TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME – YEAR C
Commentary of Fr. Fernando Armellini
A good Sunday to all.
In chapter 16 of his gospel, Luke narrates, as in a diptych, two relative parables of Jesus about the administration of this world’s goods. The first one we heard last week was about that steward that the owner had thrown out because he had not managed well. He had been left standing and had to think about his future and the new life that awaited him: What to do? He thought about it, considered all the possible solutions, and at a certain point, he had a brilliant idea, 'I renounce all the possessions that my employees must hand over to me as administrator because I want to make them friends.’
Jesus had said it was wise not to focus on accumulating possessions but on making friends. Then he had turned to the disciples and said, 'imitate the wisdom of this steward for the time is coming when you will no longer be able to count on money that has lost its value, but only on friends if they have had the wisdom to benefit them. They will introduce them into the eternal abodes.' This is the first picture of the positive diptych, where a wise man is presented.
Today, we are presented with the negative frame of the diptych, where the foolish character appears, who does not think about planning his future; he only thinks in the present; he does not realize that life has a beginning and an end. He does not consider that one day he will not need money but friends; not having any at that time will be dramatic. Let's listen to the parable:
“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. Lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.”
Jesus put on the scene the first two characters of the parable; the first one has no name, and he is identified with an adjective, ‘a rich man,’ not the wicked rich man as in some translations of our Bibles; there is no sign that he was dishonest. Let us stick to what the parable says. We consider two categories of rich people: the good and the bad; the good ones are the ones who enjoy life, of course, but also do good things, donate money, and maybe even go to church. They usually spend fabulous sums on nonsense, but they can do whatever they want with their money, says the current morality. Then there are the evil rich, who steal and exploit.
The rich man in the parable does not belong to either category. It is only said that he had a lot of money. In the parable, there is no allusion that he was dishonest, that he stole, that he did not pay taxes, and even less that he was dissolute, an adulterer. He might even have been a practicing religious person. Let us not burden him with sins he did not do. On the other hand, we will hear Abraham talking to him and not accusing him of sin. He was rich, and this is not a sin.
In the Bible, wealth, prosperity, fortune, and abundant goods are blessings from the Lord. God gives all these goods for life. Blessed is the one who has them at his disposal. If this person were wise, think of how many friends he could make for the future. So, it depends on how these gifts of God are used. At this point, we cannot make any accusations against this wealthy man. He has a great responsibility because he has received many gifts and has to administer them according to the plans and objectives of the Lord who has blessed him. He must think well about what to do with them.
Jesus has repeatedly warned of the danger that constitutes wealth; first, people quickly become attached to it, and then they become the sucker of unrighteousness; it becomes the idol that replaces God in the heart and minds of people. And this idol defines the choices to be made in life. Let us remember the parable of the seed scattered in the field; Jesus speaks of the weeds that suffocate the sown word, prevent it from bearing fruit, and identify these weeds with the cares of the world and the seduction of wealth.
Then we remember the judgment that Jesus gave last week about goods and riches; he mentioned the wealth of unrighteousness; he called it 'mammonah - τῆς ἀδικίας' - 'tes adikias,' For in this wealth, there are always entanglements with unrighteousness. Remember what Sirach said before Jesus in chapter 27 of his book: “For the love of money many sins. Those who seek to enrich themselves always proceed without scruples.” He then employs an interesting image: it is between the joints of the stones that the peg is driven. And he asks, where is sin inserted? In buying and selling. It is an injustice that is always mixed with wealth.
This man could have managed his wealth according to the Lord's designs; he should be grateful to God for the condition in which he came to find himself. How did this man dress? He wore clothes of purple and excellent linen. And here it appears that this man immediately begins to stray in managing goods. The red-violet color is obtained from the secretion of a mollusk, the famous 'nacre' or 'silk of the sea' ('pinna nobilis'). In imperial times, few people could afford purple clothes; it symbolized power and prestige. Recall that the purple produced constituted the wealth of Tyre and Sidon.
And he wore 'byssus.' It is not linen but a kind of marine silk obtained from the filaments (or sea silk) and from the 'pinna nobilis,' a mollusk abundant in the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore, according to current morals, this man is not doing anything wrong; he is spending his money, happy he can afford costly designer clothes. But does Jesus think like today's morals? Can the use of goods be employed in this way? This man is undoubtedly full of goods, rich in abundance. How we dress is important because it indicates how we want to appear in the eyes of others and how we like to be seen and considered.
