Our Hebrew Scripture reading this Sunday is part of the prophet Amos’ diatribe against rich people, who feast while the poor starve. For our Gospel we have Jesus’ parable about the rich man ignoring the poor beggar Lazarus who is lying at his door. Jesus, we should note, was not against rich people. He had wealthy friends and supporters of his ministry, and he was even accused of being a glutton because he dined often at homes of rich people. Hebrew Scripture also is not against rich people; it sees wealth as a blessing from God. The problem arises when wealth is gained at the expense of the poor, by taking advantage of them, or when wealth blinds us to the poor and dulls our response to them. In Jesus’ day, there was no welfare system, no Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, no subsidized housing. Each faithful Jew was called by Hebrew Scripture to be compassionate and generous toward the poor. Jesus’ teaching followed that hands-on, personal approach to addressing poverty. Today we ask questions about poverty that people in Jesus’ world would not have thought to ask: Why are there so many poor in our world? How can we address the global poverty behind the surge in immigration? Is it OK for there to be billionaires when so many people are without food, housing and other basic needs? To what extent should the state, rather than the charity of individual good people, do the heavy lifting needed to meet people’s basic needs for food, shelter and health care?
Everyone is not born equal in life, and so it becomes a matter of equity to ensure that everyone’s basic human needs are met. We might not ourselves be wealthy, but we are all called personally to render aid, as the good Samaritan did in Jesus’ famous parable. But today we also are called to engage in the political processes that can make changes in our complex modern societies — changes not to end wealth but to end destitution. Catholic social justice teaching today influences discussions and solutions about poverty throughout the world.
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia
The post September 28, 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Poverty: a Sunday Scriptures blog first appeared on Sisters of the Precious Blood.