Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the Catholic Influencers Podcast where we go deeper into Sunday's gospel reading to help you influence the world for Jesus. I'm Danny Sullivan and I'm father Rob Galea . And this podcast is presented to you by FRG ministry.

Speaker 2 0:17

A nice and beautiful morning here in Bendigo, we're comfortable. It's nice and cold.

0:25

It's cold outside, but nice and warm in here. It's seven degrees Celsius. It was at least, I think it was cold earlier this morning a bout seven when I was outside. And so we're here with the heater. You have your dog in your hands. My heat pack. And keeping her as a heat pack and your dog is currently eating the cable of the headphones. So you don't need to say all the bad things she has done. But it's good. So good to be here. And such a blessing to continue to share the word of God. And I'm pretty excited about today's gospel, this week's gospel. It's a literary work of art, which we'll do and will talk about , but anything exciting happening , that you can think of. We are on the second story building, and I'm noticing that we have some plants here which have bugs in them. The bugs get into a second story building.

Speaker 1 1:22

I don't know. I'm not allowed to touch any of the plants here in the office. Janine, our office manager has said, 'Danny, don't do it'. Mainly because last year I killed six succulents .

Speaker 2 1:31

Oh my goodness, which are virtually impossible to kill.

Speaker 1 1:36

Yeah , my dog is still alive. We're very happy with that.

Speaker 2 1:39

How old is your dog? How long have you had the dog?

Speaker 1 1:42

Longer than maybe I've had some plants to be honest, but so Jeanine's the only one that's allowed to look after the plants here and she's trying to explain to me like there's these bugs that come with blondes and you have to cultivate like the perfect environment for them. So apparently our office is this great breeding ground for like disgusting bugs that just fly around. So we're trying to stop that, but.

Speaker 2 2:05

Thank God they're not poisonous and we're in Australia.

2:10

It could be a lot worse. How have you been father Rob? I've been well, had a good day. My car windscreen just cracked so I just, it's in for a service this week. So I'm car-less today, but it's a good day in the office. And so I'm looking forward to this.

Speaker 1 2:27

Yeah, we were saying earlier like we've got all these recording and meetings today, so we get to hang out all day father Rob. How exciting!

2:35

Yes, so exciting and I am, it's always great to hang out with you Danii. Good answer. But let's get straight to the scriptures. I think as I was saying, the scripture verse today is that is a beautiful work of art. We're going to listen to it again on Sunday and there's so much we can take out of it. And now when a priest gives a homily, usually there's one point that is brought out, but we're going to bring up several here today and hopefully when we go to mass and we stand alert and ready and listen to the word of God that we'll go deeper in understanding what God has to say and what God is saying in it's entirety for this week. And so let's take this, this is Luke chapter 16, verses 19 to 31. Take it away Danii.

Speaker 1 3:30

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’ He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.

3:30

So this is again, a literary work of art. There is so much description, so much we can miss. I don't think there's actually a word or a sentence that is not purposefully there and everything is means so much and would have meant so much to those listening. And when we listen and we watch things and we hear the word of God, we hear things like the clothes that this person is wearing and the saws that Lazarus had. And, but we don't actually understand necessarily what the people at the time who are listening understood. And so there's some beautiful descriptions that happen here that we can possibly miss out. And so maybe what we'll do is we'll go through a little bit of the situation describing the situation and that people would have understood, would have envisioned and would have known that Jesus was saying at the time.

Speaker 1 5:59

So what I'm loving about these podcasts is that when, you know, you go to a mass and as you said, father Rob, the priest might pick one or two points out. But here we actually get like some of the cultural and historical context and it just adds so much richness to the words that we hear , but then all of a sudden it's not just fine linen. And like , there's so much more to that.

Speaker 2 6:17

Yes. And it describes the fine linen and what does it mean and you know all of this. And so, yeah, again, in context of Luke, of the last few chapters who he's talking to and what the emphasis is.

Speaker 1 6:28

Yeah. So he's still speaking to the Pharisees and it feels like he's been speaking to them for years and you know, it's been in parables and it's really showing them that they're not predestined. They're not just assumed a place in heaven. And imagine how hard this would be to hear, like we'll go into the cultural and historical context of this rich man and Lazarus, but they're being told that a descendant of Abraham Hebrew, a Jewish person, isn't guaranteed a place in heaven.

