Wealth among the poor

30 September 2007 Year C

Reading : 1 Timothy 6: 6-19 

Gospel : Luke 16:19-31

 

The more I read the gospels and scripture, the more challenged I am. The more I see Christianity as counter cultural and see my life as a pale imitation of what God has called me to.

This last month we have reading through Luke’s gospel. In chapter 14 we heard about the value of humility and hospitality, how it is important to invite people who are not able to repay you; how we should take a lower place at the table. Then the parable of the dinner guests, which wasn’t part of the lectionary at this point, where the excuses for attending the banquet are a property transaction, work, and family. Jesus then tells the disciples to count the cost of discipleship.  

This is followed by the stories of the lost things – the lost sheep and the lost coin; this is followed by the prodigal son. Different ways in which we lose ourselves, by wandering away from God or being distracted like the sheep; by losing our place, suddenly realising we are not where we should be like the coin; or by choosing a different path, like the son.

Then Luke records the story we heard last week of the dishonest manager. The person who used his position to get himself out of  a mess and assure his own future. This week we hear of the rich man and Lazarus.

The rich man is not noted as being evil, or cruel, or acting in any way that is inconsistent with the general society. The fact that he dresses on purple indicates that he is very wealthy, and is possibly part of the royal family. Lazarus sat at his gate, so this suggests walls and a gate, a major complex of buildings with some protection against unwanted intruders. Also note that after the rich man dies, and he is in torment, he commands Abraham to tell Lazarus to look after him, by bringing some cool water, or running an errand to his brothers. The rich man sees any other person there for his benefit.

 

Luke doesn’t say wealth is bad, even the author of the letter to Timothy doesn’t say that being wealthy is bad. There is nothing to indicate that the rich man was in anyway responsible for the position that Lazarus was in, or had anything to do with his death.

Yet what happens to him in the story, after the rich man dies he is in torment. Being rich comes with responsibility. We all have responsibility to our fellow creatures.  The problem of wealth is that it can blind us to what is happening to the world around us. As people get wealthier there is more concern with security, and having enough, and how far will the resources stretch, and how many people we can share our resources with. The sin of wealth is being preoccupied with oneself.

It almost seems that these chapters of Luke were written for our modern western society. We live in a culture that values money and possessions and status, and increasingly security is being added to the list. While the stories revolve around money, they are about more than that. They are about relationships and life, about a new way of thinking and being, about breaking the mould of looking after ourselves at the expense of others.

 

In many ways it is difficult to know what to do about poverty, about homelessness, about violence and drugs and family breakdown. There is much on our world that is downright scary, and much that seems to have no solution. When but when we look at our society, and accept that some people will lose so that we can win, that some people will not have a hospital bed, or housing assistance, or enough food, so that we can have a tax cut, then there is a problem.

 

Remember Luke doesn’t suggest that the rich man was responsible for the situation Lazarus was in, but he was responsible for not helping him out of that situation, for ignoring what was in front of his house. In the news in recent months there was a story from the US, but it could also happen here, that a woman was raped in an hotel hallway, and no-one helped, and it was a long time before anyone even called the police. The people who didn’t help were not responsible for the violence, but they added to the violence by not calling for help more quickly. The idea that another persons predicament is none of our business, that we don’t want to get involved as it might get messy, that is our sin.

 

We are not directly responsible for much of the structural inequality in our society, we are not responsible for drought and famine, but we are responsible for what we do with the resources that we have. I read that Wesley, in one of sermons, included “his formula for earning and saving all you can in order to give all you can, as part of wise and faithful stewardship that provides first for your own and your household's basic needs, then does good within the household of faith and to all others.”

The song went money makes the world go round – but only when we share what we have with others.

 

For many people accumulating wealth is their life’s work, to the exclusion of all else. Here we are called to account for being preoccupied with our own needs, for ignoring the cry of our neighbours around the world – for our neighbour is any who is in need. When we keep searching for more wealth and more ways to protect our wealth and to gain more wealth, then we are substituting money for God.

 Our security, our wealth, our identity, our purpose, are all found in God, and when we go looking for those things in other places, whether it is in finances or football, then we are in trouble. We need to come back to who we are, to the one in whom we live and move and have our being.  It is only when we live trusting in the faithfulness of God, when our identity is in the risen Christ, when our guide is the Holy Spirit, that we can be content with life. For life is what God gives us, and only in relationship with God can we recognise what life truly is.