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And the rich man cried, "Father Abraham!"
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. |
Today's parable might touch our hearts but, perhaps, not speak into our own personal lives. After all, how many of us feast every day in a luxurious setting aloof from the world behind splendid gates while the starving homeless petition us with outstretched hands? Without question, each of us is accountable to God in our treatment of the poor:
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.... and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are
within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied .... (Deut 14:29) |
In most English translations of the Bible, this passage begins with the section heading, "The Rich Man and Lazarus" (added in our own time by publishers or translation committees). It tells us in advance who the primary protagonists are. But may I propose an alternate heading: "The Two Rich Men." This shift in focus will open the parable to us perhaps as Jesus intended.
First, we have our nameless gentleman feasting sumptuously every day. He is attired in costly purple, the color of royal raiment. Imposing gates set off his personal courtyard from the world around him. He is virtually a king in his own kingdom.
The details of the story suggest an urban setting. Rich and sophisticated men eschewed villages. The world of wealth, power, and influence was a city world. Moreover, the culinary abundance needed to supply his sumptuous table daily (before the age of refrigeration) required access to well-stocked markets every day. His purple raiment was also not to be found in uninhabited regions. He is a city man.
The other rich man in the parable was also a man of the city .... we might say of the city. He is Abraham — Abram, son of Terah, from Ur of the Chaldees.
The Septuagint (the Bible from which Jesus and His Disciples quoted) gives Abram's homeland as Χαλδιων (Chaldaion), synonymous with Babylon. We will not debate, alongside modern archaeologists or Biblical scholars, exactly where Ur was located, (or even if it were the name of a city). We need only understand what it signified to the first-century mind.
Ur of the Chaldees was a glittering city overflowing with every kind of luxury:
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The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen,
and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and spices, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and goats, and horses, and chariots, and slaves (bodies), and souls of men. Hippolytus of Rome (Christ and Anti-Christ, 41) |
Yet, God called Abram away from this place, away from Babylon, that he might dwell with his wife Sarai in wilderness after wilderness. For in the Sacred Scriptures there are two kingdoms only: the Kingdom of this World, with its luxuries, or the Kingdom of God, which in the Holy Scriptures equates to the wilderness.
The word for wilderness, ερη'μος (erymos) signifies "apart from the habitations of men," "a solitary place." The erymos is where St. John the Forerunner preached (Mk 1:3, Mt 3:1). It is where the Lord Jesus sought solitary communion with His Father and where He encountered the evil one (Mk 1:12), who
| showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. (Mt 4:8) |
| "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve." |
| "You cannot serve God and mammon." (Mt 6:24) |
What can we say of the holy ones in Sacred Scriptures? They are invariably called into the erymos, the wilderness:
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Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, "Thus says the Lord God
of Israel: 'Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness'" [erymos in the Septuagint]. |
We should pause to notice that the word erymos is found nearly seventy times in the Books of Exodus and Numbers — far more frequently than in any other book of Scripture. It is the holy place where one is liberated from the corruptions of luxury (Babylon and Egypt) attaining union with God. We recall that Jesus constantly sought uninhabited places, alone, where He might pray to His Father.
Yes, Jonah was called to a city (Nineveh) even as he called himself to a wilderness — to the furthest edge of the earth in Tarshish. But prophets like Jonah and Jeremiah and Isaiah are called to cities, for it is the city that must be admonished by God.
We know how the story ends. The destination for the Kingdom of the World is to be stripped of all that the worldly person desired and sought and became and then to be cast into torment and suffering. Let us return to Hippolytus' narrative on Babylon:
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And the fruits that your soul lusted after are departed from you, and all things which
were dainty and goodly have perished from you, and you shall find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas, alas! That great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour so great riches has come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, and cried, when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like this great city? And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas! That great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her fatness! for in one hour is she made desolate. Hippolytus of Rome (Christ and Anti-Christ, 41) |
By contrast, according to Hippolytus, the end point for the one who sought the wilderness of God is God. Our parable in Luke puts a finer point on it. When the righteous die, according to the Lord Jesus, they reside in comfort and consolation, whose name is the Bosom of Abraham. In fact, this parable in St. Luke's Gospel is the only place in our canon of Scripture where the Bosom of Abraham is mentioned. The only other place in the writings of the Early Church is Hippolytus:
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a region of light, in which the just have dwelt from the beginning of the world;
.... enjoying the prospect of the good things they see, and rejoice in the expectation of those new enjoyments .... there is no place of toil, no burning heat, .... .... but the countenance of the fathers and of the just, which they see always, smiles upon them, while they wait for that rest and eternal new life in heaven, which is to succeed this region. This place we call The Bosom of Abraham. Hippolytus of Rome (Discourse to the Greeks on Hades, 3) |
What can we say concerning the beggar in our parable? As concerns his character we know only this: he is not of the world .... by virtue of rejection. He is a stranger to the world. And here we gain a glimpse into the economy of God. Those whom the world has rejected belong to Him by that fact. The lonely, the disconsolate, the lives of utter privation .... truly this is a wilderness whose only companion is God. And those of us who have ministered to the longtime homeless can tell you that the fabric of worldly community rapidly disintegrates as you descend into severe privation. Poverty is a solitary vocation .... however involuntary.
The rich man in the story has chosen his vocation. He has chosen for the world. When his life ends, he is stripped of every worldly comfort and enters the torment of divorce from God, which is to say divorce from life. Yes, he will live forever, but in this current state his eternity would be a deathly one.
From this distance he is able to see the other rich man of the city: Abram, who renounced worldly comforts following God into the wilderness never counting the cost.
"Father Abraham!" he cries seeking recognition. And we hear faint echoes of
| "'Lord, Lord, open for us,' and He will answer and say to you, 'I do not know you ...'" (Lu 13:25) |
| "Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, ...." (Lu 16:25) |
The question is put to us. How many of us will turn our back on the culture (which is determined ultimately by New York and Los Angeles), however toxic it continues to become. How many of us will junk our televisions, throw away our glossy magazines, or boycott trashy movies? How many will give up a vocation of shopping, eating at sumptuous restaurants, or living in gated communities aloof from the poor? Without question, all these things have formed us .... and form our children. But how many of us will let it go?
In his landmark work, The City of God (fifth century), St. Augustine famously singles out Babylon as the City of Man and Jerusalem as the City of God:
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Babylon [from Babel] is interpreted confusion, Jerusalem vision of peace.
... They are mingled, and from the very beginning of mankind mingled they run on unto the end of the world. ... Two loves make up these two cities: love of God makes Jerusalem, love of the world makes Babylon. |
Let us go to the place that is in secret as the Son of God did. Let us seek our Father there, and in secret He will find us (Mt 6:18). He awaits us, for this is His Kingdom.
He will bless us and keep us and show us the way through this poisonous world to a place of comfort and consolation, which is Him. Only Him.
In our earliest teachings from the Apostles we read,
| Two ways there are. Life and death. (Didache, 1) |