Speaker 2 6:56

In fact is in hell. And so that again would have been a scandal. Like what do you mean he's a Jew? He shouldn't be in hell. Hell is for the Gentiles. Hell is for those who are sinners. The people of the earth, as we said last week though, who are going to be obliterated, but not one of ours, not one of us. The rich man who was a Jew.

Speaker 1 7:17

Exactly. And you know, and then they're being told that not only is he in hell , he's in torment and anguish, but he's speaking to Abraham who's in heaven with a poor man at this place of honor. And a couple of weeks ago, there was the banquet and the places at the table and Jesus was speaking to the same Pharisees saying that, you know, don't expect a place of honor. And those that are first will be last. And those are the last will be first. And that's what's happening here. There's this poor man, a beggar who's sick. He, you know, doesn't have the energy to even fight off the dogs that are licking his sores. But he's in this place of honor. He's with Abraham in heaven, in Abraham's bosom. Like that's what more honor could you want for a Jewish person to envisions that.

Speaker 2 7:57

Exactly. And so it's again, coming to that aspect that those who will be, as you said, be first, will be last. And those who are last will be first. And God elevates those who are broken and who are suffering in this world. But let's go into context. Okay. So there are a few characters, but two main characters. There's the rich man, which is dives from traditionally, his name is D I V E S, dives. So dives , if you're going to go and sort of a more, more British, which literally means even though he's not named, but traditionally was called Divis . So which means rich and he's wearing purple and he's wearing fine linen . Now, purple was the most expensive dye you could have. And it was taken from some kind of worm, which they had to squash and it was really difficult to extract purple. Okay and it was the finest of linen. So, and basically what our subtly as well, what they would have understood the way they described it, the only people that used to wear purple and linen where the Jewish high priests. And so he's basically describing the clothing as a high priest. So maybe, what is he saying? Hey, possibly even a high priest was not going to make it to heaven. So that's a bit crazy. And these clothes again what they would have understood is the expense of these clothes. You know, the robe would have cost , let's say $40 when a daily wage was 4 cents. So that's if you're going to put it in today's context, what's the daily wage? A minimum wage would be like , um, 150 , let's say $150 while this role equivalent, if you were to take the equivalent would be worth the robes alone $150,000. That's pretty amazing.

9:40

That's a very big difference. It is a big difference. So it's, it's extravagant. It's just extreme luxury. And it's not that Jesus is criticizing the luxury even here, but it's saying it continues to say that he feasted in luxury, but you know what the emphasis here in what they would have understood, not wow, he feasted in luxury, but he feasted in luxury every day. And if a Jew or a Pharisee will listening to this saying he feasted in luxury every day , what's the thing that they would have thought of first? The word every day, which meant even on the Sabbath, even on the Sabbath, he feasted lavishly, even on the Sabbath. So he's breaking the fourth commandment, which is to rest a day of rest the day where there isn't to be lavish eating a day of simplicity. So there's also saying here that he has broken the fourth commandment, keep the Sabbath day Holy. And in a country again where people would eat meat if you were rich, you'd eat meat once a week, but he would eat it every day. So it's an extreme luxury. And so he's explaining this and then you have this guy, Lazarus is there under the table by himself. And how does he eat? He doesn't eat lavishly. He doesn't even eat meals. He just waits for the scraps of this rich man. And again, historically, when a meal is finished and you know they've eaten, they've gone. Rich people have eaten, people have eaten, and they've got food all over their hands. They didn't have knives and forks and whatnot. So instead of a napkin, they would get piece of bread and wipe their hands on this bread and then throw that out. So this poor man is just waiting for this scrap of dirty bread.

Speaker 2 11:24

So the dirt of the rich man's hand would hopefully be thrown on the floor and his feast could be the other man's scraps. And again, let's get this guy Lazarus, which again is in jewish it comes from the Eleazar, which means, and God is my help, which is ironic because to have a name, God is my help. When you're not being helped.

