“God Has Helped”
Thursday of the Second Week of Lent
Luke 16:19-31
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030526.cfm
In his story to the Pharisees, Jesus uses the name of Lazarus and Abraham, but the other character in the story goes without a name. His name is inconsequential. Ultimately, he is just a rich man. In life, people knew his name, and they probably knew it well. He had power and prestige. He had wealth to afford expensive garments and linens and dine with luxury everyday.
And then there’s Lazarus, he has a name. And it looks like he encountered the rich man pretty regularly as he was lying in his doorway. Instead of having riches and perceived blessings, he was poor and covered in sores. He would have loved the scraps from the rich man’s table, but the rich man didn’t even give him that. While the rich man never helped him, the dogs tried to comfort him by licking his sores. The dogs even saw that Lazarus was in need and tried to do something about it. While the rich man’s comforts were just separated by a door and a wall, it might as well have been a great chasm.
In Jesus’s story, there is no mention of Lazarus’s burial when he died. A burial would have cost money. But in his death, he was taken to be comforted in the righteousness of their tradition in the bosom of Abraham. When the rich man died, he was buried and did not experience righteousness in death; he experienced torment. From his position, he could see Abraham and Lazarus in the distance, and he calls out for Lazarus to provide him with the scraps that he could not give in life.
Abraham speaks and says that in life the rich man received what was good whereas Lazarus did not. In death, Lazarus is comforted and the rich man is tormented. A real chasm exists between so that no one can cross. In life there was no such chasm, but the rich man and society as whole created one.
The rich man called out to have Abraham to have Lazarus sent to his five brothers so that they would listen and spare themselves from torment. He believed that they would listen to a man who returned from the dead. But, Abraham knew that reactions to miracles are only temporary. God had already sent messengers through the law and the prophets. Lazarus too was a messenger in life and they didn’t grasp the opportunity then. Lazarus had given the rich man the opportunity to encounter God by providing for Lazarus’s needs with the excessive resources he had.
With this story, Jesus was challenging the Pharisees to see the world beyond a superficial understanding of their religious tradition. There’s a deeper spirit behind the law and the prophets. It’s not about protecting one’s individual cleanliness or purity but about elevating all. It’s not about the deserving and the undeserving, the righteous and the damned. It’s not about the rich and poor or any other divisions we create. Faith should not be something that’s exclusive, but something that should challenge us to being more inclusive. If we live by divisions, we may just find ourselves on the opposite end of those divisions. With God, a rising tide should elevate all boats, not raise some and sink others. There is plenty for all if we don’t hoard it. God is calling us to take care of one another, to elevate even those we overlook or believe to be undeserving.
