The Unperceived

After reading a couple of great posts on Monday from Evan Garner and Steve Pankey about this coming Sunday's Gospel ("The Rich Man and Lazarus"), I found myself taken in a different direction than usual with this parable. As both blogging priests pointed out, to simply fall into the trap that Jesus is saying merely "be nice to poor people" is to mistake "the description for the prescription." Yes, we ought to go out of our way to be kind to those in need, but that is the outgrowth of life in Christ, rather than the ticket to that life in the first place. Instead of replicating their fine work, I find myself drawn to one fascinating word within Luke 16:19-31... HADES!

The word occurs in this particular part of the passage: "The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side" (Luke 16:22-23, italics added for effect). We might simply shake our heads and move on when we read that this rich man was being tormented in Hades, or Hell as it is often translated. "Of course, this rich man who was mean to poor Lazarus got booted down into the netherworld. Yes, this is precisely what this man deserves. In the end justice is served!" we say. This is like going to any action hero movie when finally at the end the good characters vanquish the cosmos of the villains and everything appears right in the universe. And yet, centuries have passed since the Lukan community put pen to paper to write this story, and I am not certain that how we understand Hell is how those in the early Christian community would have understood Hades. In other words, this is not so simple as good winning in the end.

Going back to the Greek this week I was surprised at how Hades gets translated. Strong's Concordance defines the word, "the 'unseen place,' referring to the (invisible) realm in which all the dead reside, i.e. the present dwelling place of all the departed (deceased); Hades." While this gets me part of the way to a different understanding, reading how one scholar translated the passage pushes me further. This Greek Interlinear phrases the passage in this way, "And in the unperceived on lifting up the [eyes] of him belonging in ordeals he is seeing Abraham from the far-place and Lazarus in the bosom of him." The unperceived here is the way Hades gets translated. It is the invisible place, but it also has a different tint to it here. Hades seems to be the place where those people who have not yet awaken go! This is a lot different than the rich man being tortured in the flames hell because he was mean.

One might say I am softening the blow here, but the Greek speaks clearly to me and connects to what Evan and Steve wrote. The ordeals that one goes through when unable to perceive the Kingdom of God and the torturing that one faces when sleepwalking through life makes it impossible to follow after Christ Jesus stand out as particularly strong themes in this section of Luke. Some will say that Hell does not exist. I believe God desires for none of God's children to suffer in distortion, disconnection, and disease for eternity. However, this passage challenges me to see that when we are blind to God's presence in our life we will experience hell in this life and even beyond this existence. Unlike the rich man we have heard the story of the Risen Lord, but our challenge is the same as his. Will we allow for that story to take hold in our lives, such that nothing else comes before following after Christ or will we allow the love of something else (wealth, status, possessions, power, prestige, fame, etc.) to cause us to live in the unperceived existence of ordeals?