Luke 16:13

Earlier this month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 25 September 2019.

The reading was Luke 16:1-15, and I noticed verse 13 in particular:  "'No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money.'"  This verse is nearly identical to Matthew 6:24 and contains the same feature that I noticed there about a year ago.  There's a chiastic structure to highlight the opposites:

He will hate the one

and love the other, 

or he will be devoted to the one

and despise the other.

As with Matthew 6:24, this structure is also present in the Greek:

Οὐδεὶς οἰκέτης δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν· ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα μεισήσει καὶ τὸν ἕτερον ἀγαπήσει, ἢ ἑνὸς ἀνθέξεται καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου καταφρονήσει. οὐ δύνασθε θεῷ δουλεύειν καὶ μαμωνᾷ.

the Latin Vulgate:

Nemo servus potest duobus dominis servire aut enim unum odiet et alterum diliget aut uni adherebit et alterum contemnet non potestis Deo servire et mamonae

my German New Testament:

Kein Knecht kann zwei Herren dienen; entweder er wird den einen hassen und den andern lieben, oder er wird an dem einen hängen und den andern verachten.  Ihr könnt nicht Gott dienen und dem Mammon.

and my French New Testament:

Nul serviteur ne peut servir deux maîtres.  Car, ou il haïra l'un et aimera l'autre; ou il s'attachera à l'un et méprisera l'autre.  Vous ne pouvez servir Dieu et Mamon.

Luke 16:22

Last month, after finding a citation to Luke 14:23 in a book of C.S. Lewis' letters, I read some chapters of Luke.  When I got to the account of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, I noticed a detail in verse 22:  "The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.  The rich man also died and was buried."

This may be obvious, but I hadn't realized before that this verse is the very point where the situations of these two men change.  Lazarus' situation improves, but the rich man's worsens.  Throughout the account, there's a contrast between the two men, and the parallel structure in this verse highlights it:  after death, Lazarus goes up ("carried by the angels to Abraham's side"), but the rich man goes down ("buried").

Luke 16:19-31 (The Rich Man and Lazarus)

One of the readings for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels last month was Luke 16:19-31.  That's not the reading from the lectionary, but it's an appropriate text because after Lazarus died, he "was carried by the angels to Abraham's side."

This reading reminded me of the song "Dives and Lazarus" (drawn from this text), which I wrote about here.  After writing that, I kept thinking about the Biblical text, and I realized that while the song provides a fitting name for the rich man, it's significant that he's not named in the text.

In John 10, Jesus says that the Good Shepherd "calls his own sheep by name" and that "I know my own and my own know me," and in Matthew 10, He says, "So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven."  Because of his faith, Lazarus' name is known; because of his lack of faith, the rich man's name isn't.