25 Sept 2022 – 26th Sunday (C)

(1) Amos 6:1, 4-7

Amos laments the wealthy who care nothing for the poor

Alas for those who are at ease in Zion, and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria.

Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music; who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.

Responsorial: Psalm 145:6-10

R./: Praise the Lord, my soul

It is the Lord who keeps faith for ever,
who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is he who gives bread to the hungry,
the Lord, who sets prisoners free. (R./)

It is the Lord who gives sight to the blind,
who raises up those who are bowed down.
It is the Lord who loves the just,
the Lord, who protects the stranger. (R./)

He upholds the widow and orphan
but thwarts the path of the wicked.
The Lord will reign for ever,
Zion’s God, from age to age. (R./)

(2) 1 Timothy 6:11-16

Christians should keep the faith they have professed

As for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time-he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honour and eternal dominion. Amen.

Gospel: Luke 16:19-31

From deep in Hades, Mr. Rich (Dives) sees Mr. Poor (Lazarus) sitting at Abraham’s side

(Jesus said to the Pharisees):
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.

In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’

He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house- for I have five brothers-that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

The Lazarus paradox

One could start with a story about a drastic change of fortune. Cinderella is a fairy tale with the same moral as our gospel parable. She starts life poor and oppressed, but her status is changed by her godmother and finally she becomes the Fairytale Princess. Jesus uses a contrast to drive home his message. The parable could be unpacked, explaining some of its details. The poor man’s name gives a hint of his inner attitude. He is called Lazarus, or in Hebrew Eliezer, which means God will help. He is a beggarman who trusts in the Lord. The nameless rich man is anyone who stonily ignores all the human misery that goes unaided. The rich man has lavish food and a luxurious wardrobe. There is no mention of guilt, for he had done wrong to the other. He simply ignores the fact that just outside his gate lies a poor man in rags and starving. Even the scraps of food that fell from the rich man’s table were not offered to him. The rich man clearly sinned by omission.

Lazarus goes to heaven and basks in the company of Abraham, the friend of God. The poor wretch, whose poverty had been misinterpreted as punishment for sin, is welcomed by the angels into Paradise. The rich man goes down to the dark emptiness of the grave. The sermon could focus on the ultimate settling of accounts, the final judgment that will level off all injustices. It could urge the need to care for the poor on our own doorsteps, who call out for a better life. The rich man did not deny the existence of Lazarus, he just ignored it, or accepted drastic inequality as normality. In the richer countries, urged by the media to balance their domestic budgets, there can be an ostrich mentality that ignores the needs of the developing world. The promise of life after death should not be used as an anaesthetic to dull the need to work for justice in the real world.

Another option is to start with the state of the rich man in Hades. He has fallen from his real privileged position as a son of Abraham. The rich man did not really listen to the message of the prophets. Abraham says that the five brothers will not be able to change their way of life if they do not do so through listening to God’s word. The sermon could tackle the falseness of ethereal devotions that stress the extraordinary but ignore the social implications of the real gospel. The circumstances of each community will be important in how this gospel of justice in faith is to be preached.

Partying, while poor people starve

As religious feasts diminish in popular significance, the secular calendar expands. They advertise Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, Earth Day, Black Friday and Gay Pride Day, and many another social celebration. Maybe we shouldn’t worry too much, as many of our Christian feasts were originally pagan festivals that we baptised. Now the process is being reversed. The latest addition to our secular calendar is Animal Day early in October. Without any disrespect for our fur and feathered friends, the amount spent on pet animals is now enormous. Dogs and other household pets are no longer fed on the scraps that fall from the table, as in former times. Advertising for dog-food and cat-food shows how dramatically our pets’ eating habits have changed. With what we spend on them, we could feed many poor people who are undernourished and starving.

