1 Timothy 6. 6 – 19
Luke 16. 19 – 31
Fr Alex
Jesus paints a very vivid picture in that parable, doesn’t he. The rich man isn’t just well-off, he “feasts sumptuously every day,” presumably with plenty of friends and guests. He has the finest things in life. He wears purple garments, an incredibly expensive dye reserved for those of the highest status.
And in utter contrast to this, we have poor Lazarus, not feasting but starving; not covered in fine linen but rather covered in sores; not surrounded by friends, but dogs, fellow outcasts who lick his sores.
But at their deaths, their situations are totally reversed: the rich man, once surrounded by friends and the best things of life, at the very top, now finds himself alone, in agony, and in the lowest place possible, in Hades.
Lazarus, however, once at the very bottom of society, is now far above the rich man: and no longer surrounded by dogs, but rather by angels, and in the company of Abraham.
Things are turned completely upside down. What looks like a successful life ends in catastrophe; what seems like the worst possible life ends up with the angels.
We’ve got two examples of great extremes of character, and great extremes of consequences. And so it’s really quite difficult to identify with either of them. After all, Jesus who came to bring us life in all its fullness, is surely not calling us to give everything up and make ourselves destitute, in order to enter heaven.
Indeed beyond his poverty, we don’t know anything more about Lazarus at all. We aren’t told whether he was a good person; there’s no moral message about being cheerful in suffering, or anything like that.
What if we’re supposed to identify with the rich man? Well I can only speak for myself, but I’m certainly not vastly wealthy and feasting sumptuously every day. Though I have been known to wear purple from time to time.
I think if we’re going to heed the warning of Jesus’ parable today, then we need to look a little deeper than the caricatures of the vastly rich man, and the terribly poor Lazarus. So what is the warning of today’s parable?
Let’s look at some of the more hidden details. We don’t know anything about what kind of person Lazarus was, but notice, in contrast, the hints Jesus gives us about the rich man’s character.
Even in death, he still treats Lazarus with contempt, and expects that he will do his bidding: “Father Abraham, send Lazarus to bring me water.” “Father Abraham, send Lazarus to warn my brothers.”
But the most damning detail is that he knows Lazarus’ name. He knew Lazarus, lying at his own gate; he was aware of his terrible situation, and did nothing for him.
It’s not his great riches and his lavish lifestyle that damn him; in fact, his riches are almost irrelevant. Even the depth of Lazarus’ poverty is not the most important thing; not even the rich man’s terrible punishment, or Lazarus’ rejoicing with the angels. It’s not the extremes of this story that should concern us.
It’s the extreme wrongness of this one simple relationship, that should draw our attention. If the rich man is on the wrong side of a “great chasm” that has been fixed between them, then it is a chasm of his own making.
The rich man kept Lazarus on the outside: literally outside the house, at his gate, but also outside his heart. There was no compassion, no kindness, no hospitality for Lazarus in his desperate need; something that anyone could offer, even if they were penniless themselves.
This is where the figure of Father Abraham comes in; he is the symbol of simple, homely hospitality from the story of Genesis, offering what little he had to welcome the three guests who turned out to be God himself.
If there are great chasms, if there is a place of punishment in the life to come, then we humans are the ones who create them, and perpetuate them, in the way we treat each other on earth, and set up great boundaries that cannot be crossed.
But we are called to be different; to play our part in building the kingdom of heaven, where the reality of life is revealed; where riches and status mean nothing; and the only thing that matters is the content of our heart.
This kingdom isn’t built by superhuman acts –we’re not called to end poverty and world hunger on our own straight away; nor are we called to give everything away and make ourselves destitute, as if there’s some great virtue in suffering.
The kingdom of heaven is simply built by the thousands of little acts of compassion and kindness and hospitality that chip away at those divisions we humans so love to put up; that help to move people from the outside to the inside.
And this kingdom is not something that begins when we die; it begins now. And so perhaps the subtle warning of today’s parable is this:
That it’s often the simple things that are the easiest to undervalue, and the easiest to forget. When the scale of suffering around the world seems overwhelming, those little acts of compassion and kindness and hospitality can seem a bit pathetic, a bit pointless.
But don’t forget that God’s kingdom is now; and God’s reality turns upside down our expectations. Things that seem small and insignificant can turn out to be transformational.
I think that if we were to examine our consciences in the light of today’s parable, we might begin to find a list of our own Lazaruses; people and situations where perhaps we looked the other way, or thought we couldn’t do anything to help. I know that I would find such a list in my own life.
The rich man wouldn’t have had to go far to find a way to join in building the kingdom; Lazarus was right there, at his gate. Perhaps we can ask ourselves, who or what is the Lazarus in my own life at the moment? In what small ways am I being called to help build the kingdom of heaven? Amen.