Text: Luke 16:19-31

The Tiger Woman is a Chinese folk tale. The following is a summary of the picture book by Laurence Yep with illustrations by Robert Roth.

An old woman, who loves and savors bean curd more than anything, stands in her doorway relishing her bowl of silky curd. When she refuses to share with a beggar who asks for her help, he warns her, “If you let your belly rule you, it will surely trip and fool you.” 

The woman responds that she is a tiger when she’s hungry and she can’t possibly spare any. He curses her, saying that she will become whatever she says she is and she begins to transform into a hungry tiger. She is forced to hide from her frightened neighbors in a sedan chair, where she finds some bread. 

She says to herself, “I’d be an ox to refuse to eat this bread that’s right here for me.” Transformed into an ox, some soldiers with pointy spears chase her away so that she runs through the market creating chaos until she’s captured and prepared to be butchered. 

She sees a little grain on the ground and thinks, “Even a dumb bird would eat this grain,” and suddenly shrinks to become a tiny sparrow. She escapes to a garden, relieved. 

There she sees some birds being fed and says to herself, “Whew! I’m as hungry as an elephant!” And she chases away the other birds and eats up all the seeds. As she finishes up the seeds she swells up, becoming an elephant, pulling down the roof of a pavilion and smashing up the inside of a beautiful palace. 

She lands in the kitchen, and of course, surrounded by the sights and smells of a palace kitchen she thinks, “I’ve worked up such an appetite! With such food and wine around me, I can eat like a swine.” The cook sees a pig eating up his food and determines to have this creature for dinner, catching her by the leg, securing her, sharpening his knife.

Defeated, the woman notices a bowl of bean curd left on the table and remembers the beggar’s curse. She laments to herself, “Oh, why didn’t I share? Why was I so mean? I could have given half and still had enough!” She sadly nibbles a little of the bean curd.

In an instant she is changed back into a human and from that moment on she always shares with anyone who is hungry.

—

The Tiger Woman is a parable – or maybe it’s fable – I forget what makes a fable a fable.  They both contain a lesson.  Perhaps a warning.  The tiger woman learns a lesson about the need for compassion and empathy. The need to share. There’s a happy ending! She realized the error of her ways. What a relief that she’s not stuck in the body of a pig or an elephant or a tiger!

Today we jump into another story – but it’s not the first we hear from Jesus.  He tells many. And not a few of them are about economics. The kind of economics that are practices in the the kin-dom of God. And I’m intentional in saying kin – not king – dom of God. Because in the reign of God, we know ourselves to be interconnected and kin.

In this story about the economics of God we meet a rich man without a name and a poor and diseased man with a name (Lazarus) and a beloved ancestor (Abraham). They speak across a great divide: first a gate, then a wide chasm.

It’s a real bummer that unlike the Tiger Woman, this parable doesn’t have a neat and tidy ending – at least not for the rich man.  This parable keeps being relevant because wealth has not disappeared and nor have those without wealth. 

We know that the wealth gap in the US continues to grow and grow and that recent years have only magnified that chasm. And it’s anyone’s guess about the years to come. But the way that they super wealthy are endearing themselves to a president who loves wealth does not (in my mind) bode well.

I tried to think about what this parable would look like if I recast it in a modern context.  The rich man, who wears purple and feasts luxuriously every day – those details tell me this is someone who has access to both wealth and status. Purple dye was so rare and expensive (harvested from a type of mollusk) that only the most elite could afford it.  Well that’s got to be a Musk or Bezos or a Trump. Or if I’m a little less on the nose, maybe a Kardashian or other reality star or celebrity.  

And then Lazarus – the one who is diseased and hungry and low, the one with dogs licking his wounds.  That’s harder.  Who should I cast? I’d have to know someone, wouldn’t I? I’d have to have a real person in mind.  The name of a person my celebrity could step over.  I’m a little stumped.  Because while I can conjure an image of a person panhandling at a street corner or sleeping in a doorway I don’t know them by name. I don’t know them by relationship.

I think Jesus did that to me on purpose.  He gave a name to the person at the bottom.  A face, a reality.  The rich man, he left for us to give our own names to.  We think we already know their names, don’t we? And it’s easy to distance myself from Trump or Bezos or Musk – I know for sure I’m not that guy! 

But Jesus did not name the rich man.  He didn’t say to his audience, the Pharisees, whom he called “lovers of money” (although I am 100% positive they didn’t think of themselves as lovers of money), he didn’t say to them, “there was a rich man named Herod,” or “a rich man named Caesar.” 

He described a luxurious life that those listening to him might have longed for, or maybe even recognized. And frankly, even though we hate on the ultra rich, we may also envy their comforts at least a little. The ease with which they move through the world. And on the same token, we shudder at the thought of Lazarus – or someone like him – with his sores.  I can honestly say that my own visceral response to the description of Lazarus was something like disgust.

