The contrasts in this story told by Jesus are as stark as its message. We are left here with good or bad, right or wrong, stark black or white with no gray areas in between. We have a rich man, clothed in purple. Purple, as you know, is traditionally the color of royalty. Virtually any commentary will tell you that purple fabric in the time of Jesus was made from costly dye extracted from shellfish. Such clothing was accessible only to people who had what we would today call “large disposable incomes.” This Rich Man, we are told, “feasted sumptuously every day,” was clothed luxuriously in purple when he was out and about doing business and enjoying his leisure time, and clothed with “fine linen” when he made his bed at night.
And then there is Lazarus. Lazarus is a poor man living in the same community as the Rich Man. Lazarus is literally starving. Jesus tells us that he would have been more than satisfied with scraps that fell from the Rich Man’s table, but even these scraps were denied him. A commentator tells us that in those times, bread was used by the rich at feasts to wipe the grease off the diners’ hands, and then was thrown under the table.1 These scraps of greasy bread were probably collected by the hired help and fed to the dogs who licked Lazarus’ running sores — the dogs, Jesus tells us in so many words, ate better than Lazarus did.
Lazarus, though a poor man, is not “out of sight and therefore out of mind,” as we might say, in a ghetto or remote mountain shack. Neither is he sleeping in an alley over a grate or sequestered in a homeless shelter conveniently tucked away in a poor section of the city. Lazarus lies right at the Rich Man’s gate. The Rich Man in his comings and goings was literally stepping over Lazarus’ body, perhaps looking away in revulsion at the sight of the dogs licking his sores, and then forgetting about him as he made his way into his mans
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