There was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angles to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.' But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.'" (Luke 16:19-26)
In this parable, the sudden reversal of roles and expectations so characteristic of Jesus' teaching is once again manifested. Two extreme situations are juxtaposed. A rich man dressed in purple, symbol of the upper classes and power, feasted not just well, but sumptuously--and not just on feast days, but every day. At the gate to his estate lay Lazarus the beggar. In the popular mindset of the time beggars were considered responsible for their miserable plight. Poverty was looked upon as a punishment for sin and for that reason, the hearer would be thinking, "It's his own fault."
Lazarus dies and is carried by angels to Abraham's bosom, symbol of the fulfillment of all the promises made by God to Israel. The rich man also dies and is buried in Hades. In Jewish religious literature, prior to this time, there is no mention of a chasm between the just and the unjust that extends beyond the grave. This is a new note that the parable here introduces. Abraham responds to the rich man's plea by pointing out that he had enjoyed every good thing during his earthly life and now is in torment, while the poor man had experienced just the opposite.
The kingdom of God in Jesus' preaching presupposes solidarity with the community and its needs. In this light we begin to see what was wrong with this rich man's behavior. No particular misdeeds of his are listed. The parable indicates that it was not his wealth that was the cause of his undoing but his use of it. He failed to share with the community the abundance that God had given him. Such is the true purpose of the blessings of wealth. Thus this parable inveighs against the sin of indifference that fails to share one's abundance with those in need. It does so by juxtaposing the rich man's private enjoyment of his great abundance with the extreme want of the beggar for whom no practical concern was offered.
The sin of the rich man could not have been his wealth as such, since Abraham too was a rich man and found favor with God as the book of Genesis attests. The rich man's fate suggests that his sin was his failure to pass through the gate of his estate and to respond to the desperate need of the beggar. The parable attacks the complacency of our divisions between rich and poor, the socially acceptable and the socially outcast. The gate symbolizes the grace that enables us to love our neighbor--everyone--as ourselves. The rich man stayed in his enclosure. His failure to go through the gate and to enter into solidarity with the one in need was the particular cause of his undoing.
Gates can be barriers or passageways into solidarity with others. In whatever way the rich man obtained his goods, whether through junk bonds or other means of getting rich quick, he failed to pass through the gate of his private interests and concerns to identify with someone whose situation was desperate and whom he could easily have helped. In the next life things will be reversed. If the rich man had gone through the gate to reach out to the beggar and had not simply used it as a barrier to protect himself and his property, his fate would have been quite different. God does not set up barrier. We do. Our relationship to our local community and to the human family as a whole determines whether we are in the kingdom or out of it, both now and in the next life.
2007-12-02
13:50:27
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foxy_blue00
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Religion & Spirituality