Luke 16:19-31 (NRSV Updated Edition)
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes 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. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house - for I have five brothers - that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”
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"If we were to use a modern tale that fits, I would suggest Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It helps to bring out the fictional aspect of the parable. Because Dickens told this moving tale, we don't now believe in ghosts, nor that they forge chains in life by neglect of the poor. Because Jesus tells this parable, though, many people somehow come to believe that he is giving us a true picture of the afterlife. No, just as for Dickens, Jesus tells us a story of the future afterlife not to give us a true picture of that life but rather to move us to different choices in the present life."
- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from 'Reflections and Questions' on Luke 16:19-31 (link in comments below)
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"It is very like a well-known folk tale in the ancient world; Jesus was by no means the first to tell of how wealth and poverty might be reversed in the future life. In fact, stories like this were so well known that we can see how Jesus has changed the pattern that people would expect. In the usual story, when someone asks permission to send a message back to the people who are still alive on earth, the permission is granted. Here, it isn't; and the sharp ending of the story points beyond itself to all sorts of questions that Jesus' hearers, and Luke's readers, were urged to face.
"The parable is not primarily a moral tale about riches and poverty - though, in this chapter, it should be heard in that way as well. If that's all it was, some might say that it was better to let the poor stay poor, since they will have a good time in the future life. That sort of argument has been used too often by the careless rich for us to want anything to do with it. No; there is something more going on here. The story, after all, doesn't add anything new to the general folk belief about fortunes being reversed in a future life. If it's a parable, that means once again that we should take it as picture-language about something that was going on in Jesus' own work.
"The ending gives us a clue, picking up where, a chapter earlier, the story of the father and his two sons had ended. ‘Neither will they be convinced, even if someone were to rise from the dead'; ‘this your brother was dead, and is alive again.’ The older brother in the earlier story is very like the rich man in this: both want to keep the poor, ragged brother or neighbour out of sight and out of mind. Jesus, we recall, has been criticized for welcoming outcasts and sinners; now it appears that what he's doing is putting into practice in the present world what, it was widely believed, would happen in the future one. ‘On earth as it is in heaven’ remains his watchword. The age to come must be anticipated in the present."
- N.T. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pp. 200-01
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"...[T]he divide between Lazarus and the Rich Man remains the final motif. “Between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” The essential point is that the rich man is the one who creates the divide, so that those on Abraham's side of the chasm who “might want to pass” (i.e. act out of compassion) in fact cannot. The text clearly implies that the rich and privileged, those with status, create the divide, not God. Thus the parable is not a picture of medieval hell but of humanly created alienation and its suffering. Again the way to the kingdom is through our relationships with others, forgiveness, and care for the poor. What we do in this world constructs the way we relate to God's kingdom."
- Anthony Bartlett, Seven Stories, pp. 90-91
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"What I'd like to do is to bring out something very surprising about these three parables, which is how much they have in common and how much perhaps they were originally intended to be read together. It's one of the things I think we'll notice as we work through today's [reading] is to see how how often it refers back to things in the previous two parables, that's the one usually called The Prodigal Son and the one usually called The Unjust Steward. And curiously, one of the hidden but real presences there is the notion of stewardship. Just last Sunday remember the whole question was how did the steward exercise his stewardship. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the first son having managed to [...] squander his inheritance and then sought to come back on the same terms of reference as if he were a hard servant, so being like a steward, whereas the eldest son had acted like a steward rather than like a son, didn't seem to have realized that everything that he had was his. And as we'll see today a rather surprising steward turns up in in this week's in this week's gospel.
[...]
"Now we're used to the story of the rich man and Lazarus, so we're used to the name Lazarus, but if we were to listen to the story in Hebrew or Aramaic he would be called Eliezar. [...] It says he was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. Why? Well, because Eliezar was Abraham's steward. In [Genesis 15] Abraham, before he gets any children, he complained to God saying listen I've got no one to leave my household to except my steward Eliezar, he's the nearest thing to an heir, a descendant, I've got so everything's going to be his. And God says, don't worry you'll get a descendants. [...] And then of course also the steward is sent out again to help Isaac get a wife. [...] So Abraham's steward [is] an angelic figure and indeed was taken to be a such in Jewish popular tales of the time. [...] So strangely what we have here is there has been an angel at the rich man's door without him being aware of it, and has been carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.
[...]
"I think there's something even more subtle going on here. The sign, something happening, a dead man being raised, does not help you interpret the prophets and the law. Eliezar, as the poor man, that angelic presence, was already a hint of how you need to interpret the prophets and the law, from the position of the cast-out one. And of course it's only when Jesus is himself cast out and rises from the dead that he becomes, not simply, if you like, the fact of someone having risen, thereby shocking people into behaving, but actually the living interpretative principle of the law and the prophets, by which it might become possible for them to learn how to notice and respect and love the Lazaruses, the stewards of the Lord, who are sent and given to us as reminders of how real communication is created in this life when we learn to reach outside and beyond ourselves, and allow ourselves to be formed and transformed by the victims, the marginalized, the precarious in our midst."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Twenty Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6X-D8UUyGs)
[Source of Paul Nuechterlein, N.T. Wright and Anthony Bartlett quotes, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/proper21c/]
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