9/11/25

The Air is Thinner in the 7th Dimension.

Today’s story really begins on Mt. Horeb, where a naive Moses turns aside out of idle curiosity to see a bush that is in flames and yet is not being consumed by the fire.

Mt. Horeb is not a remarkable place. Just your average rocky elevation with scant vegetation. It has an average annual rainfall that would make the most tenacious farmer quiver with fear and steal them of sleep. Nevertheless, it is on this rocky outcrop that Moses is about to discover that Mt. Horeb is where you encounter the Living God.

Moses politely takes off his sandals and then the Lord introduces himself, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”.

This title of God is the same one that the Master will refer to in today’s gospel in his cantankerous encounter with the Sadducees.

What’s the connection between Moses and these scurrilous Sadducees?

The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection. That's when our earthly clay exhales its last breath; that’s it. Life is over, and instead of the white light at the end of the tunnel, visions of angels and departed loved ones; there is absolutely nothing. That’s it, kaput!

The Master points out to this misinformed mob that this is not the Jewish faith at all. Come on, chaps, remember in sabbath school the story of the burning bush. God introduces himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  You silly Sadducees, if we believe in a living God, then Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must still be living. Thus, life does go beyond the grave, but it is a completely different life from the one we know and enjoy now. Clearly, gentlemen, we love, worship and believe in a God who is timeless. There is a sense that when we are at the altar, we are also in that first upper room, as well as at the heavenly wedding reception, as well as being in our parish church all at the same moment. Yes, the 7th dimