What was the rich man doing wrong in the Gospel today? (Luke 16:19-31). Was it that he was rich? No? You can see and hear me give this Homily on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPs3x3U5Agc
Was it that he failed to care for the poor man at his gate? Well no, not really; because he could have solved that problem in a jiffy, simply by instructing his servant to hand out a daily crust or two. And why would that not have been enough? Because once he’d done it, he would never have had to think about that man any more or consider why he was so poor. His failure then lies deeper than this, and I suggest we can find a better understanding of what that failure was if we look at the suggestions made to us in our 2nd Reading from the First Letter to Timothy (6:11-16)
Here, the writer doesn’t want us to think that we’ve ever made it, as far as God is concerned. God is always “In inaccessible light, whom no man has seen and no man is able to see.” He doesn’t want us ever to be satisfied that we know exactly what God wants, that we are doing all we can for God; and so he uses an expression that most of us know perhaps too well ; we have to “Fight the good fight of the faith.” I think we might be helped here if we realise that this passage could just as easily be translated as “Struggle the good struggle.” Fighting might imply an enemy to be defeated, and after that it’s all plain sailing, like the man handing out his daily crusts. Struggling should immediately make us think of Jacob struggling, or wrestling, with God. Jacob is then given a new name, “Israel”, meaning “The one who struggles with God”; and that’s what Israel did from then on, very often making mistakes in the process, but at their best in their great prophets always striving and struggling to understand God. And what is what we the Christian people, the new Israel try to continue to do. It’s our daily task, a never-ending journey, as we try through prayer and meditation to work out, to keep awake, to what God may want us to do next, in any and every situation we face in life.
It is why the Hymn “Immortal invisible, God only wise” is worth singing regularly, as it picks up those words from our 2nd Reading. We sing of God “In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes.” Light, even physical light, is a strange phenomenon. In a way we can never see light, only what light illuminates; and certain spectrums of light are inaccessible to us, but accessible to some other species with different kinds of eyesight. So when we use the metaphor of God as “Light”, or as Jesus as “The Light of the world”, we are into strange territory, in which those who claim to have a certainty about God are the most deluded. As St Paul says in another famous passage (1 Cor 13:13) “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.”
In our Gospel story, it is only in death that the rich man suddenly sees how blind he has been, and pleads with Abraham to help his brothers, to see what he failed to see. But he’s told that if they won’t see then they can’t see. We are all guilty of failing to see in one way or another. In our local Village Shop, as in many other shops in the UK, there’s a basket at the exit labelled “Food Bank.” One day I noticed it for the first time and thought it was new, only to be told it had been there for ages. I was simply too busy to see something that was right before my eyes. After that I saw it but did nothing about it, thinking that I was Ok in sending money to my favourite charities. Then one day I realised how wrong I was. How did two tins of Baked Beans costing little more than £1 and provided about once a week make any real difference to me? But it would make a lot of difference to one poor local family, maybe living near my very own gate? And if all we relatively rich people did that, what a difference it would make.
In effect, I had been like the rich man, whose sin was not that he was rich but that he passed by the poor man without even seeing him, whose sin was that he lived in luxury without facing the struggle of trying to hear what God might be saying to him. What is even more dangerous of course for us all, is if we thought we did know precisely what God’s will was, and even kidded ourselves that we were doing it.
There’s a lovely parable told by Ruth Burrows in one of her books on prayer and on the Christian life. It’s in her little book “To Believe in Jesus” which I highly recommend. She says that “God has given each of us the task of fashioning a beautiful vase.. which we must carry up the mountain in order to place in his hands. The vase represents everything we can do to please God, our good works , our prayers. .. All this God values most highly…. When we reach the top a double shock awaits us. God is not there – there is silence… Secondly the vase… it isn’t beautiful any more….. A deep instinct is telling us that if we want God we have to go over the other side of the mountain… we can’t go down with anything in our hands, we must drop the vase, still precious though so disappointing… we cannot take it with us… Our spiritual achievement is our most precious treasure. It has to go.”
I feel this conveys something of the spiritual struggle that is part of our calling as Christians. This is a struggle that has to be part of our life of prayer, and also it is something we need to feel every time we watch or listen to the News, and hear of floods or famines in various parts of the world, and of people migrating from such places to find some future somewhere. When things get too bad, I have to confess to turning the News off and choosing a good Film to watch instead. But then I’m guilty of avoiding the struggle. I have become the rich man ignoring what is happening at my gate. So I know I must do my little bit to help, even if I feel overwhelmed by so many of the world’s problems.
Actually, facing up to the fact, that whatever we do as individuals, or as a country, will never be enough, is just simply part of what it means to be a Christian. Our prayer must always include an element of helplessness in the face of so much God is calling us to do, and when we feel helpless, maybe the words of the Hymn “Rock of Ages” may give us comfort.
Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross cling.
Naked, come to Thee for dress, Helpless, look to Thee for grace Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.”
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