“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Jack, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried…”
Okay, my story is more complicated than Jesus’ tale of The Rich Man and Lazarus. For one thing, in my story, a story that actually happened, the rich man has a name. His name was Phil.
And, while Phil was indeed a rich man, he didn’t live in luxury—at least not by modern standards of wealth. Sure, he had a nice home, and the family did go on regular vacations to warmer climes. But nothing excessive. Nothing beyond an idealized Canadian middle class lifestyle.
Another difference between Jesus’ story and mine: Jack didn’t live at Phil’s gate. If he had, I’m quite sure Phil would have helped him out. Phil was that kind of guy: wealthy, yes, but generous with his wealth, and kind to everyone. Including—maybe even especially—those who were down and out.
No, Jack lived in another city. He was Inuit, an Inuk from Rankin Inlet, now living in Winnipeg. Living on the street in Winnipeg. Not covered with sores, as far as I know, but certainly poor. Certainly among the down and out, a world away from Phil.
In my story, a story that actually happened, the rich man and the poor man did indeed die within a few hours of each other—and their deaths were as different as their lives.
Phil died in his mid-80s after a lengthy illness, surrounded by his family.
Hundreds of people attended his funeral, including dozens of family members. It was a wonderful service, honouring a kind and generous man, a man of deep Christian faith. We sang and prayed and were bathed in glorious music—Phil was a lover of music, a patron of education and the arts. While most there were not nearly as wealthy as Phil, rumour suggested some were even wealthier than he was. Everyone there certainly seemed to be well-fed. I’m quite sure they all had slept in a warm bed the night before.
Jack, in his mid-40s, was murdered. On the street. Alone. In the middle of the night.
It happened in the alley outside our church. We held a memorial service at the church, where maybe a dozen of Jack’s friends from the street joined a couple dozen church members. We sang and prayed and lit candles in the church basement, where Jack had often come Sunday mornings for coffee and conversation. Jack, too, was kind to everyone—the tributes were as consistent as Phil’s. We then scattered flower petals down the back alley where Jack had died, defiantly reclaiming the space from violence, reclaiming it for love.
I said Jack died alone. That’s not actually true. Someone had found him; paramedics had taken him to the hospital. Like the Lazarus of Jesus’ story, there were angels with Jack when he died. I’m convinced he, too, was carried to Abraham’s side.
Jack shared in our prayer time at church not that long ago. His life had been hard long before he met the streets of Winnipeg. He had been taken to a church-run residential school as a child, robbed of his connection to his family and his culture. Yet in his twenties, despite this childhood introduction to Christianity’s God, he had experienced a vision: Jesus came to him, and filled him with such a profound sense of love that Jack’s faith was well-anchored through all the hardships that would come. This was what he shared with us that Sunday morning.
What’s the moral of this Tale of Two Funerals, my story of The Rich Man and Jack?
Jesus’ story might be simpler to decipher, and his stories are not known for their straightforwardness. “If people won’t listen to Moses and the Prophets,” Jesus says at the end of his tale, “neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” That’s one lesson of Jesus’ story: not even a resurrection—of a Lazarus, or of Jesus—would convince some people of the need to care for the poor at their gates when they already have the Torah and the Prophets and refuse to heed their words.
My story is more complicated. Because Phil the rich man would surely have cared for Jack the poor man if he had known him. He would have given him a helping hand up, maybe even a job in his company. Maybe Jack would have become like the man I met after Phil’s funeral over raisin buns and farmer sausage, coming up on 40 years working at Phil’s company, well-cared for by a generous employer.
And yet, despite the presence of Phils in this world, there are still too many Jacks.
I suppose that’s the lesson for us. That’s the moral of this tragic tale. The problems of poverty and homelessness, of systemic racism and violence and more, cannot be solved by having more Phils in the world. There are not enough Phils to go around, and there are far too many Jacks.
These collective problems—which stem from our sins as surely as individual acts of greed and lust and violence—require collective solutions. And not just church solutions, but societal solutions. Which means they require all of us coming together—churches, community groups, corporations, governments (a.k.a. our taxes), First Nations, wealthy patrons, society’s impoverished, the comfortable middle-class—all coming together to address these collective problems, to find collective solutions.
Because we might not all be a rich man, ignoring the poor man at our gate. But collectively we are rich, and our community gates are filled with Jacks—and Jackies, and Janes, and Jonases, all of them as Jesus, if we have eyes to see him.
© Michael W. Pahl
Michael Pahl 