The 1700 block of Locust Street - just a block away from us - has long been remembered as the film location of the exterior of the fictional “Heritage Club” in the opening scenes of the 1983 movie “Trading Places.” The main building of the Curtis Institute of Music provided the facade for the snooty men’s club. If I have the plot right, it involves a bet made by two aging, patrician brothers, Randolph and Mortimer, who want to engineer a swap in social status of young investment banker from their own family firm, played by Dan Aykroyd, and a homeless man played by Eddie Murphy. The bet is to see whether the enterprising, black, homeless guy can be coached to pass as a cultured business executive, and I guess to see how the privileged white guy handles the privations of the street. It’s “Pygmalion” meets “The Prince and the Pauper.”
In one early scene, the two elderly brothers, Randolph and Mortimer, are talking about their plan. Randolph is musing about all they’ll learn about human nature. But Mortimer is preoccupied with a business deal that’s somehow involved in all this. Randolph chides his brother, “Money isn’t everything, Mortimer,” he says.
Comes the reply, “Oh, grow up.”
Randolph continues, “Mother always said you were greedy.”
To which his brother answers with smug satisfaction, “She meant it as a compliment.”*
The joke is on Randolph, as long as he pretends to believe that money isn’t everything. But, of course, he doesn’t really believe that. And the joke is really on anyone who does.
At the end of the film, the characters played by Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy both get rich, while Randolph and Mortimer lose their shirts in the market. So the joke’s on them. But as social commentary, the film doesn’t deliver much punch, since getting rich seems to be its own reward.
Getting rich continues to be its own reward in America. The top 10% of Americans own about 70% of the wealth of this nation, while the bottom 50% of Americans together own about 2.5% of the wealth here.** If this is the land of opportunity, you can sort of do the math to figure out who the joke is on, can’t you? Of course, we’ve learned a lot about who the joke is on, in the past few years. The joke is on you if you pay your taxes, apparently. The joke is on you if you think the rule of law applies to everyone without fear or favor. The joke is on you if you believe in the sacrifice of service to a cause greater than your own enrichment. Mother always said you were greedy… but she meant it as a compliment. Ask not who the joke is on: the joke’s on you.
Enter Lazarus: a poor man, “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.” Lazarus “died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.” And the rich man, outside whose gate Lazarus used to beg, also died. And he was sent to Hades, to the place of torment, agony, and flames.
It doesn’t take a seminary degree to see who the joke’s on here. As is the case in so much of Jesus’ teaching about money and wealth, the joke’s on you if you think wealth will bring you happiness or blessing from the hand of God. Oh, you might enjoy it while it lasts, but it will not last. And there is a book on the desk of St Peter. And in that book there may be a series of intricate marking that tells St. Peter if you have ever turned away from the thing you needed to turn away from, if you have sought forgiveness, and offered it, if you have worked for peace in the midst of war, if you have chosen to give when everyone else was taking, and if you have lived your life, despite evidence to the contrary, as though the only two kinds of people in the world are good people and good people in pain. But there is probably not an account in that book of how much money you had - at least not on the plus side of the ledger. “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.” Mother always said you were greedy, so who’s the joke on now?
The parable of Lazarus and the rich man is a cautionary tale. As such, the parable seems to provide a means of predicting who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. But reading the parable as such a predictor will do almost no one any good. The rich are quite immune to threats that their wealth can do them any harm in this life or the next. Jesus may not have been too interested providing a system of predictions for the life to come. Jesus may have been more interested in influencing the way his followers lived their lives while they breathed in this world. And Jesus was definitely interested in bringing good news to the poor.
For the church, the parable of Lazarus and the rich man is of poignant interest when we ask ourselves where in it is there good news to be found? The modern Episcopalian might find this question a bit of a challenge. I certainly do. The good news of this parable seems elusive to me at first reading because of all the Lazaruses I encounter every day, sometimes literally at the gates of this church, but certainly in great number in close proximity to here. And whenever I see a Lazarus, it becomes very clear to me who I am, according to the logic of the parable. And it seems clear to me that the joke is on me.
Notice how, in the parable, the normal arrangement of things is reversed: the poor, homeless guy has a name and an identity: he is Lazarus! But the rich guy is nameless, generic, unknown, perhaps even forgotten by his five brothers after he died, for all I know. The specificity and clarity of Lazarus’s identity is an indicator of where the good news in the parable is to be found. Of course, there’s good news for Lazarus! There’s good news for the poor, the suffering, for the one who goes without. And that poor man is known by name: beloved of Abraham, and expected in the warm embrace of his bosom! But the rich man could be almost anyone who fits the description. The tradition has turned the Latin word “dives,” which means “wealthy, opulent, moneyed, ample” into the rich man’s proper name, since we can almost not bear to think that he should be nameless and obscure. Mother always said you were greedy… but she meant it as a compliment. But the parable makes it very clear that, in the end, the joke’s on Mother, and the joke’s on you if you are anyone other than Lazarus.
The parable of Lazarus and the rich man is a cautionary tale for the church, since the church is where we are meant to be reminded of who we really are, who God made us to be. And a church which is empty of the poor and untroubled by the plight and suffering of the poor is a church that is more or less condemned; it’s a church without any real saints; and its members haven’t much hope of enjoying the blessings to be found in the heavenly bosom of Abraham.
The legacy of Saint Mark’s in this regard is complicated. All around us we have reminders that once upon a time we were a very rich church, and we rather enjoy those reminders - I certainly do. But we also know that for much of this parish’s history, since long before we were given a silver altar, we have taken the parable of Lazarus and the rich man seriously, making sure that this parish’s ministry has been meaningfully, and intentionally, and demandingly inclusive of the poor and aimed toward alleviating the needs of the poor.
It’s very important that at Saint Mark’s we have not been content to allow our space to be used by some other organization that accomplishes that work for us, without ever sullying our own hands or tiring our own selves out. Our ministries to those in need are the actual work of this parish and its people, and they are run by you: by members and staff of this parish. And if you are not involved in one of those ministries - if you have not made soup for the Soup Bowl or served it, or if you have not volunteered at the Food Cupboard, or helped deliver food to the Church of the Crucifixion, or volunteered at St. James School - well, maybe you should try it?
Because there is good news to be had, and Jesus wants us all to be the inheritors of his good news, his great blessings, his promise, his hope, his new and happy and abundant life! And how we live in this life matters. What we do for one another matters. How we treat those who have less than we have and less than they need matters.
Mother always said you were greedy, but she meant it as a compliment. But if in the end we’ll be trading places with those who we failed to care for, failed to help, failed to treat as a brother or a sister, as Lazarus and the rich man traded places… well, that’s no joke. And what hope do we have if we failed to listen to Moses and the prophets, neither were we convinced by Jesus rising from the dead?
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
25 September 2022
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia
*”Trading Places” screenplay by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod
**figures for 2021, according to the Council on Foreign Relations
Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy in “Trading Places”