Luke 16:19-31
Like many of Jesus’ parables, this one raises a lot of questions. The rich man ended up in hell, it seems, while Lazarus is in sort of a heaven. Sometimes Jesus compares the kingdom of Heaven to a great banquet; other times to contented sheep. Here he compares it to a place where Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, lives and comforts those who have died. And as for the flames of torment where the rich man went, I think Jesus was again making a comparison. Someone once told the Dali Lama that if he didn’t accept Christ he would go to hell. He replied that you couldn’t threaten a good Buddhist with hell because the whole point of Buddhism is to reach a state in which you have stopped wanting anything.
But why did the rich man go to hell? Why did Lazarus go to heaven? When you read this gospel it’s pretty clear that the rich man enjoys life -- fine clothing, good food, probably doesn’t have to work too hard. Kind of like you and I. In fact you and I probably eat better and have more leisure than most human beings ever had. We are certainly a lot better off than the vast majority of our fellow human beings. I hope being rich and eating well is not a ticket to hell.
And why did Lazarus end up in heaven? Jesus portrays him as someone who is poor and hungry and miserable. Does that get you into heaven?
And finally, you have the fact that Lazarus lay at the door of the rich man. I think we all see that Jesus is telling us that the rich man was aware of Lazarus and his misery and did nothing about it. There are plenty of people within a few miles of Saint Mary’s who are miserable, and we aren’t doing a lot for them.
And I think it’s interesting that the rich man doesn’t ask to get out of hell -- he knows he’s where he should be. Someone once said that if you ended up in hell, you would know exactly why you were there and you would praise God for his justice.
The real difference between the rich man and Lazarus is that one has everything and the other has nothing. Jesus warned us about this -- he talked about how hard it would be for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven -- harder than getting a camel through the eye of a needle. And the reason is that someone who has a lot of stuff is reluctant to let any of it go. You and I know this from experience. And the attachment to stuff, to the good things in life, can be so severe that we can’t let go -- even in the next life. But in order to enter heaven, we have to let go. Lazarus doesn’t have anything to cling to, he’s free to receive what God wants to give him because he is not attached; both his hands are free. Jesus said that birds have nests and foxes have dens but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Jesus has more in common with Lazarus than the rich man.
So is Jesus warning us about the danger of possessions? Or is he warning us about the danger of neglecting our poor brothers and sisters? Or are we supposed to read into the story that the rich man was evil and Lazarus was good? I’ve read a lot ao sermons that presume that is the case and go on from there. But again, I don’t see it. Jesus told the story so you and I could think about it and decided what we are going to do in response.
When we think about hell we imagine that the evil spirits want to bring more people to hell. We ask Saint Michael to do something about Satan and his minions who proul about the world seeking the ruin of souls. But our rich man, who has apparently never had a thought about someone else, now thinks about his five brothers. One suspects that they are like the rich man. He fully expects that they will end up like him unless they change their ways. And he wants Abraham to do something to keep that from happening. And Abraham points out that they already have everything they need to keep out of hell, to get to heaven -- Moses and the prophets. Because God leaves us radically free to choose how we live, who we listen to. If your great grandmother came back from the dead and told you to change your ways, you wouldn’t really be free anymore, because that would be a fact that you couldn’t ignore. So we are left with Moses and the prophets, we are left with the good news of Jesus Christ. And those five brothers or sisters are out there, and you and I are their only hope, because we have the truth. And one thing we can do is make sure that the people we meet see that there is something different about us, something worth learning more about, something worth imitating. Maybe that’s what we should think about today.
