If you want to know Jesus, you need to know that He is just.
Read chapter 16 of the gospel according to Saint Luke here.
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is in many ways a reverse image of the parable of the prodigal son and the parable of the good samaritan.
While the good samaritan responds with love to the needs of his neighbor, the rich man is willfully blind to the needs of Lazarus. Jesus describes the rich man’s lack of compassion in stark terms. Lazarus would be happy with the scraps that fall from the rich man’s table, but the rich man will not share even that with him. Dogs come and lick Lazarus’ sores, but the rich man doesn’t see this or chooses not to see it. The rich man is utterly lacking in love for this neighbor.
Nor does the rich man ever come to repentance. When misfortune befalls the prodigal son, he realizes that he has grievously sinned and seeks out his father’s forgiveness. But no harm ever seems to afflict the rich man; he dies in his earthly wealth. The prodigal son is welcomed to his father’s banquet after he repents; but the rich man, dying in his sin, is taken to a place of eternal torment.
(Note that Jesus refers to money as “dishonest wealth” throughout Luke 16 – not because everyone who makes money does so through deception, but because earthly money has no value in heaven. Money, like all earthly goods, is a gift from God to be used for building up the kingdom of God. Money deceives us when we hoard it for ourselves, when we give it a value it does not have.)
When we consider the stories of the prodigal son and the rich man in parallel, we can see that the misfortunes that struck the prodigal son were really a blessing. It took the shock of losing his money and being reduced to feeding the pigs to understand the gravity of his sin and seek his father’s forgiveness. It would be wonderful if we recognized our sins right away, but the sad truth is that we can easily become complacent with our sinful lives, and only a shock to our system jolts us out of this complacency. We won’t know all the reasons for our suffering in this life. But we can trust that our sufferings are part of God’s plan for our salvation and that in some instances suffering is necessary to jolt us out of the complacency of our sins.
The rich man may have benefitted from a little misfortune, but that is not to excuse his plain refusal to see Lazarus and share his goods with him. Jesus tells us that the two great commandments are to love God and love our neighbor. We cannot say we love God if we do not love our neighbor, and we cannot say we love our neighbor if we do not love God. By refusing to help Lazarus, the rich man chooses to separate himself from God. The rich man has ample time on earth to amend his ways. God sends Moses and the prophets to warn him, and in these later days, He sends His only begotten Son to deliver to us the message of repentance and conversion, love and mercy. The rich man refuses to heed these warnings, and chooses to eternally separate himself from Lazarus and from God. And so God honors his request.
God is perfectly merciful and perfectly just. It would be unjust for Him to treat Lazarus and the rich man the same way. He gives the rich man every opportunity to repent. He will always welcome a repentant sinner. He will not force anyone to come to the heavenly feast. We can accept His mercy and come to the feast. Or we can dine alone, surrounded by our earthly wealth, until it decays and we are utterly alone.
“For as in the theatres, when it grows towards evening, and the spectators depart, then going out, and laying aside their dresses, they who seemed kings and generals are seen as they really are, the sons of gardeners and fig-sellers. So also when death comes, and the spectacle is over, and all the masks of poverty and riches are put off, by their works alone are men judged, which are truly rich, which poor, which are worthy of honor, which of dishonor.” -Saint John Chrysostom
Image: Detail from Illustration of Lazarus at the Rich Man’s Gate by Fyodor Bronnikov (downloaded from Wikipedia Commons).
Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day for the salvation of souls.