When hearing of Lazarus and the rich man, if we tend to identify with Lazarus, we miss the point of the story. We, collectively, embody the spirit of the rich man. In Europe we have a mountain of beef, of cereals and of butter, a lake of wine and a lake of milk, that cost a fortune to maintain. These are like the crumbs that fall from our table. The warning of Amos aims at us: “Woe to those ensconced snugly in Zion.”

However, the problem of shocking inequality of opportunity in our world is so large that we tend to shrug off any responsibility for our personal part in it. You may be living in a bed-sitter with few comforts or struggling just to meet mortgage repayments on your home. Yet all the services we benefit from, our public transport system, our education, our health services etc. derive from the rich man’s club to which we belong. In that sense, we are dining at the rich man’s table.

The prosperity of the developed world began with products that were looted from the colonies. We still get primary resources from developing countries for a relative pittance, like the tea and coffee we drink, or our year-long supply of fruit from tropical countries. Added to that, we still look to poorer countries to accept our toxic waste. After feeding and clothing ourselves with their resources, we want to return our rubbish to them. We know that we are contributing to climate change, yet don’t relish the lifestyle changes that are required. We need to learn from the parable of Dives and Lazarus. Our world is too small to bear such inequalities. Unless we share our surplus and care for our world, we will end up in a hell of our own making.

Empty hands upraised

The parable of “Mr. Rich and Mr. Poor” is a warning for prosperous people in our prosperous countries. Indifference to the needs of the poor is against the gospel. The gospel contrasts the two attitudes, that of Lazarus, the image of the poor, the downtrodden, those left penniless by the greed of the wealthy and the tax-collectors, and whose only hope was in the mercy of God, and on the other hand that of the rich man, clothed extravagantly, and feasting magnificently every day, self-sufficient, not seeing any need whatsoever to beg for God’s mercy.

Help is at hand for the poor, who for a short while share in Christ’s sufferings so as to share in his glory. For as St Paul tells us, “What we suffer in this life can’t be compared to the glory which is awaiting us.” But for anyone who stores up treasure in this world instead of becoming rich in the sight of God, death brings the realisation that his life was wasted, that his spirit wants to be possessed by God, but cannot do so because it has become fixed in its ways. As a man lives, so shall he die.

The poor in spirit are the ones who put their trust in God. “There is one thing I ask of the Lord; for this I long; to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life” (Ps 26). They try to bear life’s crosses with patience and trust. Further, they welcome life gratefully, without being materialistic, for as St Paul says, “the world as we know it is passing away.” (1 Cor 7:31). Take each day as a gift and try to live it well. With the Psalmist we can pray, “my soul thirsts for God, the God of my life. When can I enter and see the face of God” (Ps 42).

If when we listen to today’s gospel about Lazarus and the rich man, we tend to identify with Lazarus, we miss the whole point of the story. We, collectively, are the rich man. In Europe we have a mountain of beef, a mountain of cereals, a mountain of butter, a lake of wine and a lake of milk, that cost us a fortune to maintain. These are only the crumbs that fall from our table. Amos” warning is aimed directly at us: “Woe to those ensconced snugly in Zion.” The problem about being collectively responsible for the world’s starving masses is that we can so easily shrug off our personal responsibility. You may be living in a bed-sitter with few comforts or struggling to meet the mortgage repayments on your home. Yet all the services we benefit from, our public transport system, our education, our health services etc. derive from the rich man’s club to which we belong. We dine at the rich man’s table.

The prosperity of our developed world began to be built on products that were looted from the colonies. We still get primary resources from developing countries for a relative pittance, like the tea and coffee we drink, and sell it on at elevated prices. Adding insult to injury, we still hope that other countries will be willing to accept our toxic waste. After feeding and clothing ourselves with their resources, we are now returning our rubbish to them. We are becoming aware that we are spoiling our world by climate change. Our revelry is coming home to roost. We need to take to heart the parable of Dives and Lazarus. Our world is too small to bear such inequalities. Unless we share our surplus and care for our world, we will end up in a hell of our own creation.