Homily 708 – 21APE
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
October 25, 2026
Epistle:  (203) Galatians 2:16-20
Gospel:  (83) Luke 16:19-31

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

When we hear the account of Lazarus and the rich man, we aren’t really sure how to understand it at first.  Is is a parable?  Is it something that truly existed on earth and the world to come?

Perhaps the most important aspect of this account that we can come to understand is that it doesn’t matter if it is parable, or “real.”  Truth exists independent of what we understand as real or not.  We can ask were these physical beings, or figments of someone’s imagination.

But either way, it is largely irrelevant.  When Christ communicates truth, he communicates truth.  When the scriptures tell us something, the physical nature of the underlying reality is irrelevant.  It is the truth being conveyed that is important.

There are places where the physical reality of the situation is not just important, but critical.  These involve the reality of the incarnation – Christ dwelling with us, in full humanity, experiencing everything we experience as humans.  So be a bit discerning when you hear these accounts and when tempted to ask, “did this really happen?” take a step back and ask “would the meaning change if it didn’t?”

If the takeaway from the reading would change, then most likely it really happened physically.  We have to be careful also to understand that the words used to describe what was happening were 2,000 year old words and reflected 2,000 year old concepts of reality.

When Christ is said to cast out demons, sometimes, that is perhaps curing illnesses which were believed to be caused by demons.  Sometimes, there were actual bodiless demons – like the account of the Gadarene demoniac.

What the account of Lazarus and the rich man provides is the only account of life after our physical death that Christ gives to us Himself.  Some will say that the Apostle John provides this knowledge, or that St. Paul provides this insight, but this is the only place where Christ Himself is the one communicating directly with us.

Even then, the messages are not terribly evident.  Looking beneath the account provided we can see a couple of things.

First, that the rich man and Lazarus live opposite lives to the way they lived on Earth.  The rich man lived a selfish life, while Lazarus lived a life of pain with nothing to give.  Some of the Church Fathers and elders say that the one thing Lazarus did have to give was the opportunity for the rich man to show compassion, which he chose not to do.

We see this today as well.  We see people that we believe have nothing to give – but what they give us, if we have the eyes to see it, is the great blessing of being able to help them.  That is their gift to us, because it leads us to our own union with Christ.

So what Lazarus experiences is comfort and peace and joy.  What the rich man experiences – in what we understand to be the exact same environment – is torture.

Quite the opposite of this world.

So what tells us they are in the same environment?  The account describes a conversation between Abraham and the rich man.  The rich man can hear Abraham, and Abraham can hear the rich man.  The rich man can see Lazarus.

Abraham also gives us the chasm between the two, so that there is no way to shift from torture to peace.  I suppose it is possible that the two sides of the chasm have differing environments, but that seems to be a reach at least to me.

As I see it, they are experiencing the same thing, but in different ways.  The selfishness and ego of the rich man is truly revealed as the essence of the character.

The rich man also seems to indicate that he cannot change his experience.  This leads many, including myself, to conclude that it is not possible to repent after we die.  Our repentance is given to us while we have a body to repent in.

When we die, and our soul is separated from our body, and our body returns to the dirt from which it was created, we cannot repent because we are not whole.  We are part.  We are part, waiting for the resurrection.

And part of us cannot successfully repent.  Repentance involves all of our being.  Taking away the physical parts of our being means that repentance is no longer possible.

The final piece at least for now of this account is  something that should enlighten us about ourselves.  We’d like to think that if we experienced something miraculous, or magical, we would change.  The reality is that we won’t.

We speak of Christ being raised from the dead.  Yet, the monumental nature of the resurrection is insufficient for us.  We don’t believe it.  Or it becomes another routine saying that when repeated often enough, loses its meaning.  Abraham in this account puts everything straight for us.

Even encountering someone that is raised from the dead will not change our opinions of ourselves.  That is just reality.  But all is not lost – we can and should recognize that, and recognize that tearing down ourselves, what St. Paul calls today being “crucified with Christ”, and what Christ Himself calls “denying ourselves”, will result in our discovery that Christ is there all along.

He waits for us, patiently.  Think of the miracles – the resurrection, for sure, but also the virgin birth, the incarnation itself.  These were the things of wonder to the angels.  How can this be?  That was the amazement of the bodiless hosts for this miracle.

What we can recognize, if we choose to recognize, is that we cannot change ourselves.  We can throw ourselves at Christ’s feet, and say “Lord, have mercy.”  And in the infinite mercy of Christ, discover the miracle of our own transfiguration.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Glory to Jesus Christ!