26th Sunday in Ordinary
Time, Year C. Luke 16: 19-21
Like many of the parables, this one is
a story of contrasts. These are stark, both in this life and in the hereafter.
The rich man has every comfort that money can buy. The beggar at his gate has
only his name: Lazarus, a word which means “may God help,” or “the one whom God
helps.” This name is significant, as we shall see.
The rich man’s clothing (“purple and
linen”) and lifestyle (he “feasted splendidly every day”) proclaim abundance
and luxury. He is far above the social-economic level of Jesus’ ordinary
hearers. According to the conventional morality of the day, however, which
viewed wealth as a sign of God’s blessing, the hearers would have admired the
rich man as an upright pillar of society.
The contrast between the two men in
the story extends to the smallest details. The rich man is “clothed in purple
and fine linen.” Lazarus is “covered with sores.” The rich man “feasted
splendidly every day.” Lazarus “longed to eat the scraps” of bread discarded by
the rich man and his guests at their daily banquets. The rich man is active.
Lazarus is passive, unable even to fend off the dogs whose attentions increase
his misery. We are not even told that Lazarus begged. He simply lies there at
the rich man’s gate, unnoticed by the rich man as he passes in and out each
day. The rich man is an insider, Lazarus is the quintessential outsider.
Death reverses these contrasts. “The
beggar died,” Jesus tells us with stark economy of language. The description
becomes richer, however, as we hear about Lazarus (still passive) being lifted
out of this world, in which he had been a neglected outsider, and “carried by
angels to the bosom of Abraham.” Lazarus is now the quintessential insider.
Unlike Lazarus, the rich man has a
funeral: “The rich man likewise died and was buried.” Now he becomes the outsider, buried in the ground of this world. Where previously he had “feasted splendidly”,
now he is “in torment.” His daily feasting is replaced by craving for a drop of
water to cool his tongue, parched from the flames which surround him.
And now the rich man does something he
has not done before. For the first time, Jesus tells us, “he raised his eyes
and saw Lazarus” — no longer near, however, but “afar off” in Abraham’s bosom,
in a place of honor, like the “disciple whom Jesus loved” leaning on the Lord’s
breast at the Last Supper (cf. John
13: 23ff).
The significance of Lazarus’ name is
now manifest. He is the man whom God helps. Ignored in life — by the rich man,
his guests, and everyone else — Lazarus is disclosed at death as someone
especially dear to God, who sends angels to carry him to a place of consolation
and honor. This would have puzzled the story’s first hearers, accustomed to
thinking that unfortunates like Lazarus were receiving the just reward for
their sins.
Equally disturbing for the hearers
would have been the rich man’s punishment. This cannot have been the
consequence of his wealth, for Abraham was rich. Nowhere does Jesus say that
the mere possession of wealth brings condemnation or that poverty guarantees
salvation. Like those on the king’s left hand in Matthew ’s
parable of the sheep and the goats, the rich man is punished not for anything
he did, but for what he failed to do. In that other parable those at the king’s
left protest at the injustice of their condemnation, demanding to know when
they have ever transgressed God’s law. The rich man in this parable utters no
protest. Seeming to recognize the justice of his fate, he merely asks that
Lazarus (still passive) be sent “to dip the tip of his finger in water and
refresh my tongue, for I am tortured in these flames.” The rich man has
forgotten nothing and learned nothing. He still assumes that he can command
others to do his bidding. Significantly,
however, he directs his request not to Lazarus but to Abraham, a wealthy man
like himself, but unlike him a model of hospitality.
Abraham’s response is gentle.
Addressing his petitioner as “my child,” Abraham discloses that the separation
between the rich man and Lazarus, formerly the result merely of the former’s
neglect and hence reversible, is now permanent because established by God.
The dialogue which follows takes the
parable to a new level. The rich man, who for the first time has “raised his
eyes” and seen Lazarus, now makes his first move to repair his previous failure
by helping others. Still assuming that others are there to serve him, he asks
Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers on earth as “a warning, so they may not
end in this place of torment.” Abraham’s response to this seemingly reasonable
request sounds callous: “They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.” The rich man immediately
counters with an objection as plausible as his original request. “No, Father
Abraham. ... But if someone would only go to them from the dead, then they
would repent.”
