Scripture Reflections Seeking Understanding

T he rich get richer, the poor get the picture...  so sang Midnight Oil on their 1982 album 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  It's this line that I think of when I read the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in this Sunday's Gospel. In it we hear  in some detail  about the rich man, whom tradition names Dives, and his lavish lifestyle. We also hear about the poor man Lazarus, who lay outside his gate and longed for, but didn't receive, the scraps that fell from the rich man's table.  The author of Luke's gospel sets up the two men in stark contrast, in life and in death. We are told that Lazarus is carried to the bosom of Abraham, whilst the rich man is simply buried.  As the story unfolds, the privilege that characterised their lives is upended, and the man who lived with abundance is tormented in the fires of hades. Despite having shown no regard for the poor man outside his gates in life, Dives now calls on Lazarus by name. At first, he begs that Lazarus ...

When I was fourteen years old my parish priest, Fr Michael, celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination. To mark the occasion Sr Jackie trained a small group of us to sing John Stainer’s 19th century arrangement of John 3:16 in four-part harmony. We sang it at his Jubilee Mass, and whenever I hear the Gospel reading for this Sunday, I can still recall my part, even though I’m no longer the boy soprano I once was. (On a side note - being a fourteen-year-old boy put up to sing a soprano part  in front of the whole school in a small country town is an opportunity to learn social resilience I can tell you!)   This moment in John’s Gospel is a profound declaration of faith from John's early Christian community in the incarnation as an act of radical self-sacrifice for the salvation of humankind. That God loved the world so much that through the Son the world might be saved.  Might be saved? God loved the world so much and still it’s only might ?  On one hand that la...