From the Rich Man & Lazarus to the Rich Young Ruler: Religious Activism and the “The Holy Church of Christ without Christ”

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Introduction: The paradoxes actualized

Having looked into the dynamics operating in the Parable of the Rich Man & Lazarus, our presumed “Christian” religion was confronted by the paradoxes in operation in both of their divergent lives. Though wealthy, prospering and living a life of feasting, the Rich Man, was, in actuality, “wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.” He had been given no name other than that of the riches to which he had fully committed himself—tis ploúsios, And those riches upon which he built the foundation of his life and in which he continually trusted, “made themselves wings” at his death and “flew away like an eagle” (Prov 23:5), leaving him utterly destitute. His false holy spirit was utterly powerless to deliver him from the fires of judgment that awaited. At the end of the Parable, therefore, he is left “tormented in this flame” (phlóx) with nothing in his possession other than the memory of his tragically misdirected life.

The poor man, however, unlike the former, had not been given a generic name reflecting his material possessions or lack thereof. Rather, he was given by Jesus in the only instance in the Parables a particular name: “Lazarus”

And Why that particular name?

This is the one who in the Gospels is himself raised “from the dead” and, as the Rich Man so begs at the close of the Parable, does actually “go” to the living as a witness. Yet having already rejected “Moses and the Prophets”, the religious establishment is not “persuaded even if one rises from the dead.”

No sign, no miracle, no mighty work can thus convince them.

What is more, not only are they not persuaded by the miracle of Lazarus’ resurrection, who now stands in front of them as an undeniable fact of Christ’s divine authority (…so much for the just-show-me-evidence-and-I’ll-believe arguments…), but so hardened are they that they respond to this Messianic sign, not with revitalized faith, but by plotting to “put Lazarus to death.”

At the close of this Parable, then, we see the Rich Man who had received all the luxurious blessings that life can afford now reduced to nothing; while the poor man Lazarus who had, in many ways, experienced only cursings in This Fallen Age, now resting securely in the joy of the eternal Kingdom, where there is “no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying nor pain" for “the former things” for him “have passed away.”

The temporal realities of sin and testing have finally for him given way to the divine realities flowing forth freely and eternally from the “Throne of God and of the Lamb.” In the Kingdom the paradoxes are now actualized:

Though silent, he is now heard;

Though naked, he is clothed;

Though hungry, he has had prepared for him by his starvation an eternal feast;

Though poor, he is given through his poverty enduring riches;

Though oppressed, he receives through his oppression everlasting justice;

Though having suffering, he experiences through his disease, eternal healing;

Though an outcast, in his rejection he is welcomed into an eternal home;

And though despised, he now receives by his rejection an everlasting consolation

The refining fires of the “flaming eyes of Christ” have fully revealed his eternal. living hope.

From the Parable of the Rich Man & Lazarus to the Story of the Rich Young Ruler: “Holy Church of Christ without Christ”

We turn our attention now from a Parable of Jesus to an actual event. And here, as it were, in an object lesson we see in reality the life of the Rich Man on full display. In front of us stands the Rich Young Ruler who, from first glance, has all the Covenantal blessings of the Old Covenant. He is a good, upright, moral person who has been blessed with all the material benefits of this life. He has “the best of both worlds”: The temporary riches of This Now Age together with the eternal riches of the Kingdom…at least, so he believes…

Yet, just as in the Parable so here we find this is not so.

Again, from the mouth of Christ Himself:

“No servant can serve two masters;

For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon” (Lk 16:13).

Though he busied himself with religious activism, literally running to Jesus and kneeling down before the Rabbi, his activism, we find, is built, not upon the love of God and neighbor but on the foundation of self. And while it was a shock to the disciples (and still seems to be a shock for us reading now), the Rich Young Ruler cared more for his temporary riches in this temporary life than for the eternal Christ, in Whom is “hidden all the treasures (thésauros) of wisdom and knowledge.”

He worshipped, we might say, taking the words of Hoover Shoats from Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, in the

“Holy Church of Christ without Christ.”

In this Christless Church, there is no need for the twin foundation of heavenly love. Driven by the “earthly, sensual, demonic” wisdom that fuels the twin love of self and money (philárgyros), we can continue to live an outwardly moral life while our inner lives be “full of extortion and self-indulgence.”

And though it will lead us finally to reject Christ, we can still retain our…“great [temporary] possessions” (Mk 10:22) in our temporary lives in this temporary age.

We can still be upstanding temporary members temporarily worshiping in the “Holy Church of Christ without Christ.” We can be temporarily well-thought of with “all men speaking well of us.” We can be temporarily rich and moral. Though selfish we can think of ourselves as upright; though earthly (epígeios) we can be spiritual (albeit psychikós and daimoniṓdēs).

Yet the spirit operating in us will soon be revealed.

From the Synagogue of the Ancient Near East to the Desert

This spirit of Mammon not only took control of highly respected, religious adherents in the Jewish synagogue, but moreover, exerts its influence over those who strain, seemingly, with all their being to pursue the religious life in all eras. That is to say, the temptation to worship in the “Holy Church of Christ without Christ” works itself out in ceaseless religious activity carried out in our faithless flesh.

In an experience from the Desert, there is a similar word revealed to the religious community who had, as it were, “proven” their spiritual status by giving away all their possessions and giving their body to be burned by the fiery, desert sun (cf. I Cor 13:3).

They would be saved, right?

As Abba Silvanus was sitting with the brethren one day he was rapt in ecstasy and fell with his face to the ground.  After a long time he got up and wept.  The brethren besought him saying,

‘What is it, Father?’  

But he remained silent and wept.  

When they insisted on his speaking, he said,

‘I was taken up to see the judgment and I saw there many of our sort coming to punishment and many seculars going into the kingdom.’

What?

‘…many of our sort coming to punishment and many seculars going into the kingdom.’

The Abba is literally weeping because he sees that all the religious activity of the brethren bearing no eternal fruit. Rather it was leading them into “punishment” while many seculars, no doubt despised by them, were being led “into the kingdom.”

From the Desert to the Modern Church: From confident assessments to grievous lament

Lest we think that we are somehow immune to the power of Mammon in the modern church, think for a moment whether in your tradition there is an elder or church leader who is not, for lack of better words, wealthy.

Now, this in no way suggests that these are under the full sway of the “love of money” nor that they will “stray from the faith in their greediness and pierce themselves through with many sorrows”; but it is, at the very least, a warning as the difficulty (duskolós) that may follow on account of their riches.

Again, in Jesus’ own words,

“No servant can serve two masters;

For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.”

To say it another way, if we are truly putting our trust, not in riches, but in Christ, that source of trust may have to be proved. If Job, who was rich had to endure the fires of testing to prove where it was that he ultimately put his trust, what about us? His gloriously wise statement at the close of chapter 1, as we find in the pathway of this long and difficult book of wisdom, had to be proven in the next 41.

It may have been a bit easier for us if we only had Job’s confident assessment in the opening chapter:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Without the depth of his grievous sorry and lament two chapters later that led him to declare:

“May the day perish on which I was born,
And the night in which it was said,
‘A male child is conceived.’
May that day be darkness;
May God above not seek it,
Nor the light shine upon it.
May darkness and the shadow of death claim it;
May a cloud settle on it;
May the blackness of the day terrify it.

We think now of our context. If the leaders in our denominations or heads of ‘x’ or ‘y’ ministries (and that may include us) in a moment lost everything, would they/would we be blessing God in His wise providence or crying out in pain and agony?

In short, would we respond like the Rich Man or like Job?

And with that question, we begin what will be a three-part series on the Story of the Rich Young Ruler.