The Ultimate Contrast
Our world constantly presents us with a kaleidoscope of contrasts. Some, like extremes of heat and cold, can challenge us; others, like colour and light, can enthral us. Others again, like Luke’s Gospel (16:19-31) for the 26th Sunday of the Year ‘C’ featuring ‘the rich man’ and ‘the poor man, Lazarus’, can disturb, perhaps even surprise us.
For Jesus and his contemporaries, two thousand years ago, a very different culture existed. However, the core of human nature then and now is not so different. To appreciate this, we need to see beneath the surface of Jesus’ parable. The face value of Jesus’ teaching parable we understand effortlessly without the aid of dictionaries and historians. In our day, too, there exist equally shocking contrasts between ‘people who have’ and ‘people who do not have’. Our contemporary problem is our limited understanding bounded by the visible and measurable. This is because we have become unskilled in making a proper evaluation of the spiritual.
In the ‘Lazarus and rich man’ parable, many subconsciously limit their ‘reading’ to the physical, material world of those who ‘have’ and those who ‘have not’. It’s as if our creator-gifted spiritual wings of insight have been clipped and, like the ravens at the Tower of London, we have forgotten how to fly even if we knew what flying entailed! [The ravens of the Tower of London are a group of at least seven individuals (six required, with a seventh in reserve). The presence of the ravens is traditionally believed to protect the Crown and the Tower; a superstition holds that “If the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it”]
It would be fascinating to survey the Mass-attending worshippers in the UK this Sunday with a question such as “What most impressed you in Jesus’ parable in the Gospel about the ‘rich man’ and ‘Lazarus, the poor man’? How many would focus their attention on the physical, material ‘have and have not’ elements to the exclusion of the spiritual dimension that Jesus deliberately incorporates? Jesus deliberately takes us ‘beyond the grave’ to the non-physical, non-material world of eternity!
Has ‘beyond the grave’ become a ‘no-go’ land for the majority of the population? If so, have we become willing participants in an alarming duplicity that chooses not to see in depth, but only the surface? If so, then perhaps we have joined those people who believe that the ravens at The Tower stay there of their own choosing because of a secure roost and three meals a day!
Being a medically retired priest, I sometimes get asked what I am looking forward to. The questioners are kindly people really just trying to jolly me along and not dwell on the downsides of injured health. When I answer, “Well, ultimately I am looking forward to dying and going to God, I hope”, it’s a real conversation stopper! Their first reaction is to try and see if I’m showing signs of dementia. When there’s no evidence of that, they usually say something along the lines of – “O well, it will be all right. Now, we’ll have to make tracks as we’ve lots of people to see.” In next to no time, they have gone! You can almost hear their comment to one another in the car, “Well, he’s a priest isn’t he! He’d have to say that.”
That Jesus, in the Gospel, named the poor man, Lazarus and left the rich man unnamed, is not insignificant. The acknowledgement of a person’s name also acknowledges a specific duty of care. It’s easier to live with a shallow (hollowed-out) conscience when the focus is a nameless statistic rather than a named person. The rich man had neither time nor space for God in his life. Jesus left him without a name because the rich man had not invited God to that level of intimacy. Had he been willing, had the rich man the depth awareness to fully invite God into his life, he would have seen and responded to Lazarus at his gate. For his part, Lazarus’ only hope was God.
Ask yourself how many ‘rich’ people you can identify by name. Now contrast that number with how many ‘poor’ people you know by name. There’ll likely be a differential in favour of the ‘rich’.
Now adjust your understanding of the ‘poor’ to include the countless, of all ages, who are suffering spiritual devastation aided and abetted both by civil legislation and the Church’s own self-inflicted wounds. Satan’s astute lowering of the levels of peoples’ spiritual sensitivity has been achieved by devilishly clever use of ‘smoke and mirrors’. It’s as if the pomp of the Last Night of the Proms and the Cenotaph quasi-religious ceremony the following morning are able to lull the British people into a false sense of security that all is well with God and the world. If this is even remotely true then we have become like the wing-clipped ravens!
Increased levels of humanity and generosity in responding to the physical and psychological needs of deprived people in our day are to be applauded. But we are body and soul, not just body. The ‘beyond the grave’ element of this Sunday’s Gospel text demands our attention too! If, automatically, we so filter our hearing/reading of the ‘rich man v Lazarus’ Gospel that, without missing a beat, we resume our ‘normal life’ after Mass, then maybe there’s a contrast we’re avoiding. Could it be the contrast between the person I am and the person Jesus is still calling me to be?