Reflection on Luke 16:19-31

It is always the last sentence in the periscope that catches me unawares:

  "if they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuade if someone should rise from the dead."

It reminds me of many years ago when I was deeply embedded in science fiction. I got a whole box of sci-fi books from a guy I was dating, and one has remained with me always as to this very issue.

You see, the book was an anthology of stories written on the basic premise that Jesus had returned and how that might play out. What of course became significant, is that for one reason or another, plenty of people, most in fact, found reason to distrust the "obvious" proofs of Jesus' return, preferring to believe in media manipulation, sleight of hand, and other parlor tricks to "explain" the so-called Messiah.

I never forgot the book, though the individual stories were less memorable. When, years later I sought the book, I realized I had sold it with hundreds of others. I looked for it online at various old book stores across the country, but it was impossible with neither a title nor anthology "author".

So, in some sense, Luke is prescient of this fact more than two thousand years ago. Perhaps he assumed that human nature would not change much over time. I guess he is right.

My priest suggests that Lazarus's are around us all the time, in our families, in our neighbors, in our friends and of course in the faces of all those others in the world. We must seek them, and help them, lest we end up as the rich man who went to Hell and was reminded that he lived well in life and now comes the payment. We do not wish to suffer this fate.

Wealth was not the reason Father intoned, rather it was his indifference to the needs of others that did the rich man in. I always note that even now, as the rich man begs for mercy, his method involves treating Lazarus as the "servant" he still thinks of him as. He tells Abraham to "send Lazarus", as if he still has the right to command the actions of others. He has learned, sadly, nothing.

It is not the money, but what we choose to do with it. The parable does not suggest that we are doomed if we have wealth, nor that we must use most or all of it for the benefit of others. But it does suggest that we better be aware of those around us, and to not neglect the poor and needy as we go about our day. We must seek and realize the Lazarus's among us and reach out with compassion each and every time we encounter them.

It does not mean that we must every time give of our earthly means, but that we must recognize our brothers and sisters and acknowledge their equality, and dignity. We must honor them as we would the most benign and lovable queen. We must share as they require of us to do, for this brings forth the true paradox.

We see in the poor, the face of Christ as he instructed us in Matthew 25, while paradoxically we act as the hands,  and feet of Christ in the ministering to his children. We in fact in doing for the others, do it for ourselves.