Dives and Lazarus

Dear Cathedral Family,

Sometimes Jesus taught simply by telling a story, as he does this week with the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Sometimes this story is called, “Dives and Lazarus,” seemingly giving the rich man a name. But “Dives” is simply late Middle English for the Latin term meaning “rich man.” So “Rich Man” has no real name, while Lazarus (the poor man) does. And that is much of the point of the story.

Stories speak for themselves, tell themselves, as image and action and dialogue. This week, Jesus invites you to experience the story itself, aware all the while that he is the teller.

For your experience of Jesus’ telling, here is the text of the story.

Here is one of many visual renderings of the story.

Here is the traditional English folk song telling the story, “Dives and Lazarus,” (considered a Christmas carol!).

And here is the hauntingly familiar work composed by Ralph Vaughn Williams in 1939, based on his recollections of first hearing the song, which he describes here:

I felt like this when I first heard Wagner, when I first saw Michelangelo’s “Night and Day,” when I first visited Stonehenge. I immediately recognized these things which had always been part of my unconscious self. The tinder was there, it only wanted the spark to set it ablaze…. So when I first played through “Lazarus,” I realized that this was what we had all been waiting for—something which we knew already—something which had always been with us if we had only known it; something entirely new, yet absolutely familiar.

Looking forward to experiencing the story with you on Sunday,

Faithfully,

Beverly+