How does God view the poor and the rich?

HOW GOD VIEWS THE RICH AND THE POOR

Amos 6:1, 4-7 & Lk.16:19-31

Nowhere in the Gospel accounts are the fate of the poor and the rich contrasted more sharply than in the Gospel according to St. Luke.  Jesus’ message, as conveyed by the evangelist, is as stark and radical as it can be.  “Blessed are you who are poor – not just poor in spirit, but poor; and “Woe to you who are rich.”  The beatitudes are thus reinforced by corresponding curses on the rich.

The same message is announced in Mary’s canticle, the Magnificat, which compares the ways in which God deals with the poor and the rich.  “He fills the starving with good things, the rich He has sent empty away,“ and “He puts down the mighty from their seats and raises the lowly.”  The portrait of God which we see, therefore, is that of one who turns the tables.  Those who are rich and powerful in this world are brought low in the next, those who are poor and humble in this world are lifted up in the next.

The Lord amplifies His teaching through parables.  Today we have the one about the rich man and Lazarus in which the luxury of the one and the destitution of the other are contrasted in graphic detail. 

The rich man is magnificently attired in purple and fine linen.  Such purple garments were very expensive, and only kings, governors and other rich people could afford them.  While the rich man is covered in his finery, there sits Lazarus at his doorstep, almost naked and covered in sores.

The rich man feasts sumptuously every day.  He has luxurious food in quantities to satisfy his appetite several times over.  His poor neighbour, Lazarus, lives on an empty stomach, longing even for the scraps from the rich man’s table.

The rich man does not care at all for Lazarus.  He is totally blind to the poor man’s needs:  he does not feed him, nor clothe him, nor bandage his wounds whereas the dogs at least lick them.  We have here a damning indictment of the rich man’s behaviour:  even the dogs show more kindness to Lazarus than the rich man.  The rich man treated Lazarus as if he had no human identity but in fact it was the rich man who, because he is so inhuman, has lost his human identity.  This is why, in the Gospel story, while the poor man has a specific name and identity – Lazarus – the rich man is given no name at all.  In God’s eyes, he has made himself a nobody.

Then comes the death, the cross-over point.  Neither of them can escape death and this death, far from levelling the fortunes, in fact reverses them.  The rich man descends to Hades, the place of unending torment, what we call Hell.  Lazarus ascends, escorted by angels, to the bosom of Abraham, a symbolic description of Heaven.  He is now in Paradise.  Lazarus is thus shown to be the true son of Abraham.  God’s promises to the poor remnant of Israel, that is Abraham’s true posterity, are now shown to be fulfilled.  The rich man who could not spare a scrap of bread for Lazarus now begs from him a drop of water. 

The gulf between Heaven and Hell was created by the rich man himself during his life by his greed and his refusal to share.  The sin of greed robs the poor of even the necessities of life.  A similar condemnation had been delivered by God several centuries before Christ through the prophet, to the wealthy people of Samaria who wined and dined in luxury with a callous disregard for the poor.  The loungers’ revelry would soon end with their banishment to exile in Babylon.

The Lord is alerting us to the grave spiritual dangers which accompany wealth.  This brings an attitude of self-sufficiency and, therefore, a constant temptation to pride - the deadliest of the seven deadly sins.  We know from experience how material prosperity has led many to be lukewarm in their faith or indifferent to God, or to abandon God altogether.  Indifference towards God will invariably be accompanied by indifferences towards others.   Riches often make us blind and insensitive to the plight of the poor.  They dehumanise us by making our senses so numb that we cannot feel compassion for the poor, as happened in Samaria or in today's Gospel parable.

The Lord invites us to re-examine our attitude to money and to adopt the mentality of stewards.  Whatever we have ultimately belongs to God.  We are merely stewards to whom God has entrusted His property, so that we use what we need and share the excess with others who are not so well off as us.  Voluntary almsgiving is a great virtue.  Whenever we give to the poor, we are storing up treasure in Heaven.  It is a very good practice to engage in planned almsgiving.  Finally, let us remember that almsgiving is an excellent penance for our sins.

Lord Jesus, let us conclude with the Archangel Raphael’s parting words to Tobias and Sarah, “Prayer with fasting and almsgiving with right conduct are better than riches with iniquity.  Better to practise almsgiving than to hoard up gold.  Almsgiving saves from death and purges every kind of sin.” (Tobit 12)

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