Across the distance of some seventy-five
years I can still recall my reaction to the annual reading of this gospel in my
youth, on one of the many Sundays after Pentecost. ‘He’s got a point there,’ I
thought each time I heard the rich man’s objection. ‘If someone were to go them
from the dead, that would shake them up!’
Enlightenment came one Sunday during my teens, when, listening to this
gospel, I realized: ‘Hey. A man did rise from the dead once. It didn’t shake
anyone up. The only people who believed in him were those who had believed in
him before, and even they had to overcome initial skepticism.’
Luke’s language confirms this youthful
insight. Abraham speaks of resurrection: “If they do not listen to Moses and
the prophets, they will not be convinced even if one should rise from the
dead.” “Moses and the prophets” means simply “Holy Scripture.” Jesus uses
Abraham’s refusal of the rich man’s final request to state what Jesus himself
has already experienced many times over: signs and wonders, no matter how
dramatic, can never compel faith in those who have not already gained faith
through attentive reading or hearing of God’s word. The greatest of all Jesus’
signs was the empty tomb of Easter morning. It was the occasion of faith to one
man only: the disciple whom Jesus loved, as he is called in John ’s gospel (cf. John
20: 2-8). Jesus’ other followers came to faith in the resurrection only through
seeing the risen Lord. Those who had refused to believe in him before the
crucifixion had a simple explanation for the empty tomb, reported in Matthew 28:12-15: Jesus’ disciples stole his body
while the soldiers guarding the tomb slept.
Abraham’s seemingly callous reminder
that the rich man’s brothers need only “Moses and the prophets” to avoid his
fate is Jesus’ way of telling his hearers, ourselves included, that present
circumstances are always enough for us to believe in God and serve him. Most of
us, most of the time, live and work in circumstances that are less than ideal.
Confronted with our modest achievements, we plead that they are a consequence
of our limited opportunities. When things change and we get into better circumstances, we shall be able
to accomplish so much more. That is an illusion.
The golden opportunities that beckon
on the other side of the horizon will never arrive if we are not using the
opportunities, however limited, that are before us right now. It is here and
now, in the present moment (the only time we ever have) that we are called to
faith in God, and to generous service of God and others — and not somewhere
else, tomorrow, when everything changes at the touch of some magic wand and our
lives cease to be drab and become wonderful.
The parable tells that we must listen
to God’s word. If we do this, not just occasionally, but faithfully — day after
day, week by week and year after year — we shall find ourselves strengthened,
guided, and fed. Faithful, patient sitting at the Lord’s feet, listening and
pondering his words like Mary of Bethany, will enable us to understand the
words of Cleopas and his unnamed companion after their encounter with the risen
Lord at Emmaus on the first Easter evening: “Were not our hearts burning inside
us as he talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” (Luke
24:32) .
To be close to the Lord, we need to do
also what the rich man in the parable failed
to do. We need to see the needs
of those around us. And like the despised outsider in the parable of the Good
Samaritan, we need to minister to those needs in caring, costing ways. The Lord
seldom demands heroism. Often a kind word, a friendly gesture, or an
encouraging smile is enough. But unless we are open to the needs of those we
encounter on life’s way, and are trying to meet those needs, we shall discover
one day that we have lived far from God, no matter how many prayers we have
said. And if we have lived far from God in this life, we shall live far from
him in eternity. God’s judgment is not something imposed on us from without. It
is his ratification of the judgment we make in this life by the way we choose to live here and now.
This story of the rich man and Lazarus
is clearly a parable of judgment. God’s
judgment need not be fearful, however. In reality it is part of the good
news. The judgment meted out in this
parable to Lazarus — passive throughout and speaking never a word — assures us
that the inarticulate, the weak, the poor, the marginalized and neglected, are
especially dear to God. Lazarus, the man whom God helped, tells us that in the
kingdom Jesus came to proclaim the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and
run without growing weary; those who hope in the Lord renew their strength and
soar as on eagles’ wings; the tone-deaf sing like René Fleming and Placido
Domingo; the poor are made rich; the hungry feast at the banquet of eternal
life; the sorrowful are filled with laughter and joy; and those who are
ostracized and persecuted because of the Son of Man receive their unbelievably
great reward.
That too is the gospel proclaimed by
this parable. That is the good news.
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