“TRINITY 1”
Saint Luke 16: 19-31
1st Sunday after Trinity: 11 June Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
There are rich men and there are beggars to be sure—everywhere—at all times. It is a sin to be greedy, miserly, selfish, and uncaring. You are commanded to love your neighbor as yourself. The Church has always been the true source of caring for the starving, sick, and homeless.
There are goats and there are sheep. This too, sadly, is the fallen world’s condition until our Lord returns again at the end of time to separate and judge; to punish and reward.
The rich man was a pagan, an unbeliever rejecting the grace and mercy of God. You need not try and look into his heart; Jesus’ description of his actions shows you he had no faith. No works…no faith.
There is no sin, no heathen behavior in eating healthy, eating well, and of course feasting and banqueting at those appropriate times when such meals are fitting. But, refusing to help someone “laid at [the] gate” is cruel. Lazarus was an “angel” perhaps, a son of The heavenly Father whose face reflected the very face of Jesus; as do all of yours, as did Saint Stephen when he was drug before the council. You know The Lord’s words “when you have done these things to the least of My brethren, you have done them to Me.” Maybe the rich man thought the Roman government would take care of the nuisance. At best he was “Scrooge-like,” i.e., “best that the poor just die and decrease the surplus population.” At worst, he didn’t even see or recognize Christ at the gate.
Those who have possessions as gods go to Hades. Afterall, if one worships material things (gold, silver, fine linen, sumptuous food) then one will follow them at death to where rust, moth, and rot dwell. The one who gorges on the world and refuses to fast is dead already. Damnation is just the final terminus.
Lazarus is the perfect avatar for the Christian. Not that you need to be sick and laying in the gutter, but, that you are indeed “fasting” from the world with your heart, eyes, and spirit focused on the “one thing needful.” Though he was physically hungry Lazarus was filled with The Lord’s goodness. That is why, that is the only reason why the “angels” carried him to Abraham’s feast with Isaac, Jacob, and the host of heaven.
So, sure, be like Lazarus and “fast” from sin, from sinful habits and lovelessness. Fast also from food. The man that can discipline his flesh (his stomach) is the man that can run the race with Saint Paul and “every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things…I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection” [1 Cor. 9.25]. So too you. Be like Paul and be like Lazarus. Whether filled or hungry be a beggar for Christ’s Mercy. A beggar, that is what the Reformer says that we all are.
Since today is the day of salvation, as was Genesis 1; as was the day of Christ’s Incarnation, Nativity, Death (+), Resurrection, and Ascension; as was your Holy (+) Baptism; as is 11 June—you and your household confesses Jesus the rich God Who became the poor God/Man to have His angels carry you to His bosom even as Saint John reclined against The Lord at the Last Supper. But the Supper was not the “last,” the communion with Christ is today at this altar as the foretaste of the eternal Wedding Banquet. You feast now and then not on “rich man” fare but on The Lord.
Parable or actual events being narrated? Does it ultimately matter? Christ’s Words are true and the message is true.
Do not worry or obsess about your own aborted, feeble, and ineffective (or so it seems to you) efforts at evangelizing, proselytizing, witnessing, and doing apologetics. If such a large majority of the “rich” Jews whom Paul, Barnabus, Silas, John Mark, Timothy, and the rest resisted The Gospel, why do you think that everybody you try to convince will just instantly follow you to your faith, your Church, your parish? Jesus did miracles and the Pharisees and Sadducees refused to believe. Jesus rose from the dead and was testified to by actual eye-witnesses.
No! Never “beat yourself up” over what looks like people rejecting you, your message, and God.
Let your own love, your actions of charity and mercy, be peppered among your gentle and winsome verbal confessions of Jesus Christ and where He is found in His Word (The Scriptures) and His House (The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church).
They, and you, have Moses and The Prophets, i.e., The Law and Gospel of Jesus. It is enough.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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