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. (Luke 16:19-25)
This is the only story that Jesus told in the form of vignettes to show the reversal of life and fortune between two men as they pass from this world to the next. In the first vignette, we get a glimpse of a temporary heaven of luxury and pleasure of a rich man in contrast to a temporary hell of penury and misery of the poor man Lazarus. In the second vignette, their lives and fortunes are reversed; the rich man from an unsolicitous life of pleasure now lives in the eternal hell of misery and suffering while poor Lazarus from a destitute life of misery now lives in the eternal heaven of abundance and consolation.
Death, which in nature is nothing more than a passage between two different forms of life, is also presented here as a bridge between the stage of life on earth and the stage of life in heaven and hell. Contrary to what most think, death is not the great leveler that makes everyone equal. In view of this parable, told by the One who had said, “you always have the poor with you” (Jn. 12:8), the social inequalities that we encounter here on earth we will find reversed in heaven. For this reason, social equality is a utopia that should inspire and guide our actions at all times and in all places.
The poor who sits at our gate
The parable does not give us the rich man’s name, he does not have a human identity because he is defined not by who he is but by the way he lives, as are many rich people still today:
Dressed in purple and fine linen – The rich man does not have a name because his identity is not determined from inside out, but rather from outside in. It is the purple and the fine linen that describe him, his status is bestowed on him by the type of garment he wears. Whoever feels like a Mr. Nobody uses a certain deception to fill up the hollowness of his soul: branded goods, last generation cellphones, top of the line cars…
Many young people today, in our schools, instead of seeking good reputation in moral and academic performances, seek branded clothes. They buy expensive sweaters that display oversized logos in the front. Being expensive, the clothes give them a certain “prestige” that they crave for; however, aside from having paid a lot for the sweaters, they are also providing free advertisement for the brand every time they wear them. They show off at the expense of the brand, as the brand makes them pay dearly, and even shows itself off at their expense. In the end, I do not know who gains the most, the young people or the brand.
Feasted sumptuously every day – The poor have banquets only occasionally, in contrast, the rich have them every day. The poor have fun from time to time, the rich live to have fun. For the rich, life is not to be lived but to be enjoyed and consumed because it is nothing more than a pastime.
The rich are not criticized for being rich, but for being unsolicitous; the treasures in the gospels have the same worth as the talents, they are not to be possessed but to be used for the common good, by that it means that they are to be well managed. The greater the economic capability of an individual, the greater his social responsibility. As the Gospel reminds us, “… to whom much has been given, much will be required” (Lk. 12:48). The poor man who sits at our gate, or who crosses our path, is not always in need of bread and clothing; sometimes he only needs that we give him our time and lend him our ears; the human person needs many things and many of them are in the forms of help.
For the rich man, Lazarus was nothing more than an aspect of the landscape to which he had grown accustomed. His life of luxury has numbed him and made him insensitive to the misery and suffering that lay at his gate. Unlike with the rich man, the parable tells us the name of the poor man, which in Hebrew is Eleazar meaning “my God has helped”.
Alone, sick and without sustenance, the poor man is at the gate of life from the outside, living in the hope of feeding on the crumbs that fell from the plentiful table of the rich man, but not even this was granted to him. Jesus, the author of this parable, finishes the first vignette or account by saying that the dogs would come and lick Lazarus’ sores. The humans have an inhumane and irrational attitude towards Lazarus; in contrast, the dogs, the irrational beings, have a “humane” attitude towards him.
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; (…) he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. (Isa. 53:4-5)
According to the Songs of the Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah, the wounds of Christ have healing power for us. In the same way, the salvation of the rich man was in the wounds of the poor man Lazarus, because as Matthew 25 states, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.
“He who gives to the poor lends to God” as the saying goes. In fact, if the rich save the poor in this life, then it is the poor who save the rich in the next. In this parable, it is the dogs that benefit from the curative properties of Lazarus’ wounds. Let us recall that the Jews used to call the pagans dogs, and ironically, it is precisely the pagans who are saved by the wounds of Christ.
