TWENTY SIXTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR "C"

Cycle “C”: Luke 16, 19 - 31

“Rich man – Poor man”

LOOKING FOR A SUCCESSOR

            According to an Irish legend, there lived a king who had no sons. With a view to having a possible successor to the throne, he sent his couriers to invite eligible young men to show up for an interview with him. Prospective successors to the throne, however, should have these two qualifications: love of God and love of fellow human beings. There was a young man who honestly believed he filled the book, love of God and neighbour. His only problem, he felt, was that he was too poor and shabby to be presentable before the king. His only resort was to beg and borrow until he had enough money to buy suitable clothes and some provisions for the journey. Eventually he set out for the royal residence and after many days of hard walking was delighted to see the magnificent castle loom in the distance. But just short of entering, he was stopped by a beggar, of all people, sitting by the side of the road, ill-clad and trembling, and pleading for help with extended arms. “I’m cold and hungry. Help me, please.” Moved by the beggar’s plight, the young man stripped off his clothes and exchanged them for the rags of the poor man. Without a second thought, he also gave him his provisions. Then, rag tag and without any provisions for his return, and with some uncertainty, he entered the castle. The king’s attendant showed him in and, after a long wait, he was finally admitted to the throne room. The youth bowed low before the king. When he raised his eyes, he was struck with astonishment.  “You !  But you were the beggar by the roadside.”  “Yes,” replied the king. “I was that beggar.”  “But you are not a beggar; you are really the king !”  “Yes, I am really the king.”  “Why did you do this to me ?” the young man asked.  “Because.” said the king, “I had to find out if you do really love God and your fellow human beings. I knew that if  I came to you as king, in gold crown and royal robes, you would have been so impressed as to do anything I asked. But that way I would never have known what you really are at heart. So I came to you as a beggar, with no claims on you except for the love in your heart. And I have found out that you truly do love God and your fellow human beings. You will be my successor and have my kingdom.”

LOST CHANCES

            When the rich man of Jesus’ parable died, he saw Lazarus not sitting on a throne but reposing in Abraham’s bosom. He kicked himself for letting up a good chance of making friends of the poor hunched at the gates of plenty. There is another parable elsewhere in the Gospels of the cunning steward who was resourceful and quick-witted. He won the gratitude of the poor by reducing their debts. So when he was dismissed from high office, he had many friends among the poor. But in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the behaviour is the precise opposite of the wily steward’s. The rich man conspicuously does not win friends in low places. Rather, he behaves meanly with the beggar at the gate, even denying him the still edible floor-sweepings. The poor man simply didn’t exist for him. Somebody has said, “The way to know a man is to observe how he treats people he doesn’t need.” So when all wealth was lost in death and the fat cat banished to the torments below, the situation was decidedly reversed, with Lazarus rich forever and the other out of reach of a drop of water.

PERSONS vs. THINGS

            In the teaching of Jesus the old values come tumbling down. Possessions that used to be the sign of God’s predilection could well pave the path to perdition. Earthly wealth is ours for a very limited period.  As the Spanish proverb has it,  there are no pockets in a shroud !  We use what we have in order to make friends among the poor. They will welcome us home in heaven when it’s time to leave it all, and they will have God’s backing in the welcoming. Sometimes when the Bible addresses the subject of money, we feel it’s really not God’s business to tell us what to do. But he begs to differ, and the readings today ask us, “What kind of faith is revealed in your wallet?”

            Jesus seems to be telling us that we must love persons and use things; not the other way about: use persons and love things. Jesus seems to be saying: “Don’t ever give your heart away to a thing. If you do, that thing, whatever it may be, will gradually become your master; it will own you and lead you around on a leash of addiction, forcing you to compete with others to grab all you can, thereby producing the inversion of priorities. Choosing to run down this road is opting to cheat, bring down others, and cut corners on your integrity. “

MESSAGES FROM THE DEAD

            The Pharisees believed in life after death and here Jesus catapults their imaginations into it. He makes it real through narrating the cosmic conversation across the great divide, the last part of which concerns the five brothers of the rich man. “But if someone comes to them from the dead, they will repent.”  To give him his due, smarting from his own mistake, he thinks of warning his own brothers about the same by sending the ghost of Lazarus  -  the ghost of opportunities past  !  That would hopefully work up a religious appetite. take this charity stuff seriously and push trolleys of the finest fare to all the Lazaruses in their cardboard boxes. Father Abraham dismisses the proposition. “They have Moses and the prophets.”  They have heard the passionate denunciations of the uncaring rich by prophets like Amos. But will they listen even if somebody called Lazarus comes back from the dead ? 

The obdurate rich, who ignore Moses and the prophets, will remain unmoved even if someone returns from the dead.

In the Gospel of John somebody called Lazarus does come back from the dead, an event that produced unbelief and opposition in some, and faith in others (Jn.12, 9 - 11).  And so the open-ended parable draws us in. We too have the law and the prophets. We also have these parables as part of our scriptures. And most of all, we have Someone greater than Lazarus who has come back from the dead !

NO CON, THIS

            “Opium of the people” was the phrase to describe religion as the massive scam. Promise the masses eternal happiness to come as the answer to the questions of poverty and exploitation. Not the religion of Jesus Christ, since it is anything but a cheap con. Rather, it is the costliest truth of all  -  that real fulfilment in life is rooted in love and service to all, rooted in the realities of pain and suffering as well as of human goodness and joy. Heaven is not the reward for being poor, nor hell the punishment for being rich. Heaven and hell are here already,  depending on using or losing opportunities to love.