A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, September 26, 2010
“AND HOW MANY WILL BE DINING?”
(Homily text: Luke 16; 19 – 31)
“And how many will be dining today?”
This could be the essential question which the parable which is before us today seeks to pose.
Put another way, we could say it this way: “Will you be sharing your table (and your food) with anyone else today?”
The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (or, as it’s also known “The Parable of Dives and Lazarus”) continues a long train of thought that has occupied Jesus’ mind and His teaching since the early chapters of Luke’s gospel account.
Significant themes which resonate throughout Luke are to be found here, including:
- A reversal of roles: The rich become poor, and the poor become rich (with the Lord’s favor)
- The mighty are cast down, and the lowly are lifted up (see Mary’s reference to this in the Magnificat, Luke 1: 52)
- The hungry are filled with good things, and the rich are sent away empty (Luke 1: 53)
- There is eating and drinking (as there are in so many places in Luke’s account)
What would be Jesus’ essential point in this parable?
Is Jesus giving us a theological treatise on the nature of salvation? (That is to say, is He making the point that the poor and the downtrodden in this world are assured of having a place in God’s kingdom once they pass from this life to the next?) I would say the answer to that question is “No”.
- Jesus seems to be making a point about how we live our lives today, however.
- He is also making a point about the urgency of doing the right thing, here and now, before it is too late.
I think those two points are the main ones He wants us to understand.
That said, we now turn our attention to the parable itself.
The drama of the parable unfolds in three acts:
- Act I: The earthly situations of the rich man and Lazarus are described. (Verses 19 – 21)
- Act II: The two men die, and their roles are reversed. (Verses 22 – 26)
- Act III: The rich man pleads for his brothers.
As we begin the drama, we see that the rich man and Lazarus (who is the only named person in any of Jesus’ parables, by the way) are separated by quite a few things: their social status, their wealth, their health, their mode of dress and by the wall which surrounds the rich man’s house (notice that Jesus refers to a gate).
Hunger is also a factor which separates the two men. The rich man has enough to eat so as to be able to use pieces of bread to wipe the grease off of his fingers, bread which is then thrown on the floor afterward. Jesus tells us that Lazarus would love to have had some of those pieces of bread to eat.
Instead, Lazarus is as unclean as the rich man is clean, for Lazarus is being kept company by the neighborhood dogs, who are his only friends, and who clean his sores by licking them. Associating with dogs indicates that Lazarus is unclean, for dogs were considered to be unclean animals in biblical times. By contrast, the rich man is finely dressed, and presumably, is also clean, physically and ritually. We can just imagine the rich man’s daily baths, taken with fine oils and perfumes.
The rich man is securely isolated from the world around him, and from its problems. He is isolated by virtue of the wall and its gate, which keep the world’s problems from encroaching on him, and he is isolated by being able, financially, to avoid those problems, as well.The rich man’s isolation will play a role in the last state in which he will find himself, for in Hades, the rich man’s isolation from God will also be complete, ensured by his own selfishness and by the gulf which will separate him from Lazarus and from the Bosom of Abraham.
Now, we turn to Act II of the drama: The rich man and Lazarus are taken away to their eternal reward. Lazarus’ name now proves to be prophetic, for it means “God helps”.
Just as in life, the two men can see one another. Recall with me that Lazarus could see the rich man eating, and longed to have just some of the crumbs which were under the rich man’s table. Now, however, the tables are turned, forever.
But the rich man still expects Lazarus to be his errand boy. He says, “Send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” But Abraham responds by saying, essentially, “Lazarus’ work is done.”
Moreover, the states the two men now find themselves in are permanent. “There is a great gulf fixed,” Abraham says.
The point of this comment is simply to say “The time for changing the situation is past, over and gone.”
Now, we turn to Act III.
Here, for the first time, the rich man begins to think about someone other than himself. He thinks of his five brothers, and wants to warn them to change their ways before it is too late for them, too.
But Abraham responds by saying, “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.”
With this comment, Jesus makes a searing point in the parable: He points out that the rich man also had access to Moses and to the prophets, whose wisdom would have served to change the rich man’s ways, had he any inclination to pay attention.
But Jesus now turns the matter of spiritual blindness into a wider issue: An unwillingness to pay attention to the sacred writings (Holy Scripture, we would say) can also lead to an equal unwillingness to pay attention to the one who arose from the dead, Jesus Christ.
By this final comment, Jesus points the way forward into the late first century situation in which the early Church found itself: Those early Christians encountered Jews who could not see the connections between Moses’ writings (known as the Torah) and Jesus’ identity as the one risen from the dead.
We said at the beginning of this homily that Jesus’ parables continue to have an impact on our daily lives as 21st century Christians.
How so?
What may we take away from the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus?
May I posit the following points, in the hope that some of them might spur your own reflection?
- Where are the walls of separation which prevent us from doing what we can to alter or reverse the circumstances of those around us who are in some sort of need? Those walls can be made of pride, selfishness (which is the root sin of the rich man), arrogance, or a sense of our own superiority before God, either morally or spiritually. We are called to identify such barriers, which prevent us from caring for those in need among us.
- The time for action is now! Death ends our ability to act in accordance with God’s will. Once death intervenes, it’s too late to change our record before the Lord.
- What we do in our daily lives has eternal consequences. Not only is our moral character formed by our actions and our attitudes, but our spiritual character is also formed by such actions and attitudes.
- The moral imperatives of the Torah remain. We find an example of the moral imperative of helping others in Deuteronomy 15:7, which reads “Do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor.” The early Church affirmed these moral imperatives by living communally in the early first century: People who became Christian believers sold what they had and brought the proceeds to the Apostles, where it was put into a common treasury, in order to meet the needs of all in the community. Though we no longer live this way as Christians, we are still under obligation to do all we can to improve the lot of those around us
May God enable us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to break down the walls which prevent our response to those in need. May the Holy Spirit enlighten us to see the urgency and the need to act. May the Holy Spirit assist us to meet people’s needs according to their true needs.
“And just how many will be at our table today?” Answer: “Surely more than one!”
AMEN.
