IT IS THE LORD WHO GIVES BREAD TO THE HUNGRY

XXVI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Luke 16:19-31

This Sunday, with the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, we are confronted with the realities of poverty and wealth and forced to think about the value (or lack of value) of the riches of this world. The wealthy man enjoys life, spending his time feasting “magnificently every day”. We may ask what is the purpose of his life? He is a useless man and his life serves no purpose. Others worked for him to keep his lavish lifestyle. Despite all his merriment, he left this world empty-handed. That’s why he does not deserve to have a name.  It is as if he is nobody, despite all his wealth. Outside the rich man’s house, at his gate, there laid Lazarus, who was poor, sick and starving. Nobody pitied him but the dogs who seemed more friendly than the humans that surrounded him. The rich and the poor lived side by side, separated just by a gate, which enclosed the rich within his palace, stopping the cries of the poor from reaching his ears.

We may be puzzled by the parable. We don’t know anything about the behaviour of both the rich and the poor. It seems that it didn’t matter. The poor Lazarus was welcomed to a place of blissfulness because he had suffered beyond any reasonable measure in this world. And the rich man was thrown into a place of punishment because he had had more than his share of happiness in this world. 

This parable is a graphic representation of the beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke:

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. (Lk 6:20, 24).

Indeed, we “cannot serve God and money.” (Lk 16:13).

And the parable ends with the dialogue between the rich man and Abraham, in which we are told that the only to avoid ending our life in a place of torment is to listen to the Word of God that we find in the Scriptures (Moses and the prophets). Only the word of God may convince us of sin and lead us to repentance and conversion. The wealth which is not put at the service of others will never be a source of happiness.