God & Son
Anticipating a gospel that we will read in September, it seems right and just to reflect on a couple of recent pics, both classic, one from Jonathan Turley, a legal scholar whose blog posts admittedly can be off the wall; the second one a loose cannon online.
“Brother, can you spare a nut?” is Turley's caption --
and Turley’s text says, “This is a species born for panhandling. There is about this scene that makes you feel it is a cosmic moral test, the failure of which will doom your eternal soul.”
It ought not be necessary to say, but per the fools who commented online clearly is, that it is not at all a cute pic and post about prairie dogs.
This rude, crude and unattractive second pic
would be a suitable bulletin cover for Sunday, September 29, 2013, when our gospel will be Jesus’ parable
Luke 16:19-31. The Rich Man & Lazarus
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 24 He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27 He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30 He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Lazarus is a beggar whose sponsor God & Son, P.A. have a preferential option for the poor. Only the dimmest of bulbs could fail to grasp this most pointed of all Jesus’ parables, for which Turley’s words may be paraphrased about today’s crop of Lazarus and his ilk, “This is a species born -- and doomed by its betters -- for panhandling. There is about this scene that makes you feel it is a cosmic moral test, the failure of which will doom your eternal soul.”
If the gospel is true, and unless Jesus' parable is claptrap, it is specifically and precisely that cosmic moral test. Christians who do not wish to be confronted with this ultimate truth may wish to sleep in or go to the beach that Sunday.
The Christian faith is not a package of doctrine encapsulated in an incredibly fanciful Creed mandated by factious old bishops sixteen hundred years ago, but a code of life for the ages, laid on us by God the Son.
TW+