11:50

You have nothing. You're sick. God, no scraps. You've got no home. Houseless and in pain and he couldn't ward off as you said, he couldn't ward off the street dogs and it's like you reach a point where almost has given up. You know, I just think of like those or sometimes we see footage in poor countries, you know, and there are flies going into the eyes and the mouth's of these starving people. And I used to think like, why don't they just push off those flies? Why did they even let them go into their eyes? And the thing is, you reach a point where you think it's not even worth the effort. It's not worth the energy and you just let things happen because they're going to come back anyway. And so I imagine him just so tired and letting the dogs lick the saws and he's just thinking it's not even worth fighting this anymore. So he's in a a place of absolute desperation, absolute poverty, which doesn't reflect his name. Like God is my help. You know, that's not what you think of when you think of God is my help. You expect someone to be blessed. And that's exactly part of the literary art in that sense. That's the irony saying that God is my help, wait and so the people listening would have thought, hold on, there's something going to happen here because to say that God is my help, something's going to change in this story. And so they knew that from by the word lazarus eleazar, and they'd know God is my help. They know that there's going to be some kind of change in the story from the, from the first sentence. So and there is this abrupt change and all of a sudden Lazarus is in the glory of God and the vests or this rich man is in hell in torment. And there's this country, there's this sort of dialogue that happens and Lazarus is in glory probably surprised then there you see God is my help. He's there with God and he is in happiness and his in peace and all his suffering paid off. But the question I ask is, why is this rich man in hell? Because it doesn't insinuate, and we can so easily judge and we could so easily look at this rich man. Oh , he was a rich man. He didn't do this or he did this, but he was a decent man. He was a good man because you think about it, he didn't ask Lazarus to leave to be removed from his table. He left him there. He didn't stop him from having the scraps of the table. In fact, maybe he probably threw the scraps his way. He didn't abuse him. He didn't kick him off and he, he wasn't deliberately cruel. And this is the thing, I hear so much, father, I haven't killed anyone. You know, I'm not a bad person, but it's, you see, it's not, it's not about not being a bad person. You see his sin and the rich man, sin wasn't never the fact that he never noticed Lazarus was that he was, he took poverty and suffering and pain. And for him it was perfectly normal and naturel. And so ultimately it wasn't a sin of commission. Not something that he did, but a sin of omission that he left out. He could have done something, he could have done something extravagant, he could have done something extraordinary, but maybe he thought, nah, let nature take its course. Let's let the world, let the universe have its way. One thing I find really interesting father Rob is that how they got to heaven and how they got to hell is that, you know, this rich man had money and he could afford it said here that he was taken off and buried. He could afford and you know, probably lavish earthly burial that didn't stop where he ended up.

Speaker 2 15:31

Whereas this poor man who had nothing was carried by angels. What an honor. And that, you know, and then he ended up next to Abraham, you know, in his wisdom like, yeah, that first will be last and last will be first.

15:44

What a beautiful literary description one is like a barrier and the other one is being carried by the angels and what luxury. Heavenly luxury that is. Yeah. So this is the place. But as the question I kept asking is, am hell, you know, hell, the suffering, absolute suffering, absolute absence of God, absolute , lack of love and the lack of peace and who could deserve that. You see and it's not that he did anything wrong, but he just didn't do something that he could have done. Hell was punishment of the person who never noticed. And that convicts me as well, you know, it's not that I'm doing not doing good. There's nothing wrong in making money. Nothing wrong in having family. Nothing wrong in doing things and being comfortable, but the thing is, again, what are we doing for the poor? What are we doing for the broken, the refugees? What are we doing for those who are suffering? What are we doing for those who are in prison? What are we doing for those who are in Wars and what are we doing for those who are starving and we think, no, someone else can do it. Someone else can give to charity. Someone else can do that. Oh, I'll give when I'm more comfortable. I'll give when have a little bit more spare. But you see that Jesus is saying that that procrastination, that I'm sort of uncaring, that that place of indifference is something that can send us to hell, send us to eternal damnation. That's a bit harsh. It's almost like that comfort of being able to turn your eye away. You're like, okay, there is suffering, but I don't really know what to do about it, so I'm going to look in this other direction and like it seems so little. But yeah, it's enough for this rich man to end up in eternal anguish. Yes, absolutely. And then there's another intercession . There's this place, you see, we, as you said, you know, he wasn't a bad man. Okay. And so he comes and all of a sudden he has this empathy. He has this, wow, okay, I've realizede my wrong, and now I want, he became almost selfless. You know, it's not about his suffering. At least let me tell my brother.

