There are days that we all have that we just don’t want to get out of bed. Sometimes it may be a feeling that we actually cannot do it. It may be caused by exhaustion, weariness, depression, health – mental or physical. We feel debilitated and we just want to lie down. This is a part of life and depending upon our particular personality type, some of us may be able to “fight” through it and jump out of bed and others of us may take our time, and perhaps end up needing a nudge from someone else to get up and get going, to move and try to “be” in life in a way that is somehow engaging.
The “lying” position figures prominently in the Scriptures today. From the prophet Amos (AM 6: 1a, 4-7), we hear:
“Woe to the complacent in Zion! Lying upon beds of ivory, stretched comfortably on their couches…
yet they are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph! Therefore, now they shall be the first to go into exile,”
And then in the Gospel (LK 16: 19-31) we hear Jesus telling the parable of the rich man and Lazarus to his listeners:
“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table.”
Implied in this scene is that the rich man does not see or perhaps intentionally ignores Lazarus lying at the door of his house. When they both die – the rich man and Lazarus – we are told that Lazarus was carried to the bosom of Abraham, whereas the rich man found himself in the netherworld. In the story, the rich man recognizes Lazarus and pleads with Abraham “…Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’ Abraham replies to the man, “… “My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.” Added to this scene is “…between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’
On face value this appears to be a classic rendition of “what goes around comes around.” However, I wonder if this may not be so much a description of how we will be judged objectively as much as it is yet another story of blindness that results from “lying” to ourselves about what we consider the fullness of life.
Amos describes the “beds of ivory” that those in complacency lie upon as couches of comfort that don’t allow us to see the pain and suffering around us. And why might this be the case? Perhaps, we cannot see it in “others,” because we refuse to see it in “ourselves.” We are not “made ill” by our own predicament. It could be our “self,” i.e., who we think we are and what we we think will fulfill us, that is causing us to lie in complacency, and yes, to lie to ourselves. Luke paints a similar picture in the rich man who daily goes in and out of his “home” and does not give a notice to the pain and suffering and the request for love that lies at his door begging. Again, what is “lying” here? Is it perhaps a self-blindness that mistakes comfort and riches for fullness of life, instead of responding to the call to love that is always nearby, just at the threshold of our lives -, but we won’t recognize it.
Love lies begging even bleeding (an image from an Elton John song) at the threshold of our “home,” our very self, and we refuse to acknowledge this call to love not just another person but someone who we need in order to make our lives fuller. The Gospel story captures this so poignantly when the rich man does not ask Abraham to bring him water, but asks Abraham to send Lazarus to cool him and appease his torment. It is the missed opportunity for relationship that the rich man now perhaps realizes is the cause of his torment. We rest in a lie of self-sufficiency and separation that has created this chasm that seems insurmountable, but I don’t think that’s the end of the story – the final judgment.
But it will take time, energy, patience, trust and commitment to see the divisive “chasm” as indeed a lie that we create. We have to start looking at what or Who is lying at our doorstep in order for us to stop lying to ourselves. We will have to break through the obstinacy and rigidity with which we try to grasp a life that we think is “life,” but may in fact be a type of death, because we avoid the possibility for the fullness of life that can only be given in authentic relationship. We must somehow begin to see that the “death” at our doorstep is actually the way into real life. When we can take the suffering of others as a gift that demands an invested response, we can begin to realize that this really is Who we are, like it or not.
We must, as Abraham says at the end of the Gospel, be able to recognize resurrection – to see and participate in bringing life out of death. This could very well simply mean to live in love with each other. This is our True self, which recognizes the lying complacency that will not respond to love that is waiting and wanting to happen… that lies just at our door. This is the healing touch of refreshment that we were created to give to one another. Perhaps another name for mercy “,,,if someone should rise from the dead.’”
Peace
Thomas