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Tag: Lazarus

  • Re: Lazarus and the rich man

    Sir: I always look forward to reading your column (Sam Omatseye) every Monday in the Nation newspaper. Although I do not usually agree with your views on some topics you discuss, but I always admire your penchant of buttressing your points with quotations from works of great writers.  However, your piece titled ‘Lazarus and the rich man’ on Monday May 14, 2018 , to me raised some points for further discussions and elucidation.

    In paragraph  5 of this piece you wrote inter alia ‘ Luther was a Christian revolutionary in his own right and the German rattled the Romish Church before he also fell for his own materialistic lust:  his sale of  what was known as indulgences. No perfect revolutionary. No Christian hero’. After reading your column, I went back to read the life history of Martin Luther again. I found that Martin Luther in 1517 attacked Pope Leo XI and the Catholic Church for sales of indulgences by posting 95 theses on the Church door at Wittenberg. For this audacity, he was denounced by the Catholic Church and was excommunicated in 1521. There was no record that he too indulged in the sales of indulgences after the excommunication, although he later supported the rulers and princes in the Peasant war (1524-1525).  For this, the rulers supported his Church but not through sales of indulgences by him. Therefore your assertion, that he fell for his own materialistic lust through the sales of indulgences is not supported by history.

    You will agree with me that  Martin Luther helped to break the stranglehold the Catholic Church had on religion in the 16th century. I sincerely hope too that your assertion that he was no Christian hero was not based on the fact that he later married a nun.

    In paragraph 9 of this piece you told your readers that Communism felled in the late 19th century. I think you meant to write 20th century because Communism came to grief with its collapse in Eastern Europe in 1989 (late 20th century).  I do not think there was communism as we used to know it in the 19th century.

    My last point has to do with the statement you ascribed to Jesus when he was to be anointed in Bethany. You wrote ‘ As Jesus himself said the rich will always be with us’. The narration of this episode in Bethany as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John quoted Jesus as saying ‘You will always have poor people with you but you will not always have me’ (John 12 :8). It may be you interpreted this statement to mean that we will also have the rich with us as long as we have the poor with us. To me this can only be in the realm of interpretation as your statement was not said directly by Jesus.

    The above points notwithstanding, I enjoy the piece.

     

    • Olabode Lucas, Old Bodija, Ibadan.

  • Lazarus and the rich man

    Not many are thinking of Karl Marx today. But 200 years after his birth, he is thinking about us. He is in our rooms at night when power is out. In our work place when the salary is not paid. In our sick bed when we cannot afford to fly to London for check-up or treatment.

    While writers Kayode Komolafe and Isa Aremu glow over the revolutionary thinker, many are aching and in anguish. Yet faraway from our noses is the man who diagnosed our civilisation many years ago. Shall we show a little gratitude to acknowledge him? We should thank KK and Aremu for their historical sense.

    When I think of Marx, I remember the parable of Lazarus and rich man, and it reminds me that Jesus, in spite of his divine halo, was the first true political revolutionary. He anticipated the rise of capitalism, the rebellion of labour, the chasm between rich and poor and the propensity of humans to rise in angst for the equality of man. The French revolution did not need a Das Capital or Communist Manifesto, neither did the American revolution also require the bearded German sage that called for the workers of the world to unite. In the same way, Jesus saw before Marx that humans would gloat over other beings when those who lack would chafe over the few who have.

    It sounded like Marx when Jesus told his disciples, “a labourer is worthy of his pay.” The Roman overlords griped even when he proclaimed that “my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight…” but he was hanged even when he forswore a revolution of the flesh. The combustible genie was out of this god on earth and they had to react.

    Marx was under the spell of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Even Martin Luther saw it as a story of the battle between rich and poor. Luther was a Christian revolutionary in his own right and the German rattled the Romish church before he also fell for his own materialistic lust: his sale of what was then known as indulgences. No perfect revolutionary. No Christian hero.

    So also was Marx. And so shall we forgive him. Two hundred years after, no one country has a socialist state, to say nothing of a communist society. North Korea is an impostor. Cuba is withering its tenets by the day as the memory of the Castros diminish. Russia has returned to the Pre-Lenin obsession with oligarchs. Eastern Europe eyes America more than Das Capital. In Africa Augustino Neto is dead. Amilca Cabral. Lumumba. Nkrumah. All fiascos of belief.

