Pagola writes of how the two вЂare separated by the abyss which exists between the rich personвЂ™s life of insulting opulence and the poor personвЂ™s extreme miseryвЂ™, both of which, as Ellacuria suggests, are bound up in a revealing dialectic: for Jesus, вЂit is not a question of praising poverty in itself and condemning wealth in itself.

We see how he has вЂbeen dumpedвЂ™ on the doorstep in the barrio, the ghetto or the sink estate вЂ“ wherever, to use BaumanвЂ™s disturbing term, вЂthe human wasteвЂ™ of neoliberal restructuring is disposed of вЂ“ yet never far from the gated communities and prime real estate of the elites. On the other hand, we see Lazarus, destitute, vulnerable and dejected, quite literally вЂconsumedвЂ™ by the dogs which prey on his weakness. On the one hand, we see the rich man who lives his life lavishly as if in вЂsplendid isolationвЂ™, the consummate consumer, his conscience numbed by abundance. The contrast in the quality of life experienced by these two men who live parallel lives is truly shockingвЂ¦if we allow it to be. His best friends were the dogs who came and licked his sores. All he lived for was to get a meal from scraps off the rich manвЂ™s table. A poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, had been dumped on his doorstep.

вЂњThere once was a rich man, expensively dressed in the latest fashions, wasting his days in conspicuous consumption. Over the past couple of days, I have been chewing over a particularly subversive parable from Luke, in which Jesus offers a prophetic critique of the rich/poor divide which, sadly, is still absolutely relevant to our situation: It was only a few years later that I came across the brilliant notion that JesusвЂ™ parables are crafted as вЂhand grenades for the mindвЂ™ to disrupt our conventional, conditioned patterns of thought and shock us into seeing the world in a new and renewing way (Cynthia Bourgeault goes over this in her masterly book вЂThe Wisdom JesusвЂ™). It helped me to understand some of my experiences in Latin America and was an invitation to sit with a whole new set of questions. So it was reading EagletonвЂ™s book вЂFaith, Reason and RevolutionвЂ™ which served as my re-introduction to the Christian faith generally and, more particularly, to liberation theology вЂ“ though it should be said that Eagleton, with good reason, is reluctant to give it that name himself, for as he holds, вЂњ All authentic theology is liberation theologyвЂќ. But when I looked, I saw nothing but smoke. They confused me as equally as they attracted me, because despite being brought up as Catholic, my late teens had been punctuated by half-read and even less well-understood tracts on existential philosophy and Beat poetry I was much more fascinated by the raucous life of Jim Morrison than this man Jesus and if I had read any scripture, it was only because I had been told by a philosophy-teacher friend that the book of Ecclesiastes effectively constituted the first, still-extant example of existentialist prose (YouвЂ™re not sure? Try: вЂњThen I took a good look at everything IвЂ™d done, looked at all the sweat and hard work. I still recall with vividness the first time I read these words from Terry Eagleton, the former Catholic and Marxist literary critic, when I was 19.

вЂњAny preaching of the Gospel which fails to constitute a scandal and affront to the political state is in my view effectively worthlessвЂќ.

Lazarus and the rich man