Thursday in the Second Week of Lent, March 9, 2023

Luke 16,19-31

Jesus said to the Pharisees: “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’ Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’ He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.’ He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”

It is significant that Jesus names the main character in this parable, for he otherwise does not name his characters.  St. Luke sets the parable in a series of teachings and parables to a mixed audience of disciples, ordinary Jews, and Pharisees.  It is therefore next to impossible to say near what city or town the Lord delivered this parable.  Still, the deliberate and uncustomary use of the poor man’s name raises the question as to whether Jesus was revealing the destiny of an actual person, along with that of an unnamed rich man.  Certainly, the external details of the case, as the Lord unveiled them, would have struck the people who knew of the situation to their hearts.  The name given here is “Lazarus”, a Greek rendering of the Hebrew Eleazar, meaning “God has helped”.  This name fits the poor man, who is brought to the bosom of Abraham after his death. 

“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day.”  The rich man whose name is not remembered, in contrast to that of the poor man, lives to eat and has no time for any other activity.  And rather than save the purple garments for big occasions, he dresses in them every day.  The Jews in the crowd listening to the parable would have detested the man right away because if he dined sumptuously every day, he is not keeping the various fasts required by the Law, and does not follow the path of moderation urged by the Book of Proverbs.  “And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table.”  It seems that God has abandoned the man named “God has helped”.  Lazarus is starving in full sight of the rich man, his family and guests, and the rest of the city.  No one makes a move to help him.

“When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.”  When a beggar like Lazarus died, his body was buried in the ground outside of the town.  Since no one attended him in life, he probably would not have received a funeral.  But the Lord tells us that the angels carried his soul to the “bosom of Abraham”, a place of refreshment which the Jews of the time believed to be for the souls of the just prior to the resurrection which was connected with the appearance of the Son of Man.  When we read of the angels bearing his soul away, we should think of the angels as the Jews did at that time, as powerful, white-robed men whose faces shone like lightning.  When the priest Zechariah saw the Angel Gabriel, he was “agitated” and “terror pressed upon him”, as though to put him to flight.  Multiple angels deliver the soul of Lazarus into the arms of Abraham, as though providing safe passage through the realms of death and the threat of hell.  “The rich man also died and was buried.”  The rich man’s body would have been laid in an above-ground vault, likely carved out of the stony hills of Galilee and Judea.  It would have been owned by a family.  The Lord’s Body was laid in one of these.  Flute players and professional mourners would have heightened the drama of his funeral, but all for nought: for he found himself, after his death, in hell.  The Lectionary translates the Greek word Hades as “the netherworld”, which is fine so far as it goes because the Greeks did not believe in a hell of punishment and so did not have a word for such a place.  But the Lord clearly means a hell of punishment which the wicked can never escape.  The Jews themselves, while believing in hell in the days of the Lord, never really developed a proper name for it.  They used words like “Gehenna”, a valley outside Jerusalem, or “the place of the wicked” or “of the devil”.  Over the centuries as the culture became Christianized, the Greek and Latin terms for the places of the dead were used to signify the hell of eternal punishment.

“Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.”  This is the first prayer the rich man has uttered in how many years?  But now it is too late.  “A great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.”  We can think of this chasm as a wide space, as the Lord presents it to us, or as the “chasm” between love and hatred, faith and faithlessness, hope, and despair.

“They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.”  Moses and the Prophets prepared the way for the Lord Jesus and those who followed them would be receptive to the Lord’s preaching when he himself came to the bosom of Abraham on Holy Saturday to lead the just who died before him to heaven.  “If someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.”  The man who lived without faith knows that he would not have repented if he had seen someone who had risen from the dead.  He does not believe his own words here, but only finds a bit of relief in talking to the blessed, even from a great distance.

Members of the crowd who had perhaps known Lazarus or someone like him but who had never bent to offer a crust of bread to him would have walked home thoughtfully that day.  Perhaps they would have been moved to repentance before it was too late for them.  We may not be able to feed the destitute directly, but we can help do so through donations to charities.  And, as Mother Teresa used to say often, sometimes we have a Lazarus among our friends and family members who needs a little attention and signs of love.