those 'thou shalt nots' that we have so carefully observed. Jesus here expresses the hollow mockery of the goodness which such negative righteousness represents. Sins of omission, he says, are just as damning as sins of commission. 'Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me' (Matthew 25:45).
Notice the irony of the rich man's words in hell: 'Send Lazarus...' This self-sufficient man had never before needed anybody, least of all that beggar at his gate. What use was a beggar to him? Now suddenly he needs someone; and of all people, he needs Lazarus. But now there is nobody to satisfy his need. His independence of others has been hardened into a fixed and unchangeable isolation.
Sometimes I've heard people say that they wouldn't mind being in hell. They would have plenty of their mates to keep them company. Where were the rich man's mates? Such isolation is the pathos of hell. T. S. Eliot wrote: 'Hell is oneself, Hell is alone.' Hell is the agony of being unable to love or be loved. Hell is the realization of one's need of others, but a need that can no longer be met and which leaves us only with the regret of lost opportunity. Notice too Abraham's charge to the rich man to 'remember'. Once, the gap between him and Lazarus had not been insuperable; a channel of communication had been available between them at one time. But things have changed now. A great void had been fixed by the decree of God. All that was left, therefore, was the tormenting knowledge of the opportunity he had forfeited. Sometimes you hear people talk about purgatory as a place where we can atone for our sins, and then win a second chance. Jesus doesn't seem to give any such hope here. This great chasm of which Abraham speaks is the end of chances. We are on probation here and now; we are sealing our destinies here and now.
Notice, further, that Abraham replies to the rich man as 'son'. There's something very tender about that, but also
