SUNDAY C26 Luke 16:19–31
As usual you can hear the sermon here but this time there are two versions with one from the 11.00 am and the other from the 12.30 pm Mass.
I love reading history, especially ancient history. From that reading I have learnt that
people do not change. The wealthy
two thousand years ago behaved much as the wealthy today. Often the more we have the more
indifferent we are to those who have not.
Christ is not indifferent.
He measures our love for Him by our love for others especially those who
are in need.
The rich man is this parable is not just wealthy. Purple is an ordinary colour to us but
at that time it was extremely expensive and associated with the Emperor in
Rome. So this man was in the
highest class of wealthy. Imagine
his gated home surrounded by gardens, full of marble, mosaic floors, walls
covered with colourful frescoes and many statues and works of art. He wears fine linen and dines on the
best of food everyday. Imagine the
expensive ingredients in his food, the rare perfumes in his house and the
costly fabrics of his furnishings of his household. A man of his wealth and standing would own many slaves,
always available to serve him. This
man lives very well, better than most even today. Note that he is not accused of any wrongdoing other than his
failure to care for Lazarus. It
seems his only sins are his pride and indifference to the poverty at his
door. He is without mercy and
devoid of compassion and we may fairly accuse him of greed for greed and
avarice lead to the loss of charity and compassion.
In contrast there is Lazarus, sick and starving, whose only friends
are the hungry, mangy dogs in the street.
They alone have compassion on him and tend his sores. The Jews had a horror of skin diseases
which they associated with leprosy and so Lazarus is literally shunned like a
leper. Like the Prodigal Son
Lazarus is so hungry that he longs to eat the slops from the rich man’s table
but he is offered nothing. The
rich man could’ve done something but he chose not to. He could’ve sent a servant or arranged with someone to help
Lazarus but he didn’t. He did
nothing. This was his sin, a sin
of omission.
Note too that he is nameless.
Our Lord does not name him because his name is not written in
Heaven. We have our humanity as a
gift, something that we are to unfold, unwrap and explore, to make grow and
deepen through loving care for others.
Love is not a feeling it is an act of your will, a choice to treat
another person as a good in themselves, to give oneself to them in
service. To choose not to serve,
not to care is to choose to become less human and in the end to become inhuman
and therefore nameless before God.
We earn our names in Heaven by our compassion and care for those in
need, especially those who cannot pay us back.
Abraham, the father of the Jewish people and all the righteous, was
a just and hospitable man, compassionate to the poor. He was a man of faith who sacrificed financial security in
this world because of his faith in God and his hope of future, everlasting
security in Heaven. It was he who
haggled with God to try to save Sodom from destruction. Both men die but it is Lazarus who ends
up in the ‘bosom of Abraham’ while the rich man ends up in Hell. The ‘bosom of Abraham’ may refer to
Heaven or to that place where the just awaited the resurrection of Christ. Lazarus is consoled and soothed but the
heartless rich man is immersed in fire and cannot escape. Yet he remains unchanged by his
torment. He is suffering for his
pride, greed and lack of compassion but remains as proud and indifferent to
Lazarus as always. This is what
he has made of himself.
In his arrogance the rich man still calls Abraham ‘father’ and
expects that Lazarus will be treated like a servant sent to do his
bidding. Yet there is malice here
too. He does not ask to be removed
from the fire and to be allowed to join Lazarus but that Lazarus be sent to
serve him in his torment.
Abraham explains the reality to him. He has made his bed in Hell and now he must lie in it for
all eternity. He is suffering for
wasting his wealth on himself, for being mastered by his appetites and for
being without compassion while Lazarus, who did no wrong, who did not curse, who
did not even resent the rich man, is granted everlasting consolation.
The Fathers take the ‘five brothers’ to mean the five senses. Wealth and comfort can seduce us into
materialism and its spouse atheism.
We can grow indifferent to the needs of others and even to our eternal
salvation. How often do those we mock
the things of God and ignore the moral law that one ought to care for those in
need? Moses and the prophets
warned about the demands of the moral law and what awaits those who ignore
it. Wealth, if it is not put at
the service of charity, is a trap for the careless soul. The rich man was enslaved to his senses
and so lost his freedom in eternity. Lazarus remained poor but free in this world and so
won his freedom in Heaven. By
rejecting the warning of ‘Moses and the prophets’ we are rejecting Christ too.
Christ is the true rich man who has made himself utterly poor for
our sakes for He left the wealth of Heaven to enter our spiritual poverty on
Earth. He comes to us not
only in Holy Communion, though that is, by far, the greatest of His gifts to
us, but He comes to us also in the poor.
He is the poor man who sits at our doorsteps and on our streets. He hides the wounds of the Cross under
those of addiction and poverty. He
suffers in all who are poor, needy or abandoned, from the child in the womb to
the old person dying alone, from the poorest of the poor in Africa to those unjustly
imprisoned. What we do to them we
do to Him.
Compared to so many people in our world we are rich. We have a low crime rate, a huge
variety of food in our shops, heating, light and a health care system, good
schools and so many other amenities.
Yes we pay for them but they are luxuries beyond imagining to most of
humanity. There are families in
some parts of the World today where their annual income is about €100. Here in Ireland there are 228 people
homeless in Dublin alone and yet how many houses and apartments lie idle? We deplore this fact but how many of us
have called or written to our elected representatives to complain about this
situation?
We are faced with this choice: either we serve the world or God,
wealth or good. Christ demands of
us that we care for those in need.
He expects us to use what we have on Earth to invest in Heaven by
looking after others, firstly among our family, friends and neighbours but
among strangers as well. As St Ephrem
said “we cannot hope for pardon at the end unless the fruits of pardon can be
seen in us.” Show your faith and
the work of God’s grace through charity to those who are poor and struggling. The rich man got no mercy because he
showed none. You will receive from
God in accord with how you have given. If you want to show sorrow for your wrongdoing look after the
poor and needy. You will not have
to look far to find them. Go
further than money. Volunteer your
time, offer to fundraise, search for things to do for those in need and you
will find plenty to do.
The rich man did not hold faith with Lazarus, his fellow Jew, in his
suffering and poverty on Earth so he could not share with him in his
blessedness and good fortune in Heaven.
Likewise we too cannot share in the blessedness of Heaven if we ignore
those who are in need here on Earth.
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