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19 "There once was a rich man, expensively dressed in the latest fashions, wasting his days in conspicuous consumption.20 A poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, had been dumped on his doorstep. 21 All he lived for was to get a meal from scraps off the rich man's table. His best friends were the dogs who came and licked his sores. 22 "Then he died, this poor man, and was taken up by the angels to the lap of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In hell and in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his lap. 24 He called out, 'Father Abraham, mercy! Have mercy! Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue. I'm in agony in this fire.' 25 "But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that in your lifetime you got the good things and Lazarus the bad things. It's not like that here. Here he's consoled and you're tormented. 26 Besides, in all these matters there is a huge chasm set between us so that no one can go from us to you even if he wanted to, nor can anyone cross over from you to us.' 27 "The rich man said, 'Then let me ask you, Father: Send him to the house of my father 28 where I have five brothers, so he can tell them the score and warn them so they won't end up here in this place of torment.' 29 "Abraham answered, 'They have Moses and the Prophets to tell them the score. Let them listen to them.' 30 "'I know, Father Abraham,' he said, 'but they're not listening. If someone came back to them from the dead, they would change their ways.' 31 "Abraham replied, 'If they won't listen to Moses and the Prophets, they're not going to be convinced by someone who rises from the dead.'" (Luke 16:19-31 NRSV)
While we were still living in Kingsville, making it sometime before 1965, one of my Dad's younger cousin, who was an Air Force airman serving in Italy, died in a Jeep accident. It hit the Valverde famly hard. This young man was the son of the oldest of the Valverde brothers, of which my grandfather was a part. As we left Kingsville and started down the highway to McAllen, my thoughts were on death. I was young enough to know it was something, but what exactly I did not know. I also suspected it was pretty final, given the sobbing and crying it brought with it. We were driving in the family car, a blue 1955 Chevrolet BelAir and I remember seeing part of the dash was a round decor and I began to wonder if a machine could be invented to bring departed souls, okay I didn't know that word at the time, but if a dead person could come inside that machine and be spun around and around, maybe, just maybe, it would be made to come alive again. And this passage addresses the reallity of death as shared by Jesus.
I sometimes think the Bible as a book, our book, should come with a warning: "If truth scares you or confronts you, put the book down and walk away. Anything that you perceive to be political and opposed to your beliefs may just be God's way ot asking you to think twice about where you are and just who you are." Sadly, in reality, many do not even pick up the Bible because of that fear, or rely on others to teach them about what they think the Bible should be about. Sigh.
This is a brutally honest parable, like all parables that Jesus shared, to get us to truly and honestly examine ourselves; after these parables were about life and death with Jesus wanting all of us to chose life. He begins with speaking about a rich man whose name Jesus does not share. It's like the warning we used to see in the movies when they started: "The events are real. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Any similiarities between the characters in this parable and people in real life are coincidental." The temptation is to insert a real person's name in the slot where the rich man's name should go; and depending on your era it would have been Rockefeller, Astor, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Bezos, Musk, Jobs, etc. But we won't insert a real name here today.
We have a brief description of what he was like; dressed nicely in the latest and greatest fashions, and his days were classified as "consipicuous consumption." Heard enough? Jesus then introduces us to a poor name whose name we do have, Lazarus. Lazarus—lies at the gate. Not just poor, but destitute. Not just hungry, but covered with sores. So desperate that he would gladly eat the scraps that fell from the rich man's table, yet even this small mercy is denied him. In the very classic Communion ritual, we heard, "We are not worthy to eat the crumbs off thy table." Hmm.
The rich man isn't portrayed as particularly evil—just oblivious. He doesn't actively harm Lazarus; he simply doesn't see him. This may be the most chilling detail of all. The greatest sin isn't always active cruelty but practiced blindness to the suffering right outside our gate.
Death brings the ultimate plot twist, The Great Reversal, as it were. Lazarus, carried by angels to Abraham's side, finds himself in comfort and honor. The rich man, in Hades, experiences torment and discovers that the beggar he ignored is now the one looking down on him.
But here's what makes this more than just a revenge fantasy: even in torment, the rich man's mindset hasn't changed. He still expects Lazarus to serve him—first to bring water, then to run messages to his family. Even in hell, he can't see Lazarus as an equal human being deserving of dignity. The heat makes this rich man so thirsty that he asks something he would not have done while alive; "Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue. I'm in agony in this fire." Ouch. The idea this rich man so repulsed by the health state of this poor man, with sores licked by dogs, would never allow Lazarus to touch him, let alone dip his finger in cool water to touch his tongue!
The chasm that separates them in the afterlife isn't newly created—it's simply the eternal manifestation of the chasm the rich man created during his lifetime through his indifference to suffering. For me, it shows the separation that comes at our death. Those who loved, lived, and died in the Lord, get to go to Abraham's bosom; Jesus' way of saying Heaven. Those who chose to love themselves, and a hand selected few, will find themselves separate from God. And Jesus does get a brief graphic; it's hot, people are not dead but they're thirsty! The good will be consoled for their earthly suffering, and those who lived in comfort will be tormented like they did to others. And there is no crossing from here to there.
When the rich man pleads for someone to warn his brothers, Abraham's response cuts to the heart: "They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them." The rich man protests that resurrection would surely convince them, but Abraham delivers the story's most sobering line: "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."
This isn't primarily a story about the afterlife—it's a story about the present life. We already have everything we need to know about how God wants us to treat the poor, the marginalized, the suffering. Scripture is filled with commands to care for the vulnerable, warnings about the dangers of wealth, and calls to justice.
The problem isn't lack of information; it's lack of transformation. We don't need more proof—we need more obedience to what we already know.
Every day we encounter our own version of Lazarus at our gate. Perhaps it's the homeless person we step around on our way to grab coffee. Maybe it's the single parent struggling to make ends meet in our neighborhood. It could be the refugee family in our community, or the elderly person in our church who sits alone.
The question Jesus poses through this parable isn't whether we're rich or poor in absolute terms—it's whether we have enough to help but choose not to see. It's whether we've become so comfortable with inequality that we consider it normal, natural, even necessary.
The rich man's sin wasn't having wealth; it was having wealth without compassion, abundance without awareness, comfort without concern for those literally dying at his doorstep.
This parable calls us to examine not just our bank accounts but our attention—what we notice and what we ignore, whom we see and whom we step over, whose suffering moves us and whose pain we've learned to tune out.
Jesus is warning us that the way we treat the vulnerable in this life reveals the true condition of our hearts and determines our eternal destiny. There's no neutral ground when it comes to justice and mercy. Our indifference is a choice, and it's a choice that God takes personally.
The good news hidden in this difficult story is that we still have time. We still have opportunities. We still have chances to see, to act, to care, to give. The gate is still there, but so is the choice of how we'll respond to who we find lying beside it.
PRAYER: Loving God, open our eyes to the Lazarus at our gate—help us see not just with our eyes but with our hearts, and move us from comfortable indifference to costly compassion. Let us live with our lives and actions as witnesses to Your power in the world; in Christ Jesus' strong name we pray, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: This week, identify one specific person or situation of need in your immediate circle—your neighborhood, workplace, or community—and take one concrete action to help, moving from awareness to actual assistance.
I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me.
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