There is a term that appears in the New Testament 'ὀφθαλμοδουλία' - 'ophthalmodulía' means the worship of looks. Some live in the worship of looks directed at them; they live in the complacency of looks, and if they do not feel admired and contemplated, they become depressed. That's what designer clothes are to attract attention. This master does not spend to be someone but to appear; his goal is not to grow in humanity; he doesn't even think about it, and maybe he doesn't even know what it means to grow in humanity; he only cares about attracting attention.
In the Bible, the dress is often used as a metaphor. Psalm 73 says that the wicked have his garment: violence and pride; he boasts about his arrogance as when we hear shout at certain politicians in our days when they boast of what they should be ashamed of spending insane sums of money. They boast of their violence and pride in building weapons that could destroy the world. The Bible asks what the garment of the righteous should be: righteousness, justice.
We often find this metaphor in the New Testament; in the first letter to Timothy, women are advised how to dress: "Not with fancy hair, or with gold and pearls, or with luxurious apparel, but with good works..." (1 Tim 2:9) as women who honor God. Also, Peter's first letter on his advice about clothing: 'Your adornment must not be outward, braided hair, golden necklaces, a show of apparel, but a meek and peaceable heart.' Paul sums up this subject; several times he speaks of it, saying, “You must be clothed with Christ” and that whoever sees you should discover the beauty of the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This is the mistake this man has made; he has focused on the temporary, clothed himself in a garment that wears out; he has spent his possessions on a garment that moths will devour. Moths do not corrupt the garment offered by Jesus of Nazareth.
Beyond the metaphor, let us ask ourselves, What kind of clothes should we wear? What kind of looks do we want to attract? Who do we want to please? How do we invest in the gifts received from the Lord? What kind of beauty do we want to show off? Outward beauty? Underneath the purple and this man's byssus, what is there? Nothing. Jesus has described the outside, the garment; now he tells us what this garment is underneath:
"He dinned sumptuously every day." This is all under the purple and byssus: a stomach that gorges itself with food; there is nothing else. Under this man's dress, the only thing that unites him with the prehuman is the idea that for him to live is identified with participating in banquets; he doesn't seem to have anything else on his mind. The second character is a poor man, and we are told his name is Lazarus.
In no other parable does Jesus put the name of the characters, only here. He says the poor man's name was 'Eliezer,' which in Hebrew means 'God is my help.' It means 'God is on my side.' It doesn't say that God is on the rich man's side, 'he is on my side,' on the side of the poor. Ordinarily, we know the rich's names, not the poor. In the mouth of Jesus, on the other hand, the rich man's name does not appear; he has no name, and to have no name in the culture of the time meant to be nobody.
Let's remember what happened in the Roman empire when someone fell in disgrace for his misdeeds; the senate decreed the 'damnatio memoriae;' his name was erased from all inscriptions, from all public monuments; his face would be erased on the coins. To erase the name was as if he had never existed. Here is this rich man who has no name; it is the poor man who has a name for God. What was he doing? He was at the rich man's gate, covered with sores, desiring to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. At that time, they did not use napkins; they used breadcrumbs that, after wiping themselves, they threw under the table; it was for the dogs. And the dogs came to lick the poor man's sores. The detail of the dogs is significant because, in the parable, they are the only ones who keep the poor man company in this world.
These two characters represent the reality of our world; it is the reality that also existed at the time of Jesus. The separation between the rich and the Lazarus. Does God agree that the good things he has prepared for all his sons and daughters are in the hands of a few, and the immense majority are left without what is necessary? We all know the statistics about inequalities in the world. They are dramatic data; the twelve richest persons in the world, or perhaps only eleven, have more wealth than the poorest half of humanity. Let's think that 10% of humankind owns 90% of the assets; what is left for 90% of humanity?
The third character has not yet appeared in the parable: God. We are interested in knowing whether he agrees that his goods are administered this way, accumulated in the hands of some while others are in misery. God will not appear in the parable, but his opinion is put in Abraham's mouth. Let us now hear what happens to poor Lazarus:
"When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.”
