There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. ²⁰ At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores ²¹ and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

²² “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³ In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. ²⁴ So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

²⁵ “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. ²⁶ And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

²⁷ “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, ²⁸ for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

²⁹ “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

³⁰ “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

³¹ “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Luke 16:19-31

One of my favorite all-time great characters is Zorba the Greek. Zorba takes a large bite out of life, whether it’s eating, drinking, business ventures, or romance. He had been a soldier and a miner, and he loved to dance. He develops a friendship with an Englishman who is his polar opposite —a man who is cerebral, cautious, and paralyzed by indecision. At one point, he says, he has never been married, and Zorba says, “Oh, I had a wife, children, house, the full catastrophe.”

While Zorba says this with characteristic bravado, great sorrow was behind it. He had lost children to illness, his wife died, he had fought in war, and seen some of the worst in humanity. While Zorba experiences the trials of Job, he lives with an almost reckless hope and abandon.

The final scene of the movie version of the story shows Zorba starting a lignite mining venture. Suddenly, the elaborate wooden ramp to transport ore from the mine crashes to the ground, and bankruptcy is staring him in the face. In the ruin, his friend says, “Teach me to dance.” Zorba, played by Anthony Quinn, stands and holds out his arms straight to begin the traditional Greek dance. The movie ends with the two men dancing more and more wildly in the dust and ruin of their dreams, the full catastrophe.

I saw the movie near the end of college, and immediately identified with the narrator as I struggled to decide what to do with my life. I feared making a mistake in my choices. I vowed to be more like Zorba, willing to experience things fully despite the risk, to accept whatever comes along the way. Just don’t miss life.

The Kazantzakis novel was published in 1946, as World War II was over and there was enough catastrophe for everyone. It was a time of a meaning crisis. How do we live authentically in the face of war, suffering, and death? The same year Camus published “The Stranger,” and Sartre had just published “Being and Nothingness.” Existential philosophy posits that life is absurd, we are condemned to be free. Zorba burst into this somber, pessimistic intellectual scene with a giant splash that didn’t wipe away the suffering, nor keep us from dancing.

Zorba reminds us not to close off life when catastrophe comes. But Jesus warns us that closing our gates to others is itself the catastrophe. In the parable in Luke 16, Jesus is not in a dancing mood. The Pharisees have ridiculed him for saying you can’t serve God and money, so he tells one of his most severe parables. Two men die the same day. One was rich and dressed in fine, purple linens, living in luxury. At his very gate, used to keep out the riffraff, poor Lazarus lay, with the dogs licking his sores. You know you are bad off when the only health care you can afford is the mercy of a stray mutt.

In the afterlife, a great reversal happens. This move is highlighted by giving Lazarus a name, and the rich man is just a generic billionaire. Lazarus is known to the great forefather Abraham, meaning he is a part of the covenant community and will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. In contrast, Mr. Billionaire expresses torment. The original root word was from the use of a touchstone to test the purity of metals. It came to mean mental testing, to suffer from regret and shame. So his torment is not from flames, but from self. He just can’t believe someone as important and successful can end up like this.

To demonstrate that he still doesn’t understand his predicament, he asked Abraham if Lazarus could come down and give him a drink of water to cool his tongue. Even looking up from Hades, he sees Lazarus as his servant rather than a beloved child of God. Abraham answers that Lazarus can’t do anything for him, even if he wanted to do so, because now a chasm has grown. There comes a moment when a lack of empathy and apathy toward the suffering of others creates a permanent divide. That sounds like the full catastrophe.

Mr. Billionaire then asks if he could have leave to warn his family and friends. He wants to play Jacob Marley from the Christmas Carol and warn his Scrooge-like friends of the danger to their souls. But Abraham says they have the law and prophets to guide them. If they won’t pay attention to their scriptures and prophets, why would they believe a warning from someone resurrected from the dead?

This parable isn’t just about billionaires—it’s about all of us. Because we all build gates to limit seeing the suffering right in front of us. The parable speaks to all of us about the importance of noticing anguish and acting compassionately. You don’t have to be rich to be blind to misery and poverty. Lazarus is not just a generic poor person - a statistic about how many people are losing healthcare or SNAP benefits. When Lazarus dies, he is right at the gate of the rich man’s home. The gate is symbolically important because its purpose is to keep people out. The gate might protect the neighborhood from robbers, but it also protects the residents from seeing how their neighbors live.

To some extent, we all have gates that protect us from suffering we don’t want to see. It’s not that we are bad people for not seeing everything, because taking in the suffering of the world is overwhelming. It’s a whole catastrophe. Having some boundaries to the full extent of human suffering is self-preservation.

When I was a program manager for 120 shelter units, I could not contain all the individual stories of tragedy, addiction, and trauma. Without some mental barriers, I would not have been able to sleep or enjoy family time. But I also saw staff who closed the gate to compassion. They began to look down upon our residents, saw their suffering as entirely self-inflicted, and treated them harshly. Contempt became the gate to keep Lazarus out, not seeing him as a neighbor in need. He’s not among the “deserving poor,” so we can cut his benefits because he isn’t trying hard enough.

Boundaries are a survival skill that protects our mental outlook and opportunities for joy and happiness. But when we close the gate, it not only leaves Lazarus vulnerable. The gulf of indifference imperils us. Like the rich man, at some point, we will acutely feel the weight of our indifference.

The overwhelming nature of the problem tempts us to close the gate, but it doesn’t make the problem go away. Dealing with climate change is a large-scale example of Lazarus at the gate. It’s hard to take it in. We walk outside the gate, and it’s too hot, so we go back inside and turn up the air conditioning. I’m reading a book about the impact of higher temperatures called, “The Heat Will Kill You First.” It documents the limits of the human body to adapt to heat. Millions of people live in climates where no air conditioning is a death sentence. More people die from heat in the US than gun violence. Climate disruption is creating more refugees than war, even with millions losing homes in Ukraine and Gaza. The US military now calls climate change a “threat multiplier.”

I can’t take the whole book at once without my mind began racing with catastrophic thoughts. Where will all the refugees go? What about our drought this year? Will my well be safe? If it dries up, where will I live in the winter?

I needed a couple of hours to recover from my reading. The temptation is to stop being informed and deny reality. But denial is really a form a fear. And fear is never good for us. When we think about the problems of climate change, or poverty, or whatever overwhelms us, we must find a way to start with love rather than fear.

That’s why Jesus gives us this parable—not to paralyze us with fear, but to awaken us to love. Jesus nearly always believes that change is still possible. The parable sharpens the issues to bring us to a moment where we can make an important choice, a life-giving choice.

And the choice is this: to live in fear and denial, or to embrace the full catastrophe of life and love. Like Zorba, who dances amid the ruins, we are called to cross our gates, to share the catastrophe of others, and to discover joy in solidarity. And here is the good news: we don’t dance alone. In Christ, God has already stepped into the dust and ruin—into poverty, grief, even death itself. He enters the full catastrophe with us, and then takes us by the hand to show that compassion is stronger than indifference, and life is stronger than death.

So open the gate, step into the dance, and trust that Christ—who crossed the greatest chasm of all—is already dancing with us, even in the dust of our fears.”