Luke 16:27-29
And he said, “Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.” But Abraham said, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.”
It’s easy to not see if we don’t want to. Conversely, it’s not complicated to see if we do want to. The Rich Man had spent a lifetime not seeing Lazarus. It wasn’t that he didn’t recognize him, of course. He knew him when he got to the afterlife. But since that was the first time he’d needed him, it was the first time he saw him. Back on earth, he’d looked at Lazarus a thousand times, but had opted not to see him. Now, in Hades, he pleads that his family is as ignorant as he was. He’s right. But not because they’ve been made so by a malevolent god. Rather, it’s because they aren’t listening to Moses and the prophets who are preached to them each day, just as the sight of Lazarus preached to the Rich Man each day. What is preaching to us today?
