But it would have happened over there. Literally, it would have. If we got out, the hungry masses would have stampede it. The situation could have gotten dangerous. That would not be good for anyone, although one could make a case for its working in the past (eg monestariss, Francis of Assisi, communal living). You are right that Jesus did not build a lot of new ones into the story, or the sermon on the mount. But perhaps other scriptures can help us. For example, scriptures which ground the assurance of our salvation not in our works, but in the completed work of Christ. Also, verses in Proverbs about stewardship. Verses that talk about caring for our families. Verses that talk about giving to our church, who will then redistribute the funds for famine relief. And the principal – yes, it is just a principal – of giving 10%. Which means, of course, that normally we get to live by 90%.
There’s much more to be said, and you can fall off either side of the narrow path. But these are some nuances that enabled me to sleep better at night, and feel the peace of God again, despite the fact that I felt like it was the right decision not to give on certain occasions.

]]> By: Mary https://mnisly.com/the-lazarus-lesson/#comment-55 Fri, 14 Feb 2020 04:11:12 +0000 http://mnisly.com/?p=1404#comment-55 My fear is that it’s far less complicated than you say… Our lack of care for others is straight up selfishness, if we are honest–though we’d never say it that way. That’s the way God sees it. There’s no “deserving” or “undeserving” poor in the Bible. Just a lot of God warning people that their lack of care for others and societal systems that oppress people are deserving of judgment.
How can we miss this? Jesus told another story about how the final judgment will go, how he decides who are sheep and who are goats. Those who cared for the “least of these”–those who Jesus calls his family and says we’ve treated him that way.
I don’t have answers for when we let people sleep in our barn or shower in our house, those require wisdom for the moment. And I don’t have stories of how I’ve done great at this. But I do have a deep-seated fear that our Christian culture has missed something really important, that perhaps our “Christian” culture isn’t really Christian, and that Jesus is going to claim he never knew many of us. He didn’t ask us to pray a prayer or believe a doctrine, he asked us to follow him and told us and showed us what to do. Is that what we are doing?
I want to grow in truly caring about other people; thanks for the reminder.

]]> By: Elnora Miller https://mnisly.com/the-lazarus-lesson/#comment-54 Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:30:02 +0000 http://mnisly.com/?p=1404#comment-54 I’m so thankful for the Holy Spirit to guide us in making the best decisions!

]]>