    Just like Jesus, Marx has shaken the earth: states and emperors have fallen, priests and scholars have been born, temples erected in his name, families broken apart, monuments built, fanatics and zealots sullied landscapes, wars and rumours of war bloodied our decades, cells and communes formed, movies made, many books inked, museums mushroomed. Luther asked God in the fiery moments of his personal travail: “Lord, let me not seem to have lived in vain.”

    Why is it that Marx is still king without a kingdom? First, he was a poor judge of human nature. He saw a society without leaders and without a state. He erred. He also thought human fellow feeling could upend greed and usher in his credo: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” He forgot that wants prevail over needs, and that has been the motif of history. Lenin realised this early. So, he retreated after the Bolsheviks won, and he instituted the New Economic policy.  It was, in a sense, a new nexus between the idealist and the capitalist. The first time was between Engels and Marx. Engels, in a class suicide, collaborated with Marx, and gave the world the manifesto. With Lenin, it was Marxism that humbled itself for capitalism.

    When communism fell in late 19th century, it was because human nature could not abide oppression for too long. Even Shakespeare mocked the idea in his play, King Lear: “that distribution undo excess and each man have enough.” Man never has enough and distribution is often marked with bias and favouritism.

    But Marx was also wrong in his Panglossian view of history. He thought Germany was likely to be the first communist society because of its advanced capitalism. But it was a feudal nation that first had it and it happen not naturally but through blood and fury. Nor was Cuba a mature capitalism. We can say his idea was too intoxicating to his revolutionary priests to await the fruition of prophecy.

    But what was Marx’s virtue? He was a great diagnostician. He knew what was wrong. He knew the rich are making the world so bad that the sores of the Lazaruses at the gate are getting more ulcerous. And the worse it is the more dangers to the world. Many have become less interested in Jesus and less interested in Marx. Gyorgy Lukacs of the Frankfurt school who later renounced Marx said humans would make god of commodities. Who can tear away from cell phones today, or the car or electric consumption, et al? in this context, how could we have a society like the old Soviet Union? Even here, we worship human hair when we are not worshipping humans like music stars and Nollywood icons. Or bowing to the dictates of money-grubbing politicians. To mimic Medieval philosopher Peter Abelard, God has become man. And we love tinsels more than things.

    But Marx has helped capitalism. That is his virtue. After the second world war, poverty drove most of Europe to love Marx. It led to the Marshall Plan that poured finance and succour to Europe and embalmed the society with the welfare state. We have this in the United States as well. So, those who mock “stomach infrastructure” should know that it did not start with Fayose but has been the saviour of the greed of the money class. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels tore through capitalism and wrote: “What the bourgeoisie produces, above all, are its gravediggers.” It’s the opposite. Capitalism uses Marx’s ideas to stay alive while no country is interested in being a communist society.

    In the last capitalist crisis, Europe and the U.S. borrowed from Marx, nationalising firms like General Motors, paying the jobless and the sick while trying to repair the system for the rich. French economist Thomas Pickety traced this in his latest book, Capital in the 21st Century, and exposed the hypocrisies of capitalism and its staying power. Even in Nigeria, we have had tribes of socialists who still use Marx to diagnose our country but cannot go any further. After all, some of them are taking shelter in American universities and living the fantasy of enjoying bourgeois decadence while hypocritically attacking it. As Jesus himself said, the poor will always be with us. At one time Marxists thought the Lord lied. Even Marx believed in the parable of Lazarus and rich man. Jesus wants to abolish the world order. Christians are hoping. Marx wanted to save it for the masses, but Marxist are hoping against hope.

     

     

    A deep, dear loss

    I lost someone dear recently and it happened because the hospital nearby did not have oxygen. This is a missionary hospital. When the fellow was rushed there in a state of emergency, he was told they could do nothing and they should take him to the General hospital. Before his folks took him through the messy traffic of Lagos from Akowonjo area, he was designated BID – brought in dead.

    I thought how sad. How could any hospital be allowed to operate that did not have the basic life-saving facility? Of course, if someone in the well-heeled class had such emergency, he would be flown to London or Germany or Israel on a plane outfitted with oxygen equipment. The story of this fellow who died is the story between Lazarus and the rich man. The Lazarus always lose.

