Thursday in the Second Week of Lent, March 17, 2022

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.’ ”

The Lord Jesus tells this parable to the Pharisees, who believed that they practiced the religion of their fathers in its fullness.  They hear of the rich man who feasts every day at his house and think to themselves that this man has been rewarded with prosperity to God, for Moses declared: “The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground; for the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, 10 if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law” (Deuteronomy 30, 9-10).  The Pharisees also remembered the wealth of Jacob, who obeyed the laws of God.  Then they hear of Lazarus, whose destitution spoke of unfaithfulness to the law.  The Jews regarded any misfortune as a sign of sin, as we see in John 9, 1, when the Apostles ask the Lord, regarding a blind man they have seen, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  Hearing that Lazarus was even willing to eat scraps that fell to the floor, the Pharisees would have despised him the more, for in this he would make himself like a dog.  And the Lord’s line, “Dogs even used to come and lick his sores”, would have confirmed their hatred of Lazarus.  In the first few lines of the parable, then, the Pharisees would have understood the hero to be the unnamed rich man, and the villain to be Lazarus, the poor man.

“When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.”  The Pharisees would have found this statement stunning.  The man’s poverty was a sign that God had cursed him.  He could not possibly go to the bosom of Abraham after his death.  Then the Lord said to them, “The rich man also died and was buried”, but he went down to “the netherworld, where he was in torment”.  This was an appalling turn of events and seemed to fly in the face of the signs of God’s blessing which the man enjoyed on earth.  Furthermore, the Lord made it sound as though it was the poverty of Lazarus that saved him and the wealth of the rich man that doomed him, seeming to contradict the Law: when the rich man called out to Abraham for relief from his suffering, Abraham explained, “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.”  

As it turns out, the wealth and poverty are merely incidental to the fates of the two men.  As Abraham relies to the rich man who begs that Lazarus be sent to “warn” or, better, “testify to” the man’s brothers of the threat of hell, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.”  We learn from this that in fact the rich man had not lived according to the Law, and we know this from the Lord’s remark that the rich man did not relieve Lazarus from his hunger.  As it is written in Leviticus 23, 22: “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field to its very border, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger.”  The rich man could have obeyed this Law simply by allowing Lazarus to “glean” the scraps of food left over from the feasts.  

The Lord tells this parable to the Pharisees in order to teach them that those who ignore or break the Law will suffer eternal punishment, whether they are rich or poor, a direct warning to them, for the Pharisees tended to be wealthy, while those oppressed by the wicked will be accorded redress in heaven.  The Lord’s parable reminds us to care for the poor, but also to avoid thinking well of someone because of his or her successes in life or positions or wealth and power.  It is a person’s practice of the Gospel — his “fruits” — that tell of what true wealth he possesses.  If the rich man had fed Lazarus, he would be sharing the bosom of Abraham with him.