Speaker 1 17:57

Yeah, that's so true. And you know, as soon as he knew the consequences, as soon as he knew that he was going to be in hell, he could see Abraham. He could see heaven by, he knew that he would never get there. Abraham had told him that he was, you know, they can't cross over . And his first instinct was to protect his family, but it was too late. Like there was this chasm, there was this divide and he didn't think to prepare while he was on earth. He didn't think to notice the poor and help the poor then it was only when he knew the consequence and the cost of this indifference and omission that he wanted to change his ways. And that's all he has been looking at. I thought Jesus has been telling these Pharisees, this whole conversation is that you have to prepare now. You have to be ready now...

Speaker 2 18:40

before it's too late and there's no repentance. Once you're in hell, there's no way back, which is again, so harsh, so scary.

Speaker 1 18:47

Yeah, absolutely. But that's, you know, that's the price of our choices while we're here on earth. That's the price of our choices that we make every day.

Speaker 2 18:56

Yes. And the choices not of what we do, but also what we decide not to do. And so he comes, he's saying that his brother could not be warned and then Jesus, God says, no, no, no. If he's had the profits he's had. The thing is we've been baptized. We have the spirit of God with us. We have God's word in us. And the thing is, still with our baptism, with the spirit of God, with us still with the word of God being proclaimed to us and we still do nothing or the poor or the broken, then nothing will will change us. Nothing else will change us. And we can't say, no, no, no I haven't been told I wasn't shown. But we have over and over and over and over again through God's word, through the prophets, through the spirit of God, speaking to our hearts, through the media. We see poverty through people that are campaigns being made for poor, for those who are broken, for those who are Outcast. If we haven't done something, if we haven't given to the poor, if we don't reach out to them . But when was the last time we have become uncomfortable for the poor ? When was the last time we became , sort of inconvenienced and had to go without, for those who are less fortunate than ourselves? Because if you cannot remember the last time, then maybe you are in this sin and maybe I am in this sin of omission, which is a pretty scary sin.

Speaker 1 20:25

It's a really uncomfortable, I guess, examination of conscience. Cause as you said father Rob, you can say like, Oh , I haven't killed anyone or I haven't done anything bad, but have you been doing good things? Have you been doing the right thins.

Speaker 2 20:36

Yes and going out of your way to make this world a better place, to alleviate poverty even in this world and when it comes to this hell, getting to hell is not that he did wrong or that he did the wrong things, but he did nothing. So if we're doing nothing, then we could be heading for the same punishment. I know a bit scary, but yeah, it's something that I need to pray about. I need to think about am I doing enough for the poor? Am I doing enough for those who are broken? And it's not just financially, but it's our time. It's our efforts, our prayer, and it's going , it's going out of our way. It's our energy. What are we doing for those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

Speaker 1 21:22

That's true. And that's a really good prayer to take into, you know, leading up to mass this Sunday with this gospel reading and going on, what are we doing to change our ways? What are we doing to help the poor when there's areas in our life that we're uncomfortable to look at? Are we turning our gaze there and paying attention to them or , yes, that's, yeah. A prayer for all of us going into this next week. Thank you so much for listening today. It's been a joy to have you on this journey with us. Please reach out and get in touch at Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at FRG ministry. Or you can send us an email podcast@frgministry.com

Speaker 2 21:56

and there's also Snail Mail, FRG ministry and then you go P O box 96 Strathdale Victoria, 3550 Australia. We would love to hear from you, and we'd love your feedback and w e'd love to have your insight on see how this has impacted you, and please subscribe at your friends to subscribe, get people to listen so you can go to mass more prepared and more enthused this coming Sunday. Amen, God bless.