Why does Jesus place Lazarus in paradise? According to the moralistic interpretation of the past, Lazarus would be the prototype of the good, virtuous person who patiently endures injustice, which is why God rewards him with paradise. This we have invented; there is nothing of this in the parable. Then, there must be another reason why Jesus places Lazarus in paradise. In the parable, it is not said that he was humble and polite, that he had become poor because he had been stricken by misfortune; perhaps he squandered all his goods in gambling, and his sores could have been the consequence of diseases contracted through dissolute living...
What did he do well to be placed in paradise? In the parable, Lazarus does not say a single word; he does nothing; he doesn't move a finger or take a step. He is always sitting on earth at the rich man's gate. In heaven, he sits in the arms of Abraham. Throughout the journey, he sits in the arms of angels. About him, we don’t know if he was good, only that he was poor, and then his condition changed. The reason is not explained to us.
Let us pay attention because the interpretation of the good, patient Lazarus, rewarded with paradise, besides being erroneous, is dangerous because it may seem to be an invitation to resignation, waiting for things to change in the next world. This interpretation goes very well with the rich who never have worried too much about hell in the hereafter. They think they can have paradise in the present. Patient endurance rewarded with paradise has rightly been labeled the opium of the people.
Then why does Jesus place Lazarus in paradise? With this parable, Jesus does not want to tell us about the hereafter; he wants no epulone and Lazarus in this world. People invented this distribution of goods by people’s greed; it is not part of God's plan for the world. In the parable, Lazarus is not the representative of the good and humble person; he is the emblem of humankind deprived of the necessities of life and forgotten by those who have goods that should be given to those in need. Instead, it is squandered on absurdities and follies. Gandhi said it very well: 'The earth provides what is necessary to satisfy the needs of every person, but not every person’s greed.’ Then why does Jesus place him in paradise? Just to tell us that God is on the side of the poor who are not given what the Lord has prepared for them.
Throughout the Bible, this truth is repeated like a refrain. Remember Psalm 140: 'The Lord pleads the cause of the poor, the right of the needy.’ And Psalm 68: 'God is the father of orphans, the defender of widows.' It is also beautiful what James says in his letter in chapter 2; he speaks to those Christian communities that show sympathy and give preference to the rich, and he says to this community, 'Has not God chosen the poor?’ Let us now hear where the rich man ended up:
“The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out...."
The time comes when both gluttony and suffering end; our life is not so long and ends for all. What is the danger that Jesus wants to warn us about? We don't consider the truth that our life is ending; if we don't consider it, we will manage it poorly. St. Augustine used to say that when a child is born, everybody around him makes their predictions: ‘Will he be rich - will he be handsome - intelligent - will he be fortunate? Nobody remembers the only certain truth, that he will die.’ Wealth can stun us to the point of taking away the thought of death.
That's what happened to that farmer who made all his plans as if his life would never end, and instead, he was asked that very night. Let us observe the rich man in the parable; he is leaning over the table, convinced that this banquet will go on forever, and does not think about his future; therefore, he is not interested at all in the friends he could make, which could be helpful to him in the future. Where did this rich man end up? In the place of the dead, among the torments. The underworld is not hell, and Jesus never spoke of it. The underworld is where everyone ends up when they conclude their life in this world, and even Jesus went down to the underworld.
"Where he was in torment.” This is the only time Jesus speaks of torments, but we are in a parable. The Greek text reads 'ὑπάρχων ἐν βασάνοις - hyparkon en basanois. Βασάνοις comes from βάσανος - 'básanos.’ The básanos is a black, silicon-based stone used as ‘a touchstone’ to test the purity of precious metals. Imagine the rich man in the underworld being assaulted with básanos. And we already said that he didn't do anything wrong, didn't steal, was just rich because he was clever and lucky. He had many possessions and enjoyed them; why are they stoning him there in the underworld and making him suffer?
These are images created by the vibrant imagination of the Orientals. If anyone wants to learn something about them, he has only to read the book of Enoch, which was well known at the time of Jesus; there, they have described in detail the torments that the wicked must suffer in the underworld. I assure you that Dante's hell is a vacation spot in comparison. The rabbis used these colorful images because they were convinced that with these threats, they could bring people back to life, and there were many stories like the one told by Jesus, where the wicked always ended badly.
