Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXVI per Annum C
25 September 2022

   Last week’s Gospel concluded with these words: “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”  Mammon refers to wealth, specifically a wealth that one treats as an idol, whether consciously or not.  The message is that we cannot serve both God and wealth; we cannot serve two masters.  As I mentioned last week, this section of St. Luke’s Gospel we are in is the Lord’s extended teaching about the proper use of wealth. 

   This parable is unique in that one of the figures is named, as opposed to the typical trend in parables of unnamed characters.  Usually we have only a rich man, a steward, a man who loses a sheep, a woman who loses a coin.  But here the poor and diseased man is named Lazarus.  The rich man is not named.  However, you might come across this parable referred to as the Parable of Lazarus and Dives.  In our Catholic tradition, the rich man was eventually given the name Dives, not because it is a name but because “Dives” is Latin for rich man.  There has been speculation that perhaps this Lazarus is the same Lazarus from John chapter 11, who died and who was brought back from the dead as a warning and as a sign to persuade others to believe.  We do not know.  There is also speculation about this particular rich man.  Not only is he rich, like the rich man in last week’s parable, but this rich man seems to be spectacularly rich.  He is rich and he is also dressed in linen and fine purple, purple being a color associated with royalty.  Just to make a quick modern connection with that color: Did you notice on Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin and on the high altar at Windsor Castle that the crown, the orb, and the scepter were placed on pillows of purple fabric?  The rich man also “dined sumptuously each day”.  It is one thing to be rich enough to eat well, but it is an entirely unique level of wealth to eat so well on a daily basis.  The connection of purple to royalty and the spectacular wealth of this particular rich man has led some to speculate that this may be a veiled reference to King Herod Antipas.  But again, we do not know.

   Today’s parable gives us an illustration of what it can look like when we attempt to serve both God and mammon.  Now very few of us may have a wealth equivalent to that described of this rich man, but each of us is quite wealthy compared to large swaths of humanity around the world.  Whatever the bottom line of our own finances is, each of us can take a lesson from this parable about our relationship to wealth, the danger of complacency, and the call to be good stewards who use our treasure for others.

As children of God we are given gifts that we do not earn or deserve.  We are given life and the offer of salvation.  We are entrusted with gifts that are not ours to horde but to use in service of others.  We are not made for ourselves.  We are not enriched by gifts for ourselves.  We are called together as a community, the Church, the family of God.  We are our brother’s keeper.  Furthermore, to respond to Christ’s calling in such a way that deserves heavenly reward, we cannot be indifferent to the needs of others around us.  In his complacency with all the goods of this world, the rich man in the parable failed to notice and to respond to the needs of Lazarus who was right at his door, right in his view.  After death, the rich man finds himself in a place of torment with a “great chasm” separating him from the place of blessing with God imaged as the “bosom of Abraham.”  In this a stark lesson comes to light for us who still have time to change our own ways: We learn that whatever the distance between ourselves and God in the life to come just may be a reflection of the distance we put between ourselves and the poor in this life.

   The rich man goes to a place of torment after death.  But I think a powerful lesson for us and our calling to be stewards of our goods is to take note of what the rich man does not do.  The parable doesn’t tell us that the rich man is an idolator.  He doesn’t break the Sabbath.  There is no evidence that he stole from anyone.  We are not told that he is a liar, an adulterer, or a murderer.  The parable simply describes that he lived a life of luxury and gluttony and that led him to be complacent in this life and it led him to fail to love his neighbor, imaged in the poor man Lazarus who was right at his door.  In other words, this is a powerful lesson because the rich man is condemned to torment for a sin of omission.  He didn’t commit the gravest of sins against the Ten Commandments.  But he failed in charity.  He failed to love his neighbor as himself.  Luxury and ease can cause blindness and complacency.  We learn in this parable how significant and weighty a thing it is to be called to use our resources and our wealth as a means to extend God’s generosity to others, as a means to serve and to care for the needy, whom we should not fail to notice.

We see this same lesson in the first reading too.  The rich and powerful are visited with punishment and exile in today’s readings - not simply because of their wealth but for their refusal to share it; not for their power but for their indifference to the suffering at their doors.  Those who are complacent and filled with much, such that they are prevented from realizing their own poverty and the need of others, will have nothing in the life to come.  Complacency is the deadly enemy of a lively faith that must, according to St. Paul, “compete well” and strive to “lay hold of eternal life.”

   With today’s readings ringing in our ears, in our minds, and in our hearts, some probing questions ought to come to mind.  What comforts and complacencies do we need to be shaken out of?  Will we let God’s Word in Scripture unsettle us and cause us to evaluate whether we are truly striving for holiness?  Do we compete more for things of this life rather than competing to keep ourselves on the good side of the chasm between damnation and salvation?  Do we sit by idly and allow our kids to be complacent about faith and discipleship, while keeping them fat on things that will not last?  You see, unlike the rich man’s many brothers, we have not only Moses and the prophets to listen to but God Himself in the flesh – Jesus the Christ!  Will we listen?  Or will we find the distance we keep between ourselves and the needy and poor to be the distance between us and the kingdom of light, refreshment, and life in the world to come?