     

     

  • North Korea ‘hacking Nigerian banks’ to fund nuclear programme

    North Korea ‘hacking Nigerian banks’ to fund nuclear programme

    A new report from a Russian online cyber security firm, Kaspersky, has observed that North Korean hackers are allegedly attacking banks in 18 countries, including Nigeria.

    The organisation noted in its report that this could be regarded as the biggest bank heists in world history.

    Banks and security researchers have previously identified four similar cyber-heists attempted on financial institutions in Bangladesh, Ecuador, the Philippines and Vietnam.

    But researchers at Kaspersky now say the same hacking operation — known as “Lazarus” — also attacked financial institutions in Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Gabon, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Poland, Taiwan, Thailand, and Uruguay.

    This report is coming after more than a year-long investigation into the activity of “Lazarus”, the hacking group allegedly responsible for the theft of $81 million in US currency from the Central Bank of Bangladesh last year.

    The suggestion that North Korea could have been behind the attack, or at least involved, has added to concerns that the Hermit Kingdom is becoming bolder in its cyber attacks against global financial institutions.

    According to CNN, North Korea’s mysterious Lazarus hacking operation has been blamed for several large international cyber attacks in recent years. The hackers can be traced back to North Korea, according to Kaspersky researchers.To hide their location, hackers typically launch cyber attacks from computer servers far from home.

    To hide their location, hackers typically launch cyber attacks from computer servers far from home.

    According to Kaspersky, the Lazarus hackers carefully routed their signal through France, South Korea and Taiwan to set up that attack server. But there was apparently one mistake spotted by Kaspersky: A connection that briefly came from North Korea.

    “North Korea is a very important part of this equation,” said Vitaly Kamluk, who leads Kaspersky’s Asia-Pacific research team.

    The North Korean government has reportedly denied allegations of the hack.
    Kaspersky Lab itself has said that despite the evidence of the North Korean IP address, that “is not enough proof to provide definitive attribution given that the connection session could have been a false flag operation.”

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  • Theme: will you be carried or buried at last?

    Text:”….. the beggar died, and was carried by the angels….. the rich man also died, and was buried (Luke 16:22)

    The passage from our text is about story of rich man, poor Lazarus and the rich man’s brothers. The rich man was a man that God blessed so much (James 1:17). He was so rich that he was always arrayed in royal robes. He built a house (it could have been many houses), that had a gate (and perhaps a gate-keeper), had the rare luxury of possessing dogs that were trained to know how to cater for the less-priviledged, something the owner of the dogs was possibly clueless of, and ate so lavishly that remnants of the food dropped on the floor.

    On another hand was Lazarus, a Godly man that had no means to meet his numerous needs some of which were food to eat, clothes to put on, shelter over his head and medicare for his health issues. This is not an abnormal situation as Jesus Christ had promised us that, “ ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always (Mark 14:7). Suffice to say no matter how much we try, the poor shall always co-habit with the rich in the church, family and society at large.

    In same vein, there were the rich man’s brothers who were only concerned about this world and ignorant of the fact that there is reward for whatever we do on earth, either good or bad (Eccles. 12:13-14; Rev. 22:11-12). They had their deceased rich brother as mentor and were following his footsteps – his self-centeredness, narcissistic attitude, self-preoccupation orientation and wicked ways of life.

    One day however, death, which is the end of all men came (Eccles. 7:2) for the rich man and Lazarus, as a thief in the night (1Thess. 5:2). It is recorded that the burial ceremonies of both of them had different colorations; while the rich man was buried, obviously by men, Lazarus was carried by angels.

    As a very rich man in the society, it will not have been out of place to have given the deceased a week-long burial program (or more) comprising of service of songs, wake-keep and lying in state before bringing the corpse to church in a very expensive gold casket with undertakers adorned in colourful garments carrying the casket from an expensive siren-blowing ambulance. There is also a high likelihood that inside the church to pay ‘last respects’ would have been men and women from different societies and clubs adorning different special uniforms (aso-ebi) and other “big shots” in the society.

