We heard the story of poor Lazarus and the rich man. What is the parable saying to us? Jesus is asking us to reflect on our greed and desire to possess material possessions. It is asking us to be sensitive to the needs of those around us who are suffering. What is being critiqued in the Scriptures today is when we ignore what is happening around us. Indifference to those who are in need and who are suffering is what the Scriptures put before us today as sinful. What we do to others we do to God. What we do to others we do to Jesus. Again it reminds us that we can’t carry with us what we have amassed here on earth. Reflecting on this gospel, I remember something that we have learned from the ants. Growing up in a farm country I had many chances to observe nature. Nature teaches us a lot of lessons for our spiritual life. I don’t know if you ever had an opportunity to watch ants gathering food. They are some of the tiniest creatures on earth. But when they come together they do amazing things. They keep a formation and they never forget their trails back and forth. They work very hard to gather food and store it. Something amazing I have observed is that they carry ten times bigger pieces of food than they are. Almost all the time they have to give up their load of food at the opening of the ant nest; the food is too large for them to carry it into the nest. So all their effort of collecting that food is in vain. Now they have to reject whatever they have gathered. So did the rich man in today’s gospel. He could not take anything with him.
One more thing that we have to take for our reflection is the response of Abraham to the rich man for his request to send Lazarus to warn his brothers. 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.' What does that mean? Moses and prophets stand for Scripture i.e. Bible.
What a gift God has given us in the Scriptures! What a pity that we are not always aware of the gift of God in the Scriptures to us. In the Gospel (Luke 16:19-31) the rich man had the Scriptures but paid no attention to them and so he ended up in Hell. He had five brothers who did not pay any attention either to the Scriptures but they were still living. He wanted Abraham to arrange an apparition to warn his brothers about eternal life. Abraham’s reply was, “They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them.” (Luke 16:29) In other words, they have the Scriptures, ‘Moses and the prophets’ represent the Scriptures at Jesus’ time. Your brothers have been given the Scriptures by God, they have been given the Bible. If they will not pay attention to the Scriptures and the Bible, then what is the point in giving them an apparition?
The rich man in the Gospel (Luke 16:19-31) had the Scriptures, he had Moses and the prophets, but did not live by them. He did not allow the Word of God to become flesh in his life and he suffered as a result. Like him we too have been blessed with the Word of God. But let us read, meditate, reflect and pray on the Scriptures every day. May the Word of God in the Sacred Scriptures become flesh in our lives.