These picturesque and dramatic details serve Jesus only to keep the listener's attention. Therefore, it is entirely misleading to consider them as information about the pains of hell of which, I repeat, Jesus never spoke. On the other hand, if we take these details as information, we must also consider chronicling the possibility that the condemned can talk with the saints in paradise. And then, in a little while, we will see Abraham's sinister figure when he denies a drop of water to this poor rich man suffering from thirst.
What does the rich man do in that place? He lifts his eyes and sees Abraham and Lazarus in his arms from afar. At last, he lifts his eyes from the table and sees the poor man he should have seen before when he was at his door, and he did not. He did not let himself be saved by Lazarus, by the poor man, for it is the poor that saves you; he needs those good things that God has put in your hands. If you share them, you create love, and you make friends for the future life; if, instead, you do not see the poor, you do not let yourself be saved, and you keep your goods, which at a given moment are requisitioned from you, and you are left with nothing. The poor save you from the madness of attachment to wealth.
We have thus arrived at the most important part of the parable, which is the dialogue between Abraham and the rich man, which occupies two-thirds of the narrative. And Abraham's words reflect the thought of God. Let us listen:
"‘Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’ Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’”
What is this impassable gulf that separates the abyss between life and death? It is the abyss that the rich man created and maintained throughout his life. It was the abyss before the eyes of Jesus and is before our eyes today. Let us think of the gulf separating the rich from the poor, the rich nations from the developing nations, the gulf between those who have knowledge and employ it for their interest and those who are ignorant. It is the abyss of those who can satisfy all their vanities by spending enormous sums on cosmetic surgery, in luxury, in treatments costing tens of thousands of dollars.
And on the other hand, some lack the essential medicines for life. The gulf between those who have many houses and those who have no roof over their heads for shelter. The gulf between those who scandalously squander the resources of creation and those who have no drinking water.
Let us try to analyze all the abysses in front of our eyes. Jesus does not want to tell us that the rich man will be punished with the pains of hell in the hereafter; let us not turn the parable into a chronicle. He wants to tell us that the abyss must be filled now... in the hereafter, it is too late. The person's destiny is at stake in this unique and unrepeatable life. It is the behavior here that has eternal consequences. Therefore, it is nothing wrong if you have many goods at your disposal; this is indeed a great fortune. The problem is whether you remain rich and do not become poor by giving all your goods to the needy. If something stays in your hand, it's taken away from you at the customs, and you've lost the opportunity forever to transform these goods into love, which is what remains.
We know that wealth has an irresistible force of seduction, and we ask ourselves if there is a remedy that saves us from this seduction of wealth. Abraham indicates it in what follows in the parable:
"He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’ He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’”
The rich glutton's concern for the salvation of his brethren is touching. In the parable, he appears even better than Abraham, who denies him a drop of water. Who are these five brothers ruining their lives and using their goods like their elder brother? The number five is symbolic; it represents the people of Israel and also the members of the Christian communities who, like all, are tempted to bind their hearts not to God but to wealth, to the goods of this world, and do not give them up to the brethren, they bind their hearts to these goods.
How can they be delivered from this seduction of wealth? A miracle is required. Jesus also said, “It is easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than to get a rich man into the logic of the kingdom of God.” Now the rich glutton has a proposal and repeats it insistently because he is convinced that it is the right one; he repeats it twice: he begs Abraham to work miracles, that is, to send a message from beyond the grave, resurrecting a dead person, a vision, an apparition, something prodigious. Abraham could do it and revive a deceased person; why doesn't he do it? He says that because it would be useless, the attachment to wealth is stronger than the resurrection of a dead man. Even if a dead man is resurrected, he cannot detach the heart of man from attachment to wealth. Something else is required, and he says it: the only force capable of liberating the heart of the rich man from attachment to wealth is the word of God: Moses and the prophets.
This word has in itself an irresistible divine force, and when it has penetrated the heart of people, it no longer leaves them alone; it disturbs them until it makes them understand that if they do not detach their hearts from possessions and do not give them to the needy, they renounce love; that is, they renounce being a person. This prodigy only the word of God can do.
I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.
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