[In the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man,] here is of course a divine reversal, as there often is in Jesus’s Gospels. Now it’s the rich man who is in torment, for his sins.
At heart, this parable is about rejection. Jesus uses it to condemn some religious leaders for rejecting certain outcasts, just like the rich man rejected Lazarus. And so, Jesus implies, those who reject will be rejected not only by the people, but by God. Ultimately, some of these leaders will also reject Jesus. And there is of course a connection: rejection of outcasts and rejection of Jesus.
Unlike many Gospel parables and images—the mustard seed growing into a tree, the shepherd losing a sheep, the vine and the branches--this one, for most of us, needs very little by way of explanation. There are poor people lying outside our doorways. It’s easy to see what Jesus wants. I don’t need to underline it any further.
But, more broadly, we can ask: who are the outcasts today? Who are the rejected? For me, that’s easy to see: in society is the poor, the homeless, the refugee. [On] the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, [we acknowledge] Lazarus at our borders and in refugee camps. In the church, it is LGBTQ people, among others.
Jesus’s point is that we should be especially attentive to the needs of those, who like Lazarus, sit both literally and figuratively outside our doors, and outside the doors of our church, waiting for some comfort. And if we don’t we’ll be looking for comfort in the not-too-distant future.
--Fr. James Martin,
Facebook, September 25, 2022
Image source: Dives and Lazarus, Flemish School, Belgium, adapted from a 1554 engraving by Heinrich Aldegrever (early 17th century, oil on panel), https://feast-and-fast.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/labels/dives-lazarus
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