    It is expected that at such an occasion there would have been a very colourful Programme of events with the deceased’s pictures at various occasions and countries taken with the high and the mighty. Also in the program of events would have been “Tributes” by close family members and societies of which he had either been a member, an officer or patron eulogising the departed rich man. For the funeral service of such a ‘man of timber and calibre’, Choir from different churches must have rendered Special numbers, in attendance would have been an assemblage of hordes of priests arrayed in flowing garments and a message delivered by one of the topmost in the Ecclesiastical world.

    For Lazarus, a man who had his abode at the rich man’s gate, he might have died either on his way to the rich man’s house for crumbs or at the gate where he either passed on without crumbs or died when the rich man’s dogs were licking his wounds. At his death, the Local Government officials must have been informed by the rich man’s neighbours or family members that ‘a corpse is lying on our street’. The officials must have responded to their call to dispose off the poor man’s remains anywhere. However, the angels recognised him and took him away.

    The rich man that was buried with pomp and pageantry had a smooth trip to a place of everlasting torment and regret while Lazarus was carried by angels into the bosom of Abraham. The rich man cried in his torment that “ Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame”. Father Abraham replied him that, “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.”

    In his torment, the rich man remembered his five brethren and pleaded that Father Abraham should send Lazarus to his five brethren that they don’t come to the place of torment where he has ended his journey. Father Abraham told him that they have Moses and the prophets to tell them.

    Brethren, the word from Moses and the prophets to you is that for everything that has a beginning, there surely must be an end. You have a beginning and will surely have an end one day at a time unknown or unprepared for. Secondly, you are placed wherever you are by the mercy of God; you have a responsibility to cater for the less-priviledged, the sick, the orphans, the widows, the hungry and the imprisoned, and not to live like that foolish rich man (1 John 3:17). Thirdly, kindly note beloved that after death, comes judgment.

    Brethren, a day is coming when the certificates/degrees that you laboured for or are striving to acquire shall expire, the marriage contracted (or about to be) based on “till death do us part” shall be parted, the position you are holding tightly to shall be given to another person and your wealth and possessions shall be handed over to others. It is better to be carried by angels than be buried by men. It profits nothing to gain the whole world at the expense of one’s soul (Matt. 16:26).

    Jesus is calling you to change your ways today, surrender your life and your possessions to Him, live a life that is holy and pleasing to Him (Col. 1:10), give yourself to generosity, strive to be carried by angels at the end of your sojourn here and ensure that you don’t lose your eternal home.

    Prayer: Dear God, please teach me how to live here on earth to be worthy of being ‘carried’ by your angels like Lazarus

  • Days of Lazarus

    Days of Lazarus

    On Sunday, I read the story of Lazarus and the rich man, and wondered why no one has observed it as a parable on Nigeria. Mind you, the Bible refers to two Lazaruses. One of them died and enjoyed the gift of resurrection from the Trojan spirit of the Christ. The other was the man of sores and crumbs who was transported to the bliss of Abraham’s bosom. The first was reported as a true story in the scriptures, the other of the ulcerous sore was a parable from the Lord himself.

    Nigeria is the Lazarus of the parable. I daresay that the rich man in the story is also Nigeria, a Nigeria of oil whose table abounds with the aroma and sights of the choicest delicacies. The rich man also is like the rich among us, dressed in glamour outfits, with the top brands on earth, carted in excess luggage in first class in some of the tony airlines that bustle through the clouds.

    Their gates are high and impregnable portals. But the rich man is Nigeria with lots of jewelry and bluster and contempt and palaces here and there. Their mansions compare in frills and ostentation with the marble redoubts of upscale neighbourhoods anywhere.

    Lazarus is a mere beggar and remains at the gate. When the flamboyant rich man has finished his meal, the crumbs drop on the beggar’s hands, the Lazarus, who represents the majority of Nigerians. He is the metaphor of the abject underclass of the day. He waits for the rich to take the most of the oil wealth. After that, he settles for the crumbs of federal allocations, of oil subsidy windfalls, of contracts awarded but not executed, of excess crude largesse, church and mosque offerings and tithes, of salaries not paid because they were tucked aside in the bank to generate interests for months.

    The crumbs cannot pay school fees, house rents, food or pay for minimal medical fees. They are the real Nigerians. The Lazarus and the rich man story says that we live in a society of great social chasm. When Lazarus died, he goes to Abraham’s bosom, which some bible scholars call heaven, but they have no evidence of that because Christ said no one had ascended into heaven before he came on earth. So I see it as a fantasy for Lazarus. Lazarus goes to a better place, while the rich man goes to hell burning with fire.

