Lazarus – Joseph Wakim

Why have some ‘gone to the dogs’ for love?
First published in Sight Magazine, 22 August 2025

“She fills a hole in my heart,” said the lady on the bench, as she kissed the super-cute Cavoodle on her lap.

The lady later explained that she lives alone in her beachside mansion, which she inherited. There was a feud and a fallout in the family. Apparently, they don’t visit her and she now treats her dog as family.

‘Hug mummy!’ she mollycoddles her baby.

A faithful companion. PICTURE: Sergii Gnatiuk/iStockphoto

This reminded me of something my mother used to say when she forgot a neighbour’s name: ‘Mother of (insert dog’s name).’

But this is no laughing matter.

Dogs have been associated with depression and loneliness. ‘Black dog’ was coined by Samuel Johnson in 1776 and later popularised by Winston Churchill to describe a dark depression that keeps following you. Hence, Australia’s Black Dog Institute.

The benefits of a canine companion on our mental health are well established. When dogs encourage their owners to go for walks, they become conversation-starters with strangers. Petting a dog releases oxytocin (the love hormone) and lowers cortisol levels (the stress hormone).

Dogs appear to be hard-wired for unconditional love, forgiveness and loyalty that may surpass human temperaments. They are content to lay their head on our feet, as if worshipping at an altar.

A 2023 Groundswell Foundation Report found that more than 25 per cent of Australians are impacted by loneliness. This report recommends that we follow the lead of UK (2018) and Japan (2021) to create a Minister for Loneliness.

In 2025, Australia has the third-highest dog ownership rate in the world after Brazil and USA.

So what’s wrong with this mutual love with a furry friend?

My alarm bells rang while reading expert statements about the function of dogs in our lives:
• “…meet our attachment needs. They can be an ear to talk to, a shoulder to cry on.”
• “…fulfil so many functions for us from family members, empty nester replacement ‘kids’, preventing loneliness…they can be that trusted friend…the reason to stay alive and get out of bed in the morning.”
• “…unwavering love and loyalty…always ready to offer comfort during tough times…if you don’t have a human life-partner.”

This rhetoric of replacement and filling of an emptiness circles back to the lady on the beach bench. Maybe she was honest about the hole in her heart. Maybe she gave up on humans to fill that hole.

This begs the metaphoric question: what is the shape of the hole in the heart today?

It evokes what St Augustine famously wrote: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you”. When he elaborates on this hole in his heart, he uses language that is now adopted by pet experts: forget my woes, embrace, love, ears, compassion.

Have dogs become the new ‘go-to’ for these Godly attributes?

Indeed, Jesus contrasts the compassion of dogs with the Rich Man in the parable: “At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores” (Luke 16:20-21).

This compassion reappears in the legend of St Roch (c1295-1327), patron saint of dogs. After this Franciscan pilgrim was miraculously curing villagers from the black plague, he contracted it in his leg. But God sent him a hunting dog that brought him food daily and licked his wounds.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that G-O-D is D-O-G spelt backwards. Perhaps this ‘semordnilap’ reminds us that the hole in our heart is the shape of God, but the unconditional love of dogs points us back to the source of Love.

The ‘Rich Man and Lazarus’, and its connections with a famous song

First published in Sight Magazine, 18 July 2025

Open Book: The ‘Rich Man and Lazarus’, and its connections with a famous song

Read Luke 16:19-31 (NIV)

In my childhood, Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham was a contagious chorus with an elusive verse: “so high you can’t get over it, so low you can’t get under it, so wide you can’t get around it, oh rocka ma soul.” What was ‘it’?

Why would a 175-year-old dead man (Genesis 25:7) be swaying my soul in his bosom?

This African-American ‘slave song’ describes the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

Jesus named the beggar at the rich man’s gate Lazarus, a Hellenised translation of the Hebrew Ele-azar (‘he whom God has helped’). This is an apt name given the preceding theme of eyes and hearts: Lazarus was invisible and insignificant to the rich man.”

For cultural context, this parable follows the parable of the shrewd manager, where Jesus responds to the “sneering” Pharisees: “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts” (Luke 16:15).

From his opening sentence of the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Jesus directs his coded language at the Pharisees who “loved money”.

If the rich man “lived in luxury every day”, then he ordered his servants to prepare food that “fell from his table”, even on the Sabbath. This is the Sabbath law that the Pharisees accused Jesus of breaking (Mark 2:23-24).

When the two characters died simultaneously, the rich man “looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side”.

First, the rich man ‘in torment’ plays the race card and calls “Father Abraham”. In the Levant, this is called waasta – expecting favour due to connection, implying that this Jewish Patriarch should pity his own children before looking after some non-descript beggar. Whatever he wills should be done in heaven, as it was in his lifetime. This is the ironic antithesis of the Lord’s prayer: “on Earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10)

Second, the rich man treats Lazarus like one of his servants: “send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool my tongue”. The entitled eyes and unrepentant heart of the rich man persisted in the afterlife: he knew the beggar’s name but still refused to speak to him directly.

Father Abraham addresses the rich man as “son”, which surely renders “Lazarus by his side” as an invisible brother.

Abraham turns the tables, reminding the rich man “in your lifetime you received good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now…”. The parable drives a wedge between the Pharisees and Sadducees as the latter do not believe in resurrection (Acts 23:8).

“But now…” highlights the ironic role reversal: Now the rich man is begging “have mercy on me”. Now the rich man is “in agony”. Now the rich man wishes to be seen as Ele-azar.

Abraham responds: “a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot”. Perhaps this is the origin of the Rock my Soul verse “so wide, you can’t get around it…”

Third, the rich man desperately begs for a miracle: “send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them…”. Again, he speaks about Lazarus in the third person. Again, he relegates Lazarus: from waiter to messenger.

When Abraham declines this last request, the rich man pleads “if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent”.

The ironies are falling off his table!

Why has the rich man refused to repent or apologise directly to Lazarus?

If the black-and-white writings of ‘Moses and the Prophets’ cannot incite repentance, why would the rich man’s five brothers be convinced by the apparition of the familiar beggar whom they probably stepped over at their brother’s gate?

Is it coincidental that the Sadducee high priest Caiaphas had exactly five brothers-in-law and were all priests?

When Jesus later raised the ‘real’ Lazarus from the dead, the chief priests plotted to kill both of them (John 12:9-10), rather than repent.

The parable provides a salient warning that despite how you “justify yourselves in the eyes of others, God knows your hearts”. While wealth, reputation, waasta, sickness and poverty are all left behind, only the colour of the heart persists. The rich man remained ‘dressed in purple’, refusing to see beggar as a brother. Lazarus remained silent throughout the parable, never cursing the rich man.

Circling back to the Rock my Soul ditty, there is an inescapable coincidence: Abraham was born around 2000 BC in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, now in Southern Iraq. All three monotheistic faiths revere Abraham. While Ab-raham means ‘father of many nations’ in Hebrew, raham/racham also means womb and mercy in local Semitic languages, especially around Ur.

How apt that Lazarus is shown mercy as he is welcomed home to the womb/bosom of Father Abraham.