The Rich Man and Poor Lazarus

A Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost

In today’s Gospel, beloved brothers and sisters, the visible inequality of station and manner of life among people in this present, temporary life is depicted by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and corresponding to it, the inequality of the lot of people in the other life after death, which has no end. This Gospel is instructive in the highest degree for all of us, for people of every station and rank. The account concerns a certain rich man, whose name is not mentioned, and a certain poor man, named Lazarus[1].

Who, then, is this ill-fated rich man, that luxurious merry-maker who inherited eternal torment? Judging by the fact that he calls Abraham father, and that the Scriptures of Moses and the prophets were known to him and his brothers, we should conclude that the rich man was of Hebrew race and law, a descendant of Abraham. In what did his sin, his guilt consist—the guilt for which he so unexpectedly fell into hell? The Gospel says that he was rich; but without doubt it was not wealth that was the cause of so terrible a torment as the rich man endured in hell; Abraham in his time was a very wealthy man, yet riches did not hinder him from being a friend of God, because he welcomed strangers and was hospitable, and was in all things faithful and obedient to God. It is said further that he was clothed in purple and fine linen, that is, in a purely royal fashion, and feasted brilliantly every day. On the face of it, there would seem to be no special guilt in this either; a rich man who has thousands, perhaps millions, of money and vast estates—why should he not dress in silk and velvet? And in our own day this is not even counted a special luxury, though fine linen at that time was extraordinarily costly. It is said further that he feasted brilliantly every day—that is, he ate and drank and made merry with his friends and flatterers; but even in our enlightened age frequent banquets and costly dinners are in widespread use, and those who arrange them do not imagine that by doing so they sin grievously and will fall into hell, especially if they forget the poor.

Let us go further, and seek out the guilt of the rich merry-maker. What does the Gospel say? There was a certain beggar, named Lazarus, who lay at his gate covered with sores, and longed to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table; and the dogs came and licked his sores. Here is the rich man’s true guilt, the guilt that makes him guilty even of his luxurious dressing and his daily rich feasts: this guilt is hard-heartedness and mercilessness toward the poor, which arose in him from his passion for luxury and prodigality, for an idle and merry life. At the very gates of his house lies poor Lazarus, covered with sores; a beggar like this, by his very appearance and condition alone, ought to have stirred up compassion and mercy, ought to have called the rich man to his aid; but the rich man, seeing him, seems not to see him, and shows him not the slightest compassion: he is taken up with his feasts; the dogs are more compassionate than he—they come and lick the pus from Lazarus’s sores. Lazarus longed to be fed with the crumbs from the rich man’s table; that is, nothing at all was given to him from the rich feast. For this very hard-heartedness and mercilessness the rich man was sent after death into hell; while Lazarus, for his bitter suffering and his uncomplaining patience, for his honorable poverty and deprivations, was counted worthy of Abraham’s bosom, of everlasting rest and blessedness.

What lesson does this portrayal of the rich man and the poor man give us—this description of their life and condition on earth, and of their lot immediately after death? First of all, the lesson that wealth and poverty, health and sickness, joy and sorrows—everything here below passes away and vanishes soon enough; but the deeds of men, their vices and their virtues, do not die: they pass with them into eternity, and there they will either acquit or condemn them before the Judge of all the thoughts and deeds of men, and either lead them into paradise or cast them down into the abysses of the nethermost hell, out of which there will be no way out for all eternity. Therefore, beloved brothers and sisters, let us not be hardhearted and unmerciful toward the poor when we ourselves have plenty; let us not grow haughty in wealth and abundance, but let us share with the poor according to our means, so that, if we should fall short in good deeds, they may receive us into the eternal dwellings[2], in the words of our Savior. See how, after the deaths of Lazarus and the rich man, the lot and condition of each suddenly changes! The poor man died, and was carried away by the angels into the bosom of Abraham. What honor, what love for him on the part of the dwellers of heaven! The angels of heaven—those faithful friends of those who are faithful to God—carry him and escort him into paradise as a fellow citizen of their own. The rich man also died, and they buried him; and in Hades, being in torments, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom. What a spectacle! Lazarus, the poor sick man once despised by the wealthy man, is now in a place of light, of coolness, of blessedness, while the rich man himself is in Hades, in torment. No help comes to him from anywhere. And where are his table companions and his flatterers? Perhaps they, too, are in Hades? You know what comes next: the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus to dip the tip—just the tip—of his finger in water and cool his tongue, this pleasure-loving tongue, now terribly burning and parched. But the rich man is refused even in this. True, Abraham calls him child, just as the former rich man had called him father—yet this word, child, served only as a reproach to the rich man, who had not done the deeds of Abraham, who had not possessed his self-restraint and his hospitality. What, then, was the reason for the refusal of a drop of water? It is this: that the rich man received his good things during his lifetime, and Lazarus—the evil. What good of his own? The one he considered good: that is, he ate, and drank, and dressed handsomely, and made merry, while he gave no thought to God or to what pleases Him, did no good deeds—which means he lived like a beast without reason, taking no care for his immortal soul. Consequently, for what he had lived for, that is what he received; in what he considered his good, in that he took his delight; for eternity he prepared nothing, not a single good deed, did not acquire any desire or need for spiritual and eternal blessings, proved a stranger to love for God and for his neighbor—and there is nothing for him to do in paradise, a place only for the righteous and for those who love God and one another with pure love. Lazarus, on the other hand, in the crucible of sickness and deprivation was cleansed from his sins and bore the punishment for them in the very sickness and deprivations; for this, says Abraham, he is comforted here, while you suffer.

So suddenly the roles of each of them were reversed—and immediately after the death of each. O, how inconstant, insecure, and unreliable is everything earthly! How lasting and eternal is virtue, and its reward! Furthermore, Abraham presents to the rich man another reason why Lazarus cannot come to him—to the former rich man—and give him even the slightest comfort—just a drop of water on the tip of a finger—namely, that between those confined in hell and those dwelling in Paradise a chasm has been fixed that can never be crossed. This was bound to strike the rich man with a new horror of hopelessness in receiving mercy, a horror of despair, and now he asks Abraham not for himself, but for his brothers—that Abraham would send Lazarus to them to bear witness to the actual existence of hell and of eternal torment in its flame, and to the existence of Paradise—the everlasting dwelling and place of joy for those who have lived holy or who have endured punishment for their sins and repented. But the former rich man is refused even this; he is told instead that his brothers should listen to Moses and the prophets, that is, that they should read and obey their Scriptures. The rich man again begged Abraham for the same thing, and he received another refusal: they would not believe even if someone rose from the dead, and would not accept the existence of eternal torments and eternal life, if they did not listen to Moses and the prophets, who spoke by the Holy Spirit. A good and instructive lesson for all the senseless clever ones of today, who do not believe in the existence of human souls after death, in the actual existence of eternal fire, in the eternity of the torments of unrepentant sinners, and in the blessedness of the age to come. They, too, would like the dead to come to them more often and convince them of the truth of what is said in the Gospel—but the dead will not come to them to convince them of what the eternal Truth Himself—Christ our God—once for all declared; and if they wish to change their way of thinking and living and attain eternal life, then let them diligently read and listen to the Gospel and carry out what is written in it. Such is the brief discourse on today’s Gospel. Ponder what is written in it, and with your whole heart believe everything written in it. For not one jot shall pass away from what Truth Itself—Christ—has spoken, and all will be fulfilled[3]. Amen.