    I see the story of Lazarus going to hell to mean the consequence of the mismanagement of resources in this country. Nigeria, as it is, stands as a dead wasteland like the first Lazarus, who died and waited for the benignity of Christ’s miracle. The rich man had all the abundance but the riches are of no benefit for the poor. They keep him hungry, and his legs are full of sores and dogs lick the sores for nourishment.

    The rich in Nigeria do nothing for the poor among us. How many Nigerians with their fabled wealth have endowments for the poor in universities or scholarships for the indigent in primary and secondary schools? How many donate equipment to hospitals or adopt wards or devote money for specific disability care in this country? All we see is the obsession with the top brands peddled in Manhattan or London or Paris.

    That is the story of the rich man. But if, eventually, the rich man went to hell, why did Lazarus go to a better place in Abraham’s bosom? Was poverty, therefore, a good thing? I see it differently. The death that takes place is the revolution. The death was the end of the order of things that created the class chasm between the all-powerful, well-heeled rich man and the Lazarus who is the wretched of the earth. When the revolution came, the rich man cried to Abraham, who was the revolutionary, and begged for a drop of water from Lazarus who was in the lap of luxury. But he was denied. The illusion was that the rich man thought he did Lazarus a favour by giving him crumbs.

    That is also the tragedy in Nigerian society today. We have millions who slave but their employers think they work. They merely survive. They toil to justify their pride. If you work merely to live another day, then you are no better than the Lazarus of the pestiferous sores.

    The Lazarus of the real story is Nigeria of today awaiting resurrection. As a nation of the 1950’s and 1960’s, we were a half-made, half-born society. From the 1970’s, we retreated to a coma, and later died since the 1980’s. We are looking for a miracle like Lazarus.

    But Lazarus the dead cannot become Lazarus of the Abraham’s bosom without a pursuit of justice, or a revolution, or without an Abraham. Abraham, for the purpose of this essay, implies a revolutionary leader. The half-born society of the 1960’s was full of promise. At that time, we beat Indonesia, Australia, India, South Korea and Brazil in many indices. We did not have the epaulet of the rich man of the parable: oil. We had groundnuts, palm produce, cocoa, enough to usher in an era of prosperity. That society died when oil came.

    The rich man was a metaphor for deadness because it was an embarrassment of riches. In those years, Nigerian ruler General Yakubu Gowon said the problem with Nigeria was not how to make money but how to spend it. Our state has never known the value of money. That is why the Secretary to the Government of the Federation is trying to galvanise money in the name of a phony centenary glee to build a gate, a city like Dubai, roads, schools, etc. The Government announced this as though we just started the project Nigeria, and we had never needed to renew our cities, build roads, and schools and other nonsensical projects to fritter away the wealth that belongs to our Lazaruses.

    All the countries that were behind us have had their Lazarus moments. They went through years of miracle while we slept. Governor Kayode Fayemi, the enlightened governor of Ekiti State, engaged this theme in a recent lecture on rebranding, and demonstrated how some of these countries have overcome their anomies. They did that through vision and industry, through the work of a dedicated citizenry inspired by the example and tenets of thinking elite. India is a high-tech miracle, China is on the verge of topping America as the world’s biggest economy, Brazil jolted a generation of about 30 million people out of poverty, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore were labeled Asian tigers. Even next-door neighbour Ghana, which once poured its refugees into our bosom, now educates a generation of our children.

    As Governor Fayemi noted, these are not perfect societies. India reels from sectarian woes and ineffable poverty. China is entangled in democratic barbarities. Japan still snorts with cultural drawbacks in the work place in spite of its world-class brands. Class chasms still dog Brazil and terror pangs rankle Indonesia.

    Lazarus the dead will not become Lazarus of Abraham unless we address the challenges of waste and inequality among us.

    Revolution will not come when we celebrate these rich men and see our sores and crumbs as gestures of divine kindness on which we celebrate our tithes in churches and zakat in mosques. Meanwhile, the pastors, soldiers, businessmen and politicians mock us with crumbs like the rich man.