A few months ago, my wife started watching The Righteous Gemstones, which means that I was kind of watching it, too, while reading on the couch. For those who are not familiar with the show, it’s a comedy that follows a wealthy televangelist/megachurch family that employs rather un-Christian behavior to perpetuate their ministry empire. Quite frankly and humorously, you come to see quite quickly that they are terrible people underneath their ministry façade.
I am not sure if the writers intended to do so, but I think the show reveals not just the comedic elements of prosperity preachers but also American Christianity in general. Yes, the family is decadent, immoral, and ridiculous while also claiming to be Christian, but the way they talk about God, salvation, and even the scriptures is actually quite representative of the way we American Christians tend to speak. Even Lutherans. What is more, there are barely, if any, references to the Jesus of the four Gospels. What I mean is that Jesus is never presented or spoken of in a way that is contextually and historically accurate according to the four gospels. Jesus is not anchored to any of the stories about him from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Therefore, these characters can claim to have visions and behave in ways that contradict the very actions, values, and words as found in the Gospels. Really, the Christianity of The Righteous Gemstones is all about spectacle and worldly success with a Christian veneer, where the words of Paul and the Old Testament are sprinkled in here and there amid excellent production.
This show got me thinking about church culture, and while The Righteous Gemstones is certainly an exaggeration, I think it highlights the ways in which we can promote our own wishes, visions, and ideas under the guise of God. Sometimes we can even use the miraculous as a means to get where we want to go. And yes, miracles can and do happen. Jesus did rise from the dead, we are saved and forgiven on account of the blood of Jesus. Yet these are not the whole story, or better still, while they may get us in and may even get us what we want, there is more to Christianity than these.
The impetus for this writing comes from the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 16:19-31). If you read the story closely, you’ll see that while burning in hell, the rich man pleads with Abraham to send Lazarus (who is in heaven) to his five brothers so that he might warn them so they too might not end up there. Abraham’s first response to this request is that they have Moses and the prophets and that they should listen to them. However, the rich man continues to plead with Abraham, claiming they will repent if someone from the dead should go to them. Here, Abraham’s response is incredibly striking; he says, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” In other words, it’s not the resurrection of Lazarus that will result in repentance, but Moses and the prophets, which consistently emphasize justice and love for neighbor. These are the very things that the rich man lacked. He was super rich, dressed really well, feasted sumptuously, all while ignoring Lazarus at his gate. He even brought his entitlement and presumption with him to the torments of hell. And Abraham makes clear that it is not the miracle of Resurrection that will save his five brothers, but listening to Moses and the Prophets, the very things the rich man didn’t listen to. Ched Myers writes, “Luke insists that it is only the scriptural vision of justice, not the novum of resurrection, that can “convince or persuade” us to repent (169).”
We witness a similar dynamic in play in the story of the rich man and Jesus in Luke 18:18-30. Jesus tells the rich man to, in effect, make things right by selling all he owns and giving the proceeds to the poor, and then follow him. While we Lutherans love to claim that this is the pinnacle example of the law gospel distinction (see Mark 10:19 and the Markan Jesus’ use of do not defraud), it actually has much more to do with Moses and the Prophets’ concern for economic justice. Luke’s Gospel is riddled with such an emphasis and concern (see Mary’s song in Luke 1 for starters).
While the resurrection of Jesus is key to the Christian life, and while miracles abound all over the Luke-Acts narrative like the other Gospels, Luke is concerned about the praxis of the disciples. We can’t have one without the other. Yet such separation seems to dominate at times, as made clear not only by The Righteous Gemstones but also by prosperity preachers, scandals that have riddled the church, from sex abuse to narcissistic abuse, and our co-dependent understanding of forgiveness that is far too prevalent in our churches. Instead, following Jesus can be far more challenging, ugly, and arduous than we realize. It may even make us look like unsuccessful, foolish failures.
Source: Ched Myers, Healing Affluenza and Resisting Plutocracy: Luke’s Jesus and Sabbath Economics, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2025), 169.
A Foolish Way 