26th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022
St Luke 16:19-31
Today’s gospel is more clearly understood if we keep in mind the fact that all this parable tells us about the afterlife is that there is one and that our conduct here affects our destiny there. Contemporary readers of this parable are compelled by its urgency. Through today’s readings Jesus is asking us to look at our behaviour among ourselves and to discover whether or not we put our full energies into the practice of our proclaimed beliefs. Do we really act like the persons we proclaim ourselves to be, the persons we believe ourselves to be, the persons we want ourselves to be? Like the brothers in the parable who represent ourselves, we have the teachings of scripture and we have Lazarus at our gate. We also have someone who did rise from the dead. That is more than enough.
But that revelation does call for commitment and we ignore it at our own peril. That commitment is to love one another. To be sensitive to the needs of others, especially the poor. In the parable the rich man was indifferent to the poor man’s plight. It wasn’t that he positively oppressed him. It was simply that he was apathetic towards him. And Jesus makes it clear that self-centredness of this kind based on a preoccupation with material wellbeing renders a person incapable of recognising spiritual values. None of us has the wealth that the rich man in the parable had but we can still be so preoccupied with our own material wellbeing that we are blind to the things of the spirit.
We need to be aware that there are many people whose lives are without meaning and direction, who lack not material things but love and friendship and who lead sad and lonely lives as a result. It’s not so much a question of going out and looking for such people it’s more a question of exercising concern and compassion when like the Rich Man in the parable we find them at our door-sometimes even inside the door- they can be members of our own families, or communities, close friends, or neighbours. What is required is a sensitive response to their needs which in practical terms might be expressed simply as listening or extending hospitality or by being tolerant or patient. Really it is the ability to identify with them recognising that in so many ways we too are poor and needy.
It was the rich man’s apathy, his insensitivity, that proved ground enough for his condemnation.