28 September 2025 – 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Am 6:1-7; 1 Tim 6:11-16; Lk 16:19-31
Homily
Most of Jesus' parables are teachings about God, in which He wants to show who His Father is, with moral teaching being somewhat secondary. But other parables, such as the one we have in today's Gospel, essentially contain a moral teaching. And the technique of the parable is to lead the listeners to identify with a character and to draw all the consequences or teachings from this identification. This is the case with the parable we have just heard, that of poor Lazarus and the rich man. God is not even mentioned in it.
Which character are we led to identify with in this story? Certainly not the rich man! Nor Abraham. Could it be poor Lazarus? No. The most important character, or rather characters, in this parable are the five brothers of the rich man, of whom it is said: ‘They have Moses and the prophets.’ And these five brothers still here on earth are all of us.
Let us review the details of this parable. There was a rich man and a poor man. It does not say whether he was a good or a bad rich man and a good or a bad poor man. No. The Gospel simply tells us of a well-dressed rich man who feasts sumptuously, and a poor man covered with sores who has nothing to eat. The poor man would have liked to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, but it does not say that he asked for them or that he was refused. These two men simply live side by side and ignore each other, without malice or jealousy. The only hint of intimacy is in the dog that comes to lick the poor man's sores! (This reminds me of a remark made by an American politician a few years ago: ‘If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog!’ “ -- Washington could easily be replaced by any other political capital).
The rich man has no name. He represents all those who have allowed themselves to be alienated by their possessions. The poor man has a name whose etymology is 'el 'Azar, which means 'God helps”. This is undoubtedly somewhat ironic, since God has hardly helped him here on earth. When both arrive on the other side, or ‘in Abraham's bosom’ (there is no mention of heaven, since Jesus, speaking to the Pharisees, uses their categories), the roles are reversed. The poor man, who was lying on the ground, is carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom, that is, to Paradise; and the rich man, who here on earth reclined on high couches, is buried. He has become so attached to the realities of this world that he remains chained to them after his death.
This rich man was not evil, but simply unaware throughout his life. He is now suffering terribly and, as he has a good heart, he would like to spare his brothers the same fate and would like Abraham to send Lazarus to them to rouse them from their torpor. Abraham replies: "It is useless. They are unaware. They have Moses, that is, the Law and the Prophets. If they do not listen to them, they will not listen to someone who rises from the dead either."
As I said at the beginning, these five brothers of the rich man are us. And we have not only Moses and the Prophets, but also the message of Jesus and his Gospel. While there are undoubtedly very few of us who live in such luxury as the rich man in the parable, there are also very few who live in such poverty as Lazarus. But the fact remains that today, as in Jesus' time, and perhaps even more so, there is a gap between the rich and the poor. For many years now, especially since the rapid advance of neoliberal economics on a global scale, this gap has been widening, both within and between countries. According to information from the World Bank, there are currently more than a billion people living below the absolute poverty line (with less than a dollar a day). In our country, very few of us, I believe, belong to either the richest or the poorest; but we all belong to one of the rich countries, while the vast majority of the poor are found in Asia or Africa.
Are we unaware, like the rich man in today's Gospel, or are we aware of all the inequalities in which we live and from which we undoubtedly benefit? Are we doing anything to remedy this? John Paul II, speaking at the United Nations in October 1979, referred to this parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus and concluded that it was ‘urgent to translate it into economic and political terms, and in terms of human rights, of relations between the first, second and third worlds’. Let us ask ourselves what we are doing and what we can do to translate it into our everyday lives.
Armand Veilleux