Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
For a second week in a row, the scripture readings at Mass are going to invite us to reflect on a Christian’s relationship with wealth. Last week we reflected on Jesus’ words, “You cannot serve God and mammon!” I had suggested that our relationship with wealth has implications for eternity. This week we focus the people who chose to serve mammon. Mammon made some people inhuman. Today’s readings warn us about the kind of people we should not become. On the contrary, today’s readings invite us to develop a Christian character.
Today’s readings are replete with imageries. I would like to use these imageries to draw out the three practical implications. So, let us unleash the power of our imagination.
1. The Scandal of Riches. Imagine this for a moment: People lying upon beds of ivory…, stretched comfortably on their couches…, eating lambs and calves set aside for the temple sacrifice…, drinking wine from expensive bowls…, and anointing themselves with the best oils! This was Amos’ way of describing the economic scandal of his time. People were exploiting others and indulging in luxury. Let me describe a modern-day scandal. Today, three billionaires own as much as wealth as the rest of the bottom of the population. The census bureau released a report last week which stated that the gap between the rich and the poor in the S. climbed last year to the highest level in more than 50 years. Also, income inequality in the U.S. expanded significantly from 2017 to 2018, led by a number of coastal states, including Florida, New York, California and Connecticut. This takes us back to our first reading from Amos. There are a few people who are living it up while a whole lot of people are struggling to make ends meet. The good news is that God takes sides. God is the comfort of the poor and of those struggling to live a dignified life.
2. The Scandal of Selfish Obsession. The second image is found in today’s gospel reading. Try to picture this for a moment: “A rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.” How did the poor man get so overlooked? Perhaps, because that is how much the rich man was into himself, or perhaps, because his obsession with wealth and riches had blinded him. Either way, it was a scandal. So there are questions we can ask today? Why are there hungry people in our country? Do you know that both at Immaculate Conception School and at St. Helen’s school there are children who would be hungry during the weekend if the community did not care to send food with them? This is the United States of America - the largest economy in the world and the richest nation in the world! How did we get here? Do we not have enough to feed everybody? Or, is it that those who have, are too much into themselves? Or, are our riches blinding us? The moral of Jesus' parable is applicable to every one of us whether we are rich or not very rich. We can be so caught up with ourselves that we can become insensitive to the needs of the poor. We must be on the lookout because wealth and possessions have the power to blind us.
3. Eternal Pursuit. The first reading and the gospel reading together are making another important point - that our relationship with wealth reveals our character. The punchline for today’s readings is: “But you, man of God, pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness” (1 Tim 6:11). As Christians, we may be rich or poor. However, our character must reveal a people who pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness. The bigger point of today’s readings is that a disciple is invited to live life from the perspective of eternity. The choices we make —whether it is in regard to wealth, riches, priorities, profession, faith — have eternal implications. Little did the rich man know that Lazarus and he would have to exchange places in eternity. When he realized his fate, he wanted his relatives to know about it, least they too end up where he was. The rich man’s relatives may or may not have known what he wanted them to know, but we sure do. Today’s scriptures are telling us that the way we live today has eternal implications. Let us live carefully, then, pursuing righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness. This indeed is the character of a Christian.
For the second week in a row, the gospel acclamation is, “Though our Lord Jesus Christ was rich, he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” In the Eucharist, Jesus, who is rich becomes poor, so that we might become rich. As Jesus enriches us, may our enrichments help other peoples’ poverty.
Fr. Satish Joseph