For Sunday
Proper 21C
Collect
O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
In the few verses between last week’s gospel with the dishonest manager and how we cannot serve both God and wealth, some Pharisees get kind of salty. But Jesus suggests that they use the Law (Torah) to justify themselves rather than in service to God.
This week’s gospel reflects that rhetorical infrastructure. That God would have rules that divide the good people and bad people and that these rules are immutable. So, we can’t cross the river. Except, as Jesus is telling the story, notice how the rich man expects Lazarus can cross over but, for some reason, he can’t? If the wealthy man can’t cross over, why could the poor man?
Because this is how the wealthy man treats the poor man in the world. It has nothing to do with the laws of God, but those of Mammon. Under Mammon, the powerful demand the powerless come to them. To him, that is the greater law.
Jesus concludes the teaching with a far more valuable and true teaching than the lie the wealthy sell the world. What the law teaches, when free to teach us, and free of the fake immutable laws of Mammon, is how to live in compassionate Shalom with one’s neighbors. We actually do have the law. And if we’re reading it and keeping it, we should be fine. It’s this other stuff that causes us to feel like we’re in hell.