Poles Apart Luke 16:19 - 31 Part I

The Good News of Jesus has a way of turning things on their head. Just in the introduction to this story this is wonderfully demonstrated: normally we all know who the rich and famous are, whilst the poor remain as a faceless statistic. Yet for Jesus it is the rich man who is anonymous, and the poor man is named - Lazarus.

The Good News turns things upside-down, or should that be the right way up.

The fact is there are two serious indictments against  the rich man:

1. He obviously saw the plight of the poor, yet did nothing
2. Even after death he still assumed Lazarus was there to be his servant - his heart was still just as hard as ever.

The first is also an indictment on us in the West: we know our unfair trade and other practices hold others in poverty, we know our relentless carbon consumption converts to climate change which hurts the poorest the most, and we know there is more slavery than ever - with many snared into a hideous sex trade.

Yet generally the society and political will is not there to change it.

As Christians we must wrestle with this, striving to live differently to turn things the right way up, e.g. through Fair Trade, living more eco-responsibly, and campaigning wherever we can against people trafficking.

Six months ago this series got going with the following key question:

[IN] How might your sensitivity/awareness of the poor be related to God speaking into your own life?

It is kind of echoed in our more recent question 'Are you able to breathe God's goodness in and out?'

It's worth thinking to yourself how much has your attitude changed this year, or is it that you can't or won't let God speak into your life on these issues?