An external solution?

(Lk 16:19-31)

The reversal of situations in the afterlife is a theme that belongs to the entire culture of the ancient Middle East, an area strongly marked by social discrimination. But the meaning of the Gospel is profound.

The new CEI translation has correctly rendered the term Hades (v. 23) as 'underworld', no longer 'hell' [CEI '74], because the meaning of Jesus' parable is entirely focused on this world!

'Behind the clouds' has nothing to do with it. What interests the Lord is not so much the final fate as the current situation of those who listen to him - starting with his own followers: where are they going?

In the parables of Mercy and the forgiving Father (15:1-32), Luke announced that a lost man would be a defeat for God himself.

His unusual revelation prompts the envious top of the class to spy on the freedom that the newcomers to the Church allow themselves.

"Who authorised you to consider yourselves equal to others and undermine our precedence, without having gone through the whole process, the stubborn commitment and the efforts of us veterans?"

The pagans have an easy game (Lk 16:1-15): they accuse the elders of hiding their spirit of unshakeable greed under the ill-concealed guise of "homage", meritorious works, and hierarchical necessity.

The 'best' are easily caught red-handed, accustomed as they are to revering God in order to serve a completely different master - well hidden.

In fact, after telling the parable of the dishonest steward, Jesus himself hears sniggering behind him (Lk 16:14), not from sinners, but from devout and bigoted people.

They are the cunning members of the elite who are attached to material things and lovers of money (vv. 13-15) - accustomed to practising that ancient craft [easy, considered the right of religious leaders]. What the Lord had defined as incompatible ('abomination': v. 15): revering the Most High and pocketing his loot.

'Poor deluded man!' - the charlatans, false friends of God, would say of our Master: 'It is impossible to make followers without booty: the gratuitousness of love is a beautiful dream, but it raises nothing, does not gather proselytes and does not trigger the predatory instinct of the top of the class!'.

In today's Gospel passage, those who consider themselves entitled to precedence [in the community of children!] raise a question of apparent obviousness:

Is it not in the natural order of things that in human society there are first and last, learned and ignorant, sovereigns and subjects?

After all, the legal principle that governed all private property rights in the Latin world is also the motto of a well-known official newspaper: Unicuique Suum.

Even Leo XIII, the pope of social encyclicals, recognised that 'in human society, it is according to the order established by God that there are princes and subjects, masters and proletarians, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, nobles and plebeians; the obligation of charity on the part of the rich and the propertied is to provide for the poor and the needy' [a mentality of simple omission: it is enough that they then perform "charity"].

The Lord's position is very, very different. For Luke, the rich are not blessed by God, as the landowners were supposed to be - and so were the patriarchs of the First Testament.

His refined clothing is only a metaphor for the inner emptiness and transience he revels in - which will then be corroded by moths.

His gluttony is a sign of an inner abyss to be filled - a kind of nervous hunger that makes him feel dizzy.

'Eli hezer' ['Lazarus']: God helps, but not the glutton - according to the pious, sanctimonious and backward mentality.

He does not forget; on the contrary, he is decidedly on the side of the weak: Faith believes the opposite of archaic religions!

Therefore, the careless 'enjoyment of life' of the super-rich is to give up living completely: they do not even have a name - which is terrifying for the ancient mentality.

The evangelist does not specify that Lazarus may once have been a good and responsible person: he was simply poor.

Nor does he say that the great lord was a total criminal: apart from his 'blindness'... if the poor man preferred to stay outside his door and not elsewhere, it means that he got something there.

But at that time there was no cutlery and people cleaned their fingers with breadcrumbs, which were then thrown on the ground; the poor fed on these.

A dog's life, worse than insults. And ignored.

This is the root of evil: it was not in individual acts, but rather in the depths of being, and in the resulting global carelessness.

Carelessness that tends to choose consensus and hierarchies as the ultimate backdrop to existence.

Therefore, the question that Luke's passage reiterates is not trivially moralistic: merits or faults, legal or religious.

The question is about humanity itself: diminished, reduced, arid, incapacitated; incapable of bringing about a deliberate reversal.

Inextricably linked to the abysses already dug.The Gospel wants to stimulate us to reflect not on the theme of lawful almsgiving, but on the warning, and the communion of resources: on the meaning of unbridled wealth alongside poverty.

Involuntary poverty is often considered a normal situation, but this tragedy affects individuals and entire populations - forced from birth to death into an unbalanced or unsustainable reality.

In many areas, class disparities are even tending to worsen, perhaps due to the internal logic of an economic and social system that tends to concentrate power and direct resources.

In ancient times, the 'bosom of Abraham' (vv. 22-23) was the condition that recognised the success of God's plan, the place where the Promises of Israel were fulfilled.

Even today, those who do not feel that some people are wasting away in a world of misery, turning their lives into a failure, find themselves useless and empty, unable to reach the Light of Life.

Those who procrastinate - without encountering others - choose a form of existence that has nothing to do with the People of God; nothing to do with the Mystery of the Eternal One and his blessings.

How, then, can one avoid sinking into the abyss of insignificance?

It is not a fate due to ignorance or a spirit of revenge that clashes with the Father's plan for his children.

Being open to humanising sensitivity and the greatness of God's work is not a matter linked to some heavenly mechanism of revenge 'afterwards'.

Nor is it a matter of some kind of (albeit eloquent) external warning.

So how can we distract ourselves from the seduction of material goods?

Overcoming the attractions of money and the desire to accumulate wealth, which generates social paralysis and devastating humiliation, is a true miracle.

And a miracle of conscience cannot be achieved by an immediate prodigy or a vision (vv. 29-31).

Nor can it be achieved by a common religion, if it tends to sacralise and not interfere, to perpetuate positions; to become complicit in creating poor and rich, profiting from both.

What Jesus refers to is Listening. The 'Shema Israel' - recited twice every day.

In the extreme poverty of means, 'Hear, O Israel' is the Father's Call.

The Lord shares in the oppressed situation of too many of his children - unable to dress in expensive clothes or feast lavishly and frequently.

In short, to build the Kingdom and change the divided world, the only thing that counts is to allow oneself to be educated by the Word of God.

Intimate Seed and Germ, Therapy-event, Energetic Word and Call: which introduces us to the active and spousal awareness of Love.

Logos that places us in the right position. A unique warning; not external.

Founding Eros that already here and now overturns situations.