Valley of pleasures – Valley of tears
Eventually death comes to both, and the second vignette is presented to us in the parable. Lazarus, who lived before in the “valley of tears”, is now living in the “valley of pleasures”, unlike the rich man who used to live in the “valley of pleasures”, now lives in the “valley of tears”. The situation is now reversed with the difference being that in the first account both the tears and the pleasures were temporary; “there are no evil that lasts forever nor are there good that endures forever”, but in the second vignette which represents the second part of our lives, both the pleasures and the tears are eternal.
There is a sense of finality in the way the death of the rich man is described; he died and was buried, as if to say that for him everything is finished. Hell is, therefore, the eternal death that is contrary to the eternal life. The few times that hell is depicted in the Bible as eternal suffering should be taken as a pedagogical way of instilling fear; this very same technique was used by the preachers of the past because we are more afraid of suffering than of death.
Like it happens almost every time, “death opens the eyes of the living”. In fact, the rich man who previously could not see Lazarus, now sees him perfectly. But he still remains self-centered; he did not see poor Lazarus then because the latter had nothing to do with him, but now he sees Lazarus because he needs him. Many of us see life and human relations like a grand buffet; we relate with others, not by what we can give them, but by what they can do to improve our lives.
The one who used to be clothed in fine linen is now clothed in flames; and it is in the midst of this that he remembers that he has a father and brothers and wants Lazarus to be sent back to save them. Abraham reminds him that they have the same means that he had to save themselves, i.e. the Law and the Prophets, which Jesus sums up as loving God above all things and loving neighbours as oneself.
The rich man thinks that if Lazarus is raised from the dead, his relatives would surely believe in him and change the way they live. Contrary to this belief, we know very well that when Jesus raised another Lazarus from the dead, his miracle, instead of making the Jews believe in him, it only led them to want all the more to kill both him and the recently raised Lazarus.
Faith continues to be the only gate to salvation, there will be no signs from the other world, and no miracle to prove beyond any doubt the truth of these things; by faith we live and in faith we are saved. There are no scientific proofs, and there never will be, that God exists and sustains the lives of the faithful here and now as He will sustain them after our death.
The poor who looms at our window
Last year Oxfam informed, at the World Economic Forum which took place from January 21 to 25, 2015, in Davos, Switzerland, that this year one percent of humanity will possess more wealth than the remaining ninety-nine. More specifically, the one percent will own 54% of the world wealth, and the ninety-nine percent of humanity the remaining 46%.
A reality that should make us think… After so much scientific and technological progress, humans have progressed very little in the area of humanity; the ever greater abyss between the rich and the poor proves unequivocally that what truly guides and inspires human behaviour is not intellect nor goodwill, as would have been desirable, but the egocentric and irrational instincts that we have in common with the animals.
Throughout the history of humanity, human intellect appears to have been more at the service of egoism than altruism; man’s creativity appears to be greater for evil than for good, this is the only way to explain so many realities like the holocaust of the Jews, and other genocides (abortion, war crimes and war itself…). We have to conclude sadly that the human race surpasses the animals, not only in its rationality but also in its irrationality.
In poor countries, there is still death from diseases for which cures have long been found like leprosy, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and all illnesses related to lack of hygiene, drinking water and precarious diet… In rich countries, death comes from excessive consumption; in poor countries, death comes from lack of consumption of the essentials. Now if we were to share, neither the poor would die of poverty nor the rich of material excesses. We would all be healthier…
The laws or the system that make this inequality possible are simply unjust. The gap between the rich and the poor is forever increasing. Since the planet cannot sustain all its inhabitants living the way the western countries do, and since westerners would not lower their standards of living to allow the poor to raise theirs to a sustainable level, therefore in order not to put any more strain on the planet, some cynical economic and financial mechanisms have been put in place to keep the poor forever poor.
Again and again the world powers meet to discuss the climatic changes, which are signs that our planet is sick, and the sickness is caused by our abuse of its resources, but little has been accomplished. We all know what the consequences will be and yet we cannot halt the behaviours that are taking us inexorably to a collective suicide. A month ago, the city of Beijing put out a red alert for the first time, it closed all schools and public offices; the air was so polluted that besides being unbreathable, the visibility was also drastically reduced.
The fact that poverty is a global problem that is becoming more and more difficult to resolve as the gap between the rich and the poor keeps getting bigger must not prompt us to do nothing in face of this overwhelming odd. God is not going to ask us to account for all the poor in the world, but only for those who sit at our gate or cross our path.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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