Readings for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
 Amos 6:1a, 4-7 | 1 Timothy 6:11-16 | Luke 16:19-31

Dethrone the idol of money. 

The wealthy live in another world. The poor and, increasingly, the middle class, live in their own world. The difference between them is sharply, disgustingly dramatic: the top 10% of households controlling nearly two-thirds of all wealth as of early 2025, while the bottom 50% hold a mere 2.5%. This is not an accident but the intention of those at the top, namely, to hoard more wealth and forget everyone else. 

While the rich live in mansions, many more people, who are unhoused, are living in the streets or sleeping in their cars. The number of those living without a home has risen significantly in the past few years. Further, counts of the unhoused do not tend to include the unhoused who are working but sleep in a shelter, their cars, or a friend’s place. There are more struggling, working poor than we know.

But the rich do not seem to notice or care. This is part of the message of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. The rich man in the parable is ensconced, isolated, in his own world. He gives no attention to Lazarus. Gerhard Lohfink, a biblical scholar, comments, “The rich man lives a life of complete indifference to the misery of the poor; he is not even conscious of the poor man outside his gate. He is guilty of the poor man’s death.” He is hard-hearted. This is a major spiritual consequence of being rich. The heart of a rich person closes down, shrivels and shrinks, and becomes like stone. He or she stops caring for others. The accumulation of is all that matters. Thus, it is inevitable that the rich ignore the poor as this rich man ignored Lazarus at his own gate.

A hard heart totally blocks the love of God from entering one’s life. The rich cannot enter the kingdom of God. It is not God punishing then but, rather, their fanatical clinging to riches that keeps them from enjoying the infinite mercy, goodness, and love of the kingdom of God.

Theologian Gustavo Gutierrez insists, “Greed leads us to place in money and in the various forms of power flowing from it the trust which should only be in God.” Thus, the rich man in the parable is practicing idolatry. The insatiable need for more money leads to all kinds of injustices, including the rape of the earth, polluting the neighborhoods of the poor, owners paying wages that cannot even ensure survival, and ultimately, to controlling the very lives of all of us. Gutierrez says it well: “the poor are victims of this perverse form of worship.” We all become victims of the idolatry of the wealthy of this world.

God or money? Jesus is quite clear throughout the Gospels: we cannot make money the center of our lives and also worship God. He is more clear about this than anything to do with sex. He tells us to give up our riches and seek God in poverty. Many in our time, and even Christians from America’s past, ignore this teaching or rationalize it away. “Oh, just don’t set your heart on wealth and then you can enjoy it and use it.” Even worse, from the time of the pilgrims and puritans, we have been plagued by a version of the Gospel of prosperity. It says that riches are a blessing from God, and God wants us to use them for the common good. So, we must make money a priority. This is not the Gospel. Jesus condemns the rich absolutely: “woe to you who are rich” (Luke 6:24) and “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25). There is no salvation to be found in money or in amassing wealth. 

The problem is we don’t believe Jesus. We believe in the benefits money brings and the value money gives to things. The whole of biblical tradition is very clear: wealth and riches are directly opposed to the kingdom of God. But today, money is the criterion of reality. Scholar Eugene McCarraher says for our society money is “the criterion of reality, meaning, and identity.” When money is the standard of reality, greed runs our lives. Our society is organized greed, and the pursuit of money will make use of anything to make more money, especially cruelty and deception. Our economic and political systems, in the words of McCarraher exist for “the rationalized accumulation of wealth.” Following Jesus requires us to dethrone money as the center of life and the arbiter of meaning and value. Only God is the center. We must renounce money as an idol. We do so by turning our inner attention to God in prayer whenever money starts to become a worry, an upset, an out-sized concern in our lives. 

In the parable, Jesus names the poor man. He is Lazarus. But Jesus does not give the wealthy man a name. This is a reversal of history: we remember and lionize the rich and powerful but forget the names of all the little, poor people. Gustavo Gutierrez reflects, “Those who according to criteria of power and social prestige are the most important are anonymous before God. Those who are considered insignificant and nameless are the ones who have value for God of the kingdom.” Thus, the poor should be the first in our hearts for care, protection, and dignity. They should be the first to receive assistance and aid.

Lohfink asserts, “This whole parable is an urgent, even a searing warning not to rest on a wealth that  not only makes one utterly indifferent to the naked poverty of one’s sisters and brothers among the people of God but altogether bars access to the reign of God.”