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
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.
