Homily for Palm Sunday

Unedited transcript

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this – the homily for the 26th Sunday in ordinary time. And there’s a very slight jump, a few verses, between last week’s parable and this week’s parable. what I’d like to do is to bring out something very surprising about these three parables which is how much they have in common and how much perhaps they were originally intended to be read together. it’s one of the things I think we’ll notice as we work through today’s is to see how often it refers back to things in the previous two parables (that’s the one usually called the prodigal son and the one usually called the unjust steward). And curiously one of the hidden but real presence is there is the notion of stewardship.

just last Sunday, remember, the whole question was how the steward exercised his stewardship. in the parable of the prodigal son the first son having managed to lose his inheritance, spend his inheritance, squander his inheritance and then sought to come back on the same terms of reference as if he were a hard servant, so being like a steward, whereas the eldest son had acted like a steward rather than like a son – didn’t seem to have realized that everything that he had was his. and as we’ll see today a rather surprising steward turns up in this week’s Gospel. it’s not the least of the surprises that we have before us. so let’s start.

there was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. okay, if you’re dressed in purple that was very much the royal, the monarchical colour. the purple dye came from the purple murex shell, Mediterranean shell – very highly prized, Roman Senators wore it, Roman consuls wore it, which is where Catholic bishops get it from. but also it was part of the priestly vestments. as was linen. linen being a rather luxurious cloth to wear. so here we have a rich man who was dressed in purple and find it who feasted sumptuously every day. and would there have been a little hint that maybe some priestly figure was being referred to? maybe, we’ll see.

as with Jesus’s parables, there are so many possible ways to take them and see what’s going on but feasting every day would be kind of a way of referring to the constant ongoings of sacrifices in the temple. and at his gate, the gate of this rich man, lay a poor man named Lazarus covered with sores. now we’re used to the story of the rich man and Lazarus, so we’re used to the name Lazarus. but if we were to listen to the story in Hebrew or Aramaic, he would be called Eliezer or Eliezar – those would be the two names that we would hear, that’s who Lazarus is. so he’s called Eliezer, which means ‘God comforts’ – the same phrase that’s used when in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan gives comfort to the beaten up person – God comforts, God soothes. and at the gate, a poor man laying named Eliezer, covered with sores who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table. you don’t need to be a genius to recognize that that’s actually the same structure of saying as what happens to the younger son in the parable of the Prodigal Son who longed to satisfy his hunger – the verb is the same – with the food that was given to the pigs. – the same structure of the sentence, the same pattern of desire.

even the dogs would come and lick his sores. so, a very striking image: he would be at the door. the dogs were probably the house dogs that could go under the table, they would be the ones that were able to eat before he wasn’t allowed to do that. but the dogs came out and licked his sores. now that sounds a horrifying thing until you remember that actually dogs saliva is a great deal less toxic than human saliva and that dogs actually do make sores better healing. in other words, the dogs were actually his friends, they were doing something good for him. awful that may be to think of it like that, even the dogs would come to lick his sores. that was the only exchange, if you like, that came in and out between the house. the chasm which we will see referred to later, the chasm was only broken by the dogs, no humans came out. the poor man,

Eliezar, died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. okay, very interesting: the rich man also died and was buried. it’s interesting: doesn’t say that the poor man died, it just says he was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. why? well because Eliezer was Abraham’s steward. in the Book of Genesis Abraham – before he gets any children – he has complained to God saying: listen I’ve got no one to leave my household to accept my steward Eliezar. he’s the only, the nearest thing to a descendant I’ve got. so everything’s going to be his. and God says: don’t worry, you’ll get descendants. so eventually he gets Isaac and Ishmael. and then of course the steward is sent out again to help Isaac get a wife. and finally, it’s he who organizes Rebecca for Isaac.

so Abraham’s steward, no wonder he’s an angelic figure. and indeed was taken to be such in Jewish popular tales of the time. he was Abraham’s steward who would come and see what was going on with Abraham’s household. so strangely what we have here is there has been an angel at the rich man’s door without him being aware of it and has been carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. it says that Abraham’s bosom – one of the phrases that we’re used to – and that’s a literal translation but it can mean bosom as in breast and it could mean physically that someone reclining on someone’s breasts like John on Jesus’ – would actually refer to a physical form of reclining. but when it comes to Abraham it referred more to the kind of garment that a sower would have. would you imagine having a pocket like a pouch hanging around your belly or just below into which you reach your hand and cast out the seed as you were sowing? it was the place where the seed of Abraham was kept. so Eliezar being of the seed of Abraham, that was what it meant to be closest to Abraham. and of course here in not only in this but in many other stories Jesus is referring to the seed of Abraham, the sons of Abraham. what is it actually like to be a son of Abraham? that’s one of the things that’s being looked at in this parable. well no question about Eleazar, the steward, Eliezar the steward who’d come down and inspected to see how Israel was being lived out, has gone back to be amongst the seed of Abraham.

