NOTES for Лк 16:19-31
Christ tells a rather frightening parable about how one indifferent man, who paid no attention to the suffering of his neighbor, ended up in hell in a completely irreversible way. But the thing is that parables are told not about hell or paradise, but about you and me, about how we are to live on this earth. The point is not that we are being frightened with the torments of hell, but that a definite alternative is placed before us: to try to "receive all the good things in life" or to see the pain and loneliness of someone who was less fortunate in this life than we were. And here the decision must be made completely freely, because if a person is deaf to the voice of conscience, to human and divine law, then he can be frightened with hell or anything else as much as one likes: even if someone rises from the dead, he will not believe. And all that is needed is simply to tear ourselves away from our own happiness, or unhappiness, and share "at least the crumbs" of our life, for that is why it was given to us...