Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 16:19 – 31

I look at Facebook four or five times a week. I don't put much on facebook but I enjoy seeing what members of my extended family post. And there are a couple of communities I enjoy – one is for permanent deacons. A few days ago I ran across something called “global rich list”. It's a calculator that allows you to enter your annual income, or alternatively your total net worth, and find out how you stack up against the rest of humanity. I'm ashamed of where that puts me – but I think you would be as well. Face it, we Longmeadow people, even relatively poor ones, are way up there in the top 5% in terms of how rich we are.

Today Jesus in a few words paints a picture of a rich man – dressed in purple, when the only way you could get purple dye was to collect a certain species of shellfish and extract the dye; and fine linen, which was very expensive because it was spun from very fine threads, which took a lot longer than the coarse material most people wore. And while our gospel reading says “he dined sumptously” the actual Greek text says “he made merry in luxury” or as we might say today, every meal was a party. So to me he doesn't look like a mean-spirited king or a conniving merchant – he looks round and silly and oblivious to his surroundings, thinking primarily of himself.

Lazarus is a caricature as well. In fact he sounds a lot like Job, from the Old Testament, who was reduced to sitting on a pile of manure scratching himself with a piece of broken pottery. And I think Jesus is deliberately painting these extreme pictures. Notice that Jesus names Lazarus, the only time a person in a parable had a name. And Lazarus means “God is my helper”.

Now it sounds like the rich man went to hell and Lazarus to heaven. But that is not what Jesus says. He says they both ended up in Hades – which means “the netherworld”. There was a common belief that people went to a temporary place after death. Some people said that's where you spent eternity; others said that you would eventually move on – perhaps to reincarnation, perhaps to resurrection, as some Jews believed, or perhaps to something more in keeping with our concepts of heaven and hell. But a lot of people including many Jews believed that you had one final chance to learn what you needed to learn and move on to a good end. And I think when we look at this story, we can see that.

After all, if Jesus is trying to show us how to avoid hell, we never find out why the rich man is there in the flames. If all he did was enjoy life and burn through his money, does he deserve eternal punishment? I hope not. And he calls Abraham his father, and Abraham refers to him as “My son”. The bond between the holy patriarch of the Jewish people and the rich man is not broken. And there is that interesting reversal; “you had your good things during life; and it's Lazarus' turn now.” This doesn't make sense – if laying around having dogs lick your sores and longing for the crumbs of the rich man's table is enough to have eternal happiness.

And with Jesus' parables we often try to see which character we relate to. We don't relate to Abraham, we don't relate to Lazarus, and I would venture to say we shouldn't relate to the rich man either. We may be rich, but rich as we are, I think most of us would not step over a beggar on our porch and most of us would not spend our money on horribly expensive clothing, and most of us would not have a wild party for ourselves and throw food on the floor every day. And most of us do try to give something back – money, time, talent – we aren't oblivious to the fact that there are people in trouble, and most of us try to do something about that.

I don't think the rich man is burning for all eternity in hell. I think he is learning a lesson. He starts out seeing that he is in torment and Lazarus is up there with Abraham. He recognizes that he is supposed to be there – he doesn't ask to get out, he just wants a drop of water. And when that doesn't happen, he finally begins to think of someone else – his brothers. And he says that if someone rises from the dead, they will surely repent. And in the context, if they repent, they will change the way they see things, they will see their own Lazarus and be moved to take pity on him. And Abraham says, in effect, now you are catching on, that's why they have Moses and the Prophets. And Jesus ends the story there.

So who should we identify with? I think it's the brothers. I think this parable is a reminder that the most important thing about religion after our duty to God is our duty to our neighbor, the neighbor who has a name, a name we don't yet know. The neighbor who is loved by God just as much as He loves us, just as much as he loves the greatest saints, just as much as he loves the Blessed Mother; because God loves with His whole being, with all the love of which he is capable. A few weeks ago we heard about how Jesus shocked the pharisees because he sat down and ate with sinners. This was not because the Pharisees wanted nothing to do with sinners. They had a saying: “It is a good thing to feed a sinner who is hungry. It is an evil thing to sit down and eat with him.” The Pharisees thought that shunning a sinner was the best way to bring him back to righteousness, to rejoining the community. Jesus disagrees. Jesus wants each of us to be responsible for our brothers and sisters – on a personal level. And that is a real challenge.

We each have our Lazarus. Do you know his or her name? Do you step around him or her when you go out of your house or place of work? Or will you change the way you see things, which is what repentance means. And reach out to him or her in love.

I think the rich man will eventually learn his lesson and join his brother Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, because God is infinitely merciful. But you can think what you want. Just recognize your brother. Once you learn his name, you cannot do otherwise.