the rich man also died and was buried which means that he was treated respectfully. if he had been considered at the time a bad man, he might have suffered some other fate. but no, he was a rich man, he was buried. that was the kind of thing that was appropriate. in Hades where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. and again there’s a word play here, because of course there’s a very famous scene in which Abraham looked up and there far away he saw the place where sacrifice would be provided. that’s Genesis 22, that’s when Abraham is taking Isaac up to the hill for a sacrifice. but so the coincidence between the sky in Hades looking up and seeing Abraham far away and Abraham himself looking up and seeing the place where the sacrifice was substituted far away – it’s supposed to indicate that something has gone wrong in the case of this so-called son of Abraham.

so he’s far away; remember that in the parable of the Prodigal Son the father had seen him far away and come to him as well. and he calls out: Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. so the parallel to the passages with the dogs licking the wounds. and then he says: for I am in agony in these flames. – and that’s a parallel that reflects back to the longing to satisfy his hunger with what he felt from the rich man’s table. the parallelism apparently in Aramaic is much clearer: the sentence length is the same in both cases.

but Abraham says: child – and again you’ll remember that in the parable of the Prodigal Son when the elder son comes in and complains and gets angry, the father comes out and says “child” – doesn’t say son, he says child, it’s exactly the same word here – remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things. but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. besides all this between you and us, a great chasm has been fixed; so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us. in other words, he’s basically saying: you’ve already had all that is yours, now is the time for someone who didn’t have it. and again you have this strange sense of the Prodigal Son who’d spent all his, had all his, and the eldest son who hadn’t dared to have his. – very odd.

but in this case, a chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so and no one can cross from there to us. so no physical passing but strangely some sort of communication because Abraham seems himself speaking across the chasm.

so the rich man, the now dead rich man says: Father, then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house. interesting that he doesn’t himself seem to think that Abraham is his father.

Abraham has come separate to… remember in the Prodigal Son there was the game between who is my brother, and here is the question of who is my father. And, father, I beg him, I beg you to send him to my father’s house. Real communication is still possible. for I have five brothers that he may warn them so that they will not also come into this place of torment.

Five brothers. would this be the five pillars of the law, of the Mosaic law? or would it be the five cities of the plain? there’s a suggestion that when God sends an angel to conduct a visitation we’ve got the Sodom story in the background because that’s what happens in the book of Genesis – the Lord conducts his visitation and then decrees the destruction of the cities. and here effectively that it might say: send a visitation, warn them as though it will be any better than what happened to Sodom in the cities of the plain who, if you remember, the sin of Solomon was precisely treating people like Lazarus – I mean, poverty – treating precarious people harshly, not opening your gates to the poor – those according to the prophet Ezekiel that was the sin of Sodom.

so he’s saying: send someone to warn them, send their liaison, send your steward to warn them. and Abraham replies: they have Moses and the prophets, they should listen to them. and it’s not just Moses. here the prophets are brought out. it’s not just the five books of the law – the prophets. Why? because the law is full of instructions for how you must live and people can be very correct about that and get that right. but the undertow of the law is brought out in the prophets where it’s emphasized that it’s having a heart for the poor that is absolutely essential to living life according to the way of the Lord. the prophets were there constantly to call people back. one of the passages from the prophets doing this we have in our first reading from Amos, but there were many many others. the prophets were supposed to tell people that they could not be righteous in God’s eyes if they mistreated the poor, if they failed to reach out to the poor. so the dead man says: no, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. so in other words, something even more remarkable than a prophet.

and he says to him: Abraham says to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. and here you have of course a hugely ironic question mark because of course as we all remember the person raised from the dead in John’s Gospel by Jesus was called Lazarus. and at that point, it was just raised as a sign. this was a resuscitation, this wasn’t talking about the resurrection to eternal life. it was the resuscitation, so it was a sign if you like without content. I think there’s something even more subtle going on here.

the sign, something happening, a dead man being raised does not help you interpret the prophets and the law. Eliezar as the poor man, that angelic presence, was already a hint of how you need to interpret the prophets and the law from the position of the castout one. and of course it’s only when Jesus is himself cast out and rises from the dead that he becomes not simply if you like the fact of someone having risen thereby shocking people into behavior but actually, the living interpretative principle of the law and the prophets by which it might become possible for them to learn how to notice and respect and love the Lazaruses, the stewards of the Lord who are sent and given us as reminders of how real communication is created in this life when we learn to reach outside and beyond ourselves, and allow ourselves to be formed and transformed by the victims, the marginalized, the precarious in our midst.