Last Sunday’s Gospel reminded us of what
economics according to God looks like – it spoke of a redistribution of wealth
by a manager who realised that material wealth is only temporary; what we do with
that wealth and how we distribute it is more important. Today’s parable is on a
similar theme. The rich man is sorry but it is too late for him. He had not
come to his senses as the manager last week had done. The rich man is unwilling to change; even
in the afterlife he wants Lazarus sent, ordered, to go to his brothers to warn
them. It is not proof or special signs that they need. Their vision has been
blinded by wealth. They need to ‘see’ the poor who are at their gates.
God’s economics means striving for a world where
the poor man Lazarus can sit down at the same table as the rich man. It is not
simply enough to comfort the poor and say to them that they will be rewarded in
heaven. This misses the point. Luke is pointing us to a great reversal that is
so central to this Gospel, a call to turn the world as we know it upside down.
‘It is not God’s will for some to have
everything and others to have nothing’. Oscar Romero
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