NOTES for Luk 16:19-31

The Gospel says little about what "life after life" is like, and most likely this silence is due to the fact that the road to heaven passes over the earth, where we are to live according to our calling. But here before us is a story that slightly opens the mysterious veil. Even here, however, the focus of our attention is not the details of existence beyond the grave, which are mentioned briefly, but the meaning of the story as applied to our life.

And so we see how a man who thoughtlessly lived for his own pleasure ends up in hell because he has already received everything in earthly life. One might ask, what wrong did he do? True, he did not feed Lazarus, who was lying by the house like a filthy homeless man, but after all, one cannot feed everyone. Nothing else bad is said about this rich man; it is not mentioned that he robbed or murdered anyone. Why, then, did he end up in hell?

It must not be "for what," but "why": not because he enjoyed earthly pleasures, but because they blocked God from his sight. Just as the same substances can, depending on dosage and proportions, be either medicine or poison, so the gifts the Lord created to satisfy our needs can become destructive if because of them we stop noticing the Creator.

And this story also contains an important prophecy: if people do not listen to well-known prophetic words, they will not believe even the One who rises from the dead. To this day, it is difficult for those who hope for endless life amid earthly luxury to believe the Risen One. But when He descended into hell, He overcame the great chasm that until then could not be crossed.

Reflecting on today's text, one can notice one of its features. The rich man's name is not given. Lazarus's name, by contrast, is given. One may think, what is so special about that? But if we try to recall other parables and stories in the Gospel, it becomes clear that the names of bad people are almost nowhere mentioned, with those rare exceptions when not mentioning them is impossible, as in the case of Judas, Caiaphas, and Pontius Pilate, because this is factual testimony to historical authenticity. This differs from the Old Testament. If one were to sketch, somewhat conditionally, two tables for the Old and New Testaments, each with two columns, names of evil people and names of good people, then in the first case these columns would, perhaps, be comparable in length, also with some qualification, simply as a trend. But in the case of the New Testament... It seems that the column of good names would be much longer than that of evil names. Not, of course, because there was much less evil. But this seems to be a sign of the new theology of the New Testament. Several reasons can be given for this.

A name is something very important for a Christian. Why? For some, because of superstition; someone sees in a name some sacred meaning; we often hear from our contemporaries that by giving your child a name you influence his destiny. But superstitions leave no room for true faith, and true faith lies in the very important circumstance that, by assigning Adam the right to give names to the things He had created, the Lord called the human being to participate in His Creation. To give a name means to share creativity in the world with God; a name serves, as it were, as an icon of Synergy.

Why does a person change his name when being tonsured a monk? There is an opinion that this is done in order to break completely with one's life in the world. Such an interpretation seems doubtful: life in the world, from the point of view of Orthodox doctrine, is not in any way considered something lower in relation to life in monasticism. The fact that a monk changes his name, on the contrary, testifies to the meaning of the name as an icon of co-working. And so Jesus comes and, as it were, renews that moment when Adam gave names to the animals and birds.

Such a small ratio of evil names to good ones in the Gospel draws, as it were, an icon of the Kingdom of Heaven, where evil will no longer exist. Let us note in parentheses that icons differ from paintings precisely in this: above every saint depicted on an icon, and above all, above the Lord, there is always a name. Evil is described, but it is not named, and by that very fact it is allotted, as it were, a lesser degree of existence, just as Adam, by giving names, completed the creation of things in the world.

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is one of the hardest for us to understand. Much of this is because we read a written text, while Christ's parables are an oral genre. When we read a book, we can go back and consider different shades of meaning, but the listeners did not have that opportunity and grasped one or two essential images. Therefore, when Jesus wanted to communicate something truly new, He presented the background information in keeping with the system of ideas His listeners had. Check it: all His parables are built this way.

The two most essential points in this parable are, of course, its final phrase about the one who will rise from the dead, and the connection between existence here and existence after death. For the rest, Jesus relies on traditional ideas: Abraham's bosom, Sheol - without yet trying to change them. All of that still lies ahead: after descending into Hades following His death on the cross, Jesus abolishes the idea of Sheol as a place where God is not present.

Atheists and skeptics who assert their unbelief in God very often appeal to the claim that the miracles spoken of by believers are inventions, that they do not want to believe in them, and that this is the main thing repelling them from faith. Today the Lord says very important words to them and to us: if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if someone rises from the dead. In reality, then, they are mistaken about the causes of their unbelief. Even if a miracle happened before their very eyes, they would not believe it.

Only the word of God—"Moses and the prophets"—teaches us to discern a miracle. A miracle can be seen only by a heart filled with the divine word, because "what is essential is invisible to the eye," as Saint-Exupéry's character said. Just as the eyes of the rich man's five brothers would not have helped them recognize in the man who might come to them the risen Lazarus, so the eyes of today's unbelievers do not help them see that "the whole earth is veiled in the smoke of the Lord's love."

It is the last words that Jesus makes go out of Abraham's mouth in the parable of the Rich man and of Lazarus. Certainly, the parable is first of all about a posthumous reward, even if it is not the only meaning. We are in general, let say used to this meaning, however for the Jews, first people to listen to this parable, it was an important and new revelation. But the last words of the Lord's parable talk about the testimony of the Resuscitated from the deaths: "…neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead ". Of course, it is here about His Resurrection, and it is essential for us to know that a man is capable of believing the Resuscitated only if he "hears Moses and the Prophets". It is necessary to note that the expression "Moses and the prophets" means first of all the Bible in all its completeness as it was known and accepted when Jesus was on earth. Secondly the word “hear" in this context doesn't mean as much an aural perception, as obedience, the execution of God's word. The great sign of Resurrection will not bring us to change our lives if we do not execute God's word.

In the Gospel, parallels are very often drawn between earthly and heavenly wealth. This is no accident, because life always works out so that some people always have more of something (material or spiritual) than others.

Perhaps the central words in this chapter are verses 9-12. Do we realize that everything we have is not ours? That it has been given to us only as stewards, who must rightly manage what they have? And Christians (and human beings in general) can have only one goal: to make God's eternal love real in their own place, that is, to serve one another. Therefore, if we use this wealth that belongs to another rightly (guided by love), then in return we will receive what is truly our own: the fruits that grow out of such relationships, abiding in God's love and light.