My child, replied Abraham,
remember that you were well off in your lifetime,
while Lazarus was in misery.
Now he has found consolation here, but you have found torment.
Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus
Luke’s Gospel presents two parables about riches together, the parable of the Dishonest Manager and the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. This second parable is only found in Luke’s Gospel and the context of the parable is Jesus speaking to the Pharisees who were fond of money and who thought to find justification in their own punctilious observance of the Law. The rich man is similar in many respects to the Dishonest Manager since both appear to be successful for a time but are unaware of the evil in mishandling money. It is important to note that similar stories existed among the rabbis in Egypt. Jesus could easily have adapted this tradition for his own personal purposes.
I think that this parable highlights, at least for me, the fact that most of us have a difficult time developing a truly healthy attitude about money. Since money impacts our lives so deeply, it seems we are always struggling with how to effectively deal with it. While the Gospels remind us that all we have is from God and that it is given to us so that we might be generous to others, this is not an attitude that is easily embraced since most of us have to work quite hard for what we have. Further, since we work hard for what we have, we don’t always feel generous to those who don’t have access to money since we hear that they don’t work and, even, sometimes scam the system. Most of us have to work really hard to maintain a sound Christian attitude about money.
During the Divine Liturgy we are reminded about the attitude that we must have to be true followers of Christ. In the Ambo Prayer or Prayer of Thanksgiving I declare, on behalf of the entire congregation, that we know that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from You, the Father of lights. This means that we realize that, even though we may work very hard for the things that we have, the attitude we must have as children of God is that all we have is a result of God’s goodness. So the challenge facing us is this: we have to work as hard as we can for what we have but then have the attitude that all we have comes from God. It is a challenge to develop this attitude, especially in a society such as ours that so emphasizes our own personal individuality. What does it take in order to adopt this Christian attitude which says: all I have comes from God in spite of my personal hard word? Humility! I have to realize that God gives me what I need to develop my spiritual life. If I don’t get these things, I probably don’t need them to spiritually grow. The person who is deprived of material things has a challenge to still be spiritual in spite of his lack. Most of us are challenged to spiritually grow in spite of our material abundance! I truly believe that both are equally challenging, if only we think about it. Things, and the abundance of the things of this earth, are a burden since they can seriously hinder us from spiritual growth unless we are well grounded in our belief that they are from God. This is something that we can all do well to think about.