Roc Homily – Twenty-Sixth Sunday Ordinary Time 2016

A wake up call to the Pharisees who were “lovers of money”

Last week in Luke 16, we heard some of the following and missed some:

Luke 16:13–15 — No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”  The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.  So he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.

Therefore, this passage is a call to the Pharisees, ‘lovers of money’, to repent!

The abomination Jesus names is personal idolatry.  Strangely enough, it  shows up in today’s gospel in Luke’s description of how this guy dressed. He dressed in the fabric of the Holy of Holies. He worshiped himself as God.

Purple = porphura                   Fine linen = bussos

Exodus 26:1  — Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twisted linen, and blue, purple, and crimson yarns; you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them.

Luke also compares him to the other Rich Man in how he celebrated, made merry:  Luke 12:19  And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ After which God said to him, “You fool, tonight your soul will be required of you!”

Finally, this story does not prove the existence of hell.  The rich man grieved (a better translation than “was in agony”) because he was in the flames of God’s merciful love!  Because he had yet to repent, he grieved and was in agony.

Flame = phlox

*******Acts 7:29f  When he heard this, Moses fled and became a resident alien in the land of Midian. There he became the father of two sons.  “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.

*******Genesis 15:17f   When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.  On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,

**************Exodus 3:2  There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.

Psalm 29:7 (NRSV) — 7 The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.

*******Song of Solomon 8:6  Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.

*******Isaiah 43:2   When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

Audio version of my homily will appear tomorrow… maybe the next day, God willing.  –roc,sj