Fr. Senan Furlong: In 1893, a young man destined to become a celebrated composer, heard a folk song that would leave a lasting impression on him. Something about its haunting melody captivated him and years later, he would compose five variations on its theme. The man was Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the folk song was Dives and Lazarus. In his later years, Vaughan Williams recalled that when he first encountered the song, he felt a deep sense of recognition: “Here is something, which I have known all my life, only I didn’t know it! …something entirely new, yet absolutely familiar.”
When we encounter the parables of Jesus, we often experience something similar but the other way around: absolutely familiar, yet entirely new. Today’s gospel parable, traditionally known as Dives and Lazarus, is no exception. It a story ever ancient and ever new, a vivid portrait of the divide between wealth and want. A rich man, traditionally called Dives (which mean “rich” in Latin), lives in luxury, dressed in fine clothes, dining lavishly, secured behind walls of privilege. But those walls do more than protect, they blind. They seal him off from the world’s pain and, over time, make him indifferent to it. Just beyond his gate lies Lazarus, a poor man, covered in sores, longing for scraps from the rich man’s table—someone the rich man must have spotted every day, and yet never truly saw.
Then both men die and the tables are turned. Lazarus is carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham, a place of comfort and eternal peace. The rich man, however, finds himself in a place of torment, pleading for relief, for even a drop of water. God turns the world upside down:
He casts down the might from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; He fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty.
Today’s Gospel parable leaves us with many questions. But, let us listen for just five, like the five variations of that haunting folk melody, Dives and Lazarus.
The first: What’s in a name? In all of Jesus’ parables, only one character is ever given a name, and it is Lazarus. Not the sower, not the good Samaritan, not even the father of the prodigal son. Only Lazarus. His name means: God has helped. He is named; he is not forgotten by God. The rich man remains nameless, defined, not by who he is, but by what he has. In the end, he has become no one, because he built his identity on things that do not last. Today’s Gospel reminds us that our identity does not come from possessions, status or success but from the One who knows us by name. “I have called you by your name,” declares the Lord, “and you are mine.”
The second: Who is at my gate?
There are “Lazaruses” at our gates every day—people we see, yet choose not to see. The ones we walk past, avoid or quietly ignore. Lazarus might be a stranger or maybe a member of my own family or my own community; he may sit next to me in class. Sometimes Lazarus isn’t even someone else but rather a part of myself that is wounded, neglected, waiting to be healed. To ask, “Who is at my gate?” is to begin to open our eyes. And when we see, we may open our hearts too and begin to love.
The third: What creates the chasm?
The great chasm between Lazarus and the rich man in the next life was carved out, day by day, in this life, through countless small acts of indifference and neglect. The rich man is not condemned for being rich. He is condemned because he didn’t care. And that, Jesus warns, is the true danger: not so much cruelty, but complacency; not so much hatred, but indifference. When we build chasms, we cut ourselves off—not just from others, but from God.
The fourth: What is the good news? The good news is: it is not too late. The Gospel always leaves room for repentance, for return, for mercy. God’s heart is never closed, but the call is urgent. This parable is no mere story: it is a warning. We are responsible not only for what we do, but for what we fail to do. Every time we ignore the Lazarus at our gate, we add another brick to the wall between ourselves and the kingdom of God. And yet, even then, God can still break through.
The fifth: What must we do?
At the end of the parable, we are invited to identify not just with the rich man, but with his five brothers. The rich man pleads with Abraham to send someone to warn them. “They have Moses and the prophets,” Abraham replies, “let them listen to them.” We too have Moses and the prophets, the word of God. And more than that, we have the One who has risen from the dead. We already have all we need. So let us pray for the grace to fight the good fight, and learn to see—to recognise the Lazarus at our gate not as a burden or a problem to fix, but as a person: someone with a name and a story and a place in God’s heart.
Ralph Vaughan Williams took a simple folk tune and transformed it into his lyrical Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus. May we take this parable, and let it transform us: to open our eyes, soften our hearts, and change the way we live. And when we do, we may discover that the one waiting on the other side of the gate is Christ himself.