The thing about parables is the story does not have to be true for the lesson to be valid. We often use parables in the form of fairy tales, Disney movies, or even scriptural stories to teach children important lessons about life. Adults too can benefit from parables.
Consider the scriptural parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The story involves a beggar (Lazarus) living outside the front gate of a wealthy family’s estate. Every day, the members of the family pass Lazarus as they enter the beautiful estate compound without giving Lazarus any consideration. Finally, the patriarch of the family dies and is condemned to eternal suffering. He is made to suffer as Lazarus suffered because he had every opportunity to relieve Lazarus’ suffering and chose instead to offer him scorn and indifference. He is told every member of his family who does nothing for Lazarus will suffer the same fate. Therefore, his suffering is deepened by the realization that his example will condemn all his loved ones to eternal damnation.
What is the lesson of the rich man and Lazarus?
For years I thought the lesson was to do unto others as you would have them do to you. Most recently, I have come to understand that wealth necessarily causes deprivation. To accumulate resources beyond our capacity to use, denies resources to other people who desperately need them. Therefore, the morale of the story is not the rich man’s lack of generosity, it is the rich man’s gluttony that caused Lazarus’ deprivation.
In America today, we are the rich man because our wealth is derived from our disproportionate, non-sustainable extraction of global resources for ourselves. And Lazarus is the billions of resource deprived people who are slowly migrating to the front gate of the American estate.
Where once our front gate was opened wide :
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”*
Now we close the gate, build walls, and offer scorn to the refugees who only seek the promise of what America used to be.
*Public Domain Excerpt from “The New Colossus” written by Emma Lazarus, and posted on a plaque on the base of the Statue of Liberty.