Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time,Year C Lk 16,19-31

At first glance, today’s Gospel parable could be seen as a call to care for the poor and the needs of others, or as a reminder that God’s justice is at work. However, there is much more to it than that. Consider, for example, Abraham’s final words: ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’

The tragic aspect of human nature revealed here is a kind of inner deafness, stubbornness, rejection, and refusal to accept God. Not because they are somehow handicapped and cannot hear and perceive, but because they do not want to hear, because they consciously distance themselves from God.

In other words, people have become attached to an alternative in which God has no place. No event or sign may seem significant enough to change one’s beliefs and allow one to accept that God may be different from what one wants to hear or believe.

In his commentary on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Benedict XVI notes: ‘The rich man in hell tells Abraham what so many people, both then and now, tell God: “If you want us to believe you and live our lives according to the Bible, you must be clearer.”‘ Send someone from the other world to confirm this.’ The problem of demanding signs and requiring greater evidence of revelation is evident throughout the gospels. Abraham’s response, as well as Jesus’ response to the demands of his contemporaries outside the parable, is clear: those who do not believe in the Bible will not believe anyone from the afterlife. The highest truths cannot be reduced to the same empirical evidence inherent only to matter.’ (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 153–154).

In this parable, Jesus criticises those who can see but are blind, who can hear but are deaf, and who, despite being privileged enough to witness the amazing things that Christ did, were not convinced. This parable, like Jesus’ deeds and his entire life, is a call from God for human faith and a desire to overcome human resistance and rejection.

In his commentary, Benedict XVI asks: ‘Do we not recognise the mystery of Jesus, who “suffered outside the city gate” (Heb. 13:12), was mocked and despised by the crowd and was left naked on the cross with a body “covered in blood and wounds”, in the figure of Lazarus lying at the rich man’s door?’ The real Lazarus rose from the dead to tell us that Jesus himself is God’s sign for humanity. This sign is deeply ingrained in him through his Easter mystery, the mystery of death and resurrection. He himself is ‘the sign of Jonah’. The crucified and risen one is the faithful Lazarus: the parable invites us to believe in this great sign of God. It speaks of the most essential reality in history. (Ibid., pp. 154–5). asks in his commentary: ‘Don’t we recognise the mystery of Jesus, who “suffered outside the city gate” (Heb 13:12) and was mocked and despised by the crowd, naked on the cross, his body “covered in blood and wounds”, in the figure of Lazarus lying at the rich man’s door? This real Lazarus rose from the dead — he came to tell us that the Son of Man, Jesus himself, is God’s sign for people. This sign deeply marks him through his Easter mystery, the mystery of death and resurrection. He himself is ‘the sign of Jonah’. He, the crucified and risen one, is the faithful Lazar: to believe in him, this great sign of God, is what the parable invites us to do. It speaks of reality, of the most essential reality in history. (ibid., p. 154–5).