This story that Jesus told used to confuse me. On the one hand the rich man didn’t seem to do anything really harmful to someone else or “something really evil”, and yet he ends up in burning fire, excluded from Abraham’s bosom. On the other hand the poor man at the gate doesn’t seem to do anything particularly virtuous but he ends up having a good life in Abraham’s bosom. Why? Then I read a commentary that said that the explanation is found in the conversation between the rich man and God. God explains that the rich man had a good life while the poor man suffered at his gate, and he did nothing about it! This went against the covenant that God had made with Moses. In the covenant God promised to bless His people, but then the people must care for one another, and especially care about the poor, the widowed, and the stranger. So when the rich man asks God to send the poor man back to his brothers to remind them of this so that they do not end up suffering like he is suffering, God says that they have the law of Moses, and if that is not enough for them then even a dead man coming back to life would not change their mind or way of living.

WOW!!!

Jesus, like Moses, gave us a law that we must love one another. Perhaps Jesus told this story because He realised how easy it is for us to fall into the trap of thinking that as long as we don’t actually do something to hurt someone else, that is enough. We do not have to go out of our way to actually love them.

In the sixty years that I have been a priest I am sure that people did not always agree with what I was saying, but only once did I have some people actually get up and leave the Church because they did not like what I was saying. The gospel text for that Sunday was Matthew 25, 31- 46. In verses 41 to 43 Jesus says: “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.” I said to the people that sometimes we sanitise or even romanticise the people Jesus talked about. But I wonder if He was preaching in Chicago today He might say: I was hungry, and you wanted to take away my food stamps; I was thirsty, but you didn’t want to give me any money because you presumed I would just buy another drink of alcohol; I was a street person with dirty clothes, and you wanted to get me off the streets and out of sight; I was ill with HIV and in prison for rape and you did not visit me.” That night the Rector of our Seminary got a half dozen angry calls accusing me of talking politics instead of preaching the Gospel. When I told the Rector what I had said he remarked: that sounds like the Gospel to me.

When Jesus, like Moses, told us to love one another He obviously did not just mean: do no harm. He wanted us not only to see the poor man at the gate but also do something about helping him. He wanted us to give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, a welcome to the stranger, clothing to those who need it, and care to those who are rejected or marginalised by society. This is the law of love that He gave us. It is our challenge to see these people for who they are and respond to them.

I am always impressed with the number of Christians who do this – working in soup kitchens, staying overnight in shelters for the homeless, visiting prisoners, contributing to St. Vincent de Paul and the “Salvos”, etc.

Within two months of arriving in Melbourne 28 years ago a friend who was living in the Sacred Heart Mission in St Kilda and doing ministry with the prostitutes invited me to visit her there and get a sense of all that they were doing. I remember my mouth dropping when she said they serve 400 sit-down dinners a day, all with volunteer help. They also had a “drop-in-centre” where people could come for coffee and conversation any time during the day. And there were also many other ways in which they reached out to the Community. In this way they felt that they were loving others and serving Christ. They would be welcomed in Abraham’s bosom.