Amos 6:1a, 4-7; Ps. 146: 7-10; 1 Tim. 6:11-16; Lk.16:19-31
“But you, man of God…compete well for the faith”. Man of God is for all mankind and throughout all stages of life from the young to the old. There is a competition in this world between the forces of good and the forces of evil and the outcome determines the destiny of the soul for eternity. It is enough to send a chill down the spine of those who see this truth and respond by competing well for the faith. It is an active response to pursue righteousness with devotion and love. Sadly, even among the faithful there is a presumption that life is to seek the pleasures of this world for our good and not to serve the good of others. The story of the rich man and Lazarus is a clear reminder that God calls all to accountability for what we do or not do for the least we do unto him.
The sin of a Christian is complacency as we hear in the first reading “woe to the complacent in Zion!” Complacency is taking God for granted by not responding to the call we were given from God. We live under the pretext that being a “good person” gets us to heaven but we don’t stop to ask ourselves what is “good” in the eyes of God. God defines goodness and he clearly has provided us the prophets, the Word and his Son to make clear his will. Here we fall short of the glory of God and the first step is this awareness that leads us to seek reconciliation and the mercy of God but also to take the right steps to be the person who God desires of us. God’s desire is to seek his will and pray for the courage to complete well with his grace by our side.
The consequence of the complacent is “exile”. When we recall the exile of the Israelites it was a wandering in the desert not because the promise land was far from them but because their hearts were far from God. The exile was a time of suffering to purify their hearts. The same can be said of purgatory for the believers as an exile from the kingdom of God until our hearts are purified of its sin. As the prophet Amos declares from the Lord, “Never will I forget a thing they have done” or failed to do out of complacency. It was the message from last weeks readings and continues with focus on wealth and how we live our wealth and share our blessings.
Riches are not a sin but they do contribute to complacency as we stretch comfortably “lying on our beds of ivory” and feed comfortably while forgetting the needs of others. “Blessed is he who keeps faith” with a heart of justice for the oppressed. We live in a country with tremendous opportunity to grow wealth through hard work and our God given talents. Wealth creates the opportunity for freedom in how we manage our lives and our resources. It also can create an illusion of power to control and to govern the lives of others through business, politics, and wealth. This is vanity of vanities until the hour God says “enough” through loss, sickness, tragedy or death and we find ourselves in exile.
The God of mercy who says take up your cross and follow me gives us the cross to bear not with a heart of persecution but with a heart of love to turn us back to him as the rich man now recognizes in his exile. The rich man pleads for someone from the dead to go to his five brothers so they will repent. Abraham responds that if they will not listen to Moses and the prophets they will not be persuaded “if someone should rise from the dead”.
We live in this time when someone did rise from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ and yet there are few who are listening to his voice. Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees because he wanted them to remember this story after he suffered and died for their sins that they may repent. Some did repent but others went to their grave rejecting his teaching and persecuting the followers of Jesus. Now is our time of repentance, to grow in holiness, to be good stewards of the gifts we are given by the way we live our lives and care for others. Compete well as a good and faithful steward against complacency and the forces of evil, eternity depends on it.
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