So instead of trying to assign the rich man identity to someone else, I think I need to embrace what I believe Jesus’ intention is: identify with the rich. Or at least with the aspiration to be rich. 

Because who in their right mind would aspire to be a Lazarus??  We don’t even want to think about Lazarus.  Except it’s hard not to when he has a name. So, who or what do I not really want to think about, what do I not want to engage?  Where are we still putting barriers or allowing gulfs between ourselves and communities outside the gate?

I think I had probably heard the term before, but it was during the intense period following the murder of George Floyd, as I examined my own privilege and access and relative wealth that I began to think more about being a gatekeeper. I learned that gatekeeping is the control of access to wealth and resources and that it  is one aspect of whiteness that contributes to systemic racism.  I certainly don’t think of myself as wealthy, but I have access to resources and generational wealth and privilege that my Black neighbors, for example, do not. I gatekeep how that wealth and resources are accessed.

More recently, In my role as the chair of Pastoral Leadership Team, I was confronted with the ways that we on that team gatekeep access to power. Our primary role in PNMC is to interview and recommend leaders for the ministerial credential of ordination. Mennonite pastors don’t use our titles much within the church but there is power that comes with the title “Reverend.”

Those who have not had access to that title – until recently that was anyone who was an out queer person – felt the pain of that exclusion, of being refused a seat at that particular table. This has also been true for women in ministry in the past. It’s meaningful to be able to bestow or withhold a person’s ability to practice their calling! 

Then just this week in our Mennonite Action nation meeting, hearing from both people in Palestine and people here in America who are or who are working with immigrant communities, I realized how we as a nation can impact who can and can’t be in our cities and schools and churches and workplaces. So sometimes we keep the gates of money and sometimes access and sometimes power.

We as a congregation do not think of ourselves as wealthy or powerful. We are not property owners. We’re just a small number of members. And yet not just because of the assets we have in the bank but because of our collective ability to access resources, the networks that we are connected to, we are indeed gatekeepers. I bet if we started to map our networks and resources we’d be surprised by how far they reached. I know that even before I got here y’all did some wrestling with that and there will likely be more to come.

The Tiger Woman is a gatekeeper – she’s controlling the food distribution.  The rich man is literally a gatekeeper.  A gate separates him from Lazarus, who would be happy to receive even the crumbs from the man’s table.  The crumbs!  But the gate stays closed.  And even in the place of the dead, the man expects Lazarus to serve him.  

The rich man tells Abraham (not even speaking directly to Lazarus, mind you) to direct Lazarus to dip his finger, to be a messenger to his family. The entitlement! Abraham tells him – I don’t think so buddy. You’ve made your bed, you’ve dug your moat, you’ve put up your gate and that’s that. No happy ending.

I’m sure our congregation ranges in our personal wealth and access. Some of us are probably just getting by.  Some of us are doing pretty well for ourselves.  Some of us are probably doing much much better than okay.  And regardless of where we are on that spectrum, I suspect many of us are worried about our financial futures. In this economy?!

And yet I know that this is a generous congregation. That when there is an individual need people step forward with personal gifts. When youth or young adults are traveling or going to a convention, when members are doing service projects, people support each other.  That tells me that as a community we have access – networks and families and connections – to resources and wealth. We can easily walk through the gates that are around us. 

It is not comfortable for me to talk about money.  I’m sure it’s not comfortable to listen to me talk about money. And I know that we’re longing for a message of assurance and comfort, hearing that it’s going to be alright. But I really believe that Jesus is talking to those of us with relative wealth, offering the opportunity to widen the gate. And that the way everything is going to be alright is by reaching through gates and across the gulf to take care of each other and our communities. 

In the story, the rich man asks that Lazarus warn his brothers.  To tell them to open their gates. To notice the ones in their communities who are longing for the crumbs.  I wonder if that’s where we can place ourselves. Are we the ones who the rich man wants to warn – the ones like himself?

Jesus says, in the voice of Abraham,”They have Moses and the Prophets. They must listen to them…If they don’t listen to Moses and the Prophets, then neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.” In other words, You already had all the information you needed, to know that you should pull down the gate, Jesus is telling him.  Your brothers have all the information they need: scripture is clear. The prophets have been clear.  And now? Jesus is clear.

We have all the information we need. Now more than ever so many organizations are going to be hustling for support. Especially organizations that support immigrants and trans people, Black and brown communities, Indigenous folks. Anyone who values equity and wants all voices to be represented.

In our offering prayer we say, “We give thanks for the ways your people give of themselves, through the work of our hands, hearts and minds, and through the gifts of our money, time, and skill.” May we have the wisdom and the courage to be generous of heart and with the work of our minds and hands. The chasm is not, in fact, fixed and we can unlock the gates and step through.  Amen.