The Stuff of Our Lives

26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Amos 6, 1a, 4-7 / 1 Tim 6, 11-16 / Lk 16, 19-31

The parable Jesus tells us is a study in contrasts.  There’s the rich man who dresses in purple and fine linen.  His whole life yells “I live in luxury and I want you to know it.”  He plans his pleasures and parties carefully.  But notice this:  in the parable he has no name.  He’s nameless.  Living for his own pleasure makes him a nobody.  There’s no substance to him – no deeper identity.  And then there’s Lazarus – a beggar.  He’s a man without the luxuries of life – without all the things and stuff of the rich man.  The dogs licking his sores is not a sentimental touch.  Being licked by a dog rendered you religiously impure.  He couldn’t join with others to pray in the synagogue.  But he has a name; he’s got substance to him.  The name “Lazarus” is Greek for the Hebrew name “Eliezer” which means God is my help.

How do these two relate to one another?  Clearly they don’t – at all.  There’s a clear chasm between the two.  But notice this:  the rich man is not portrayed as an exploiter of Lazarus.  He doesn’t harm him.  Nor is he seen as an un-religious man.  He could very well be an observant Jew regularly found at synagogue services.  How the parable does portray him is simply this:  he enjoyed his riches and ignored the poor man.  Lazarus was stretched out at his door – in front of his eyes, but he did not see him.  Lazarus was really there, but the rich man excluded him from his life.  The rich man chose to be indifferent.  He chose to keep company with his pleasures and parties – to keep company with his things and stuff.  He chose to exclude Lazarus and Lazarus’ suffering from his real concern.  And in the parable we see graphically how God reacts to this chosen behavior.

It is tempting to understand this parable in a partisan, political way.  Jesus is for the poor and against the rich.  To be a real disciple of Jesus you shouldn’t be rich.  Being poor makes you more pleasing to God.  Really good Christians stay at second-class hotels.  If they stay at the Ritz, they get tarnished.   But all that misses the point being made in the parable; and it misunderstands the tragedy being acted out in it.

For Jesus there is a clear connection between being his disciple and the way we own and use possessions.  What the parable wants to do is to get us thinking about what is my real, lived relationship to the things I have and possess.  The way we regard owning things and the value we attach to possessions have everything to do with the way we think about ourselves and about other people in our lives.  Do I value myself in terms of what I have?  Is my success given in what I have?  And then, do I like things more than people?  Do I rely on them more than people?  Is stuff more important, more attractive to me than people?

We can think about how we would answer those questions – how we would like to think of ourselves answering them.  But for Jesus our real answer is given in how we actually respond to human need and suffering.  If we choose to live at a distance from the suffering of others – choose to live blind to their needs, then we have already given our answers.

But notice this.  The parable does present us with a tragedy – a human tragedy.  And the end of the parable shows us how Jesus understands this tragedy.  He thinks our tears should be kept for the rich man.  He is the tragic figure.  He had the opportunity to live a fully human life, and he chose to live the little life – the meager life of stuff and things.  He made a tragedy of his life.  He made himself a nobody.

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