26th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEARC C

Who are the ‘actors’ in the parable?

1. The most important is the one that does not appear on stage: God. He is not mentioned, but he is the one that settles things in the next world by putting right what is wrong. He voices his thoughts through Abraham, who thus plays the role of the protagonist.
2. There is the rich man who also plays a very important role. The rich was sent to hell: but was he a wicked man? What evil has he done? Nothing! He had not ordered Lazarus to be removed from his gate. He had made no objection to his receiving the bread falling down from his table. He did not kick him in the passing. He ate, drank and went about in fashionable dress, all right, but he always used his own money, not somebody else’s. The rich man was quite well behaved.
3. Finally there is Lazarus, who never comes to the forefront: he never says a word, or moves a finger or takes a step. He is always sitting down: on earth he is at the entrance of the rich man’s house, in heaven he is on the lap of Abraham, and during his passage from earth to heaven he is carried by the Angels. In no other parable Jesus calls his ‘actors’ by name. This is the only parable where we are told the name of the poor man: Lazarus. In our world who has a name?… The rich, only and always the rich, those who have become famous. With Jesus we have the exact contrary.  What is the teaching of the parable?
4. The sin of the rich man was that he never noticed Lazarus, that he accepted him as a part of the landscape and simply thought it perfectly natural and inevitable that Lazarus should lie in pain and hunger while he was enjoying in luxury. It is a terrible warning to us that the sin of the rich man was not that he did wrong things, but that he did nothing.
5. Jesus wants also to tell us that the existence of two classes of people, the rich and the poor, is against the Plan of God. The goods of this world are for all and must be shared out; whoever has more must give it to the one who has less or has nothing, so as to reach equality. ‘When you give something to the poor, you are not giving him what is yours, but you are just giving back to him what is his, since the goods of this earth belong to all, not just to the rich’ (Saint Ambrose).
6. And finally Jesus tells us that the only source of a firm and sound faith is the ‘Word of God’ (= ‘Moses and the Prophets’), the Word that the rich of all times have very often failed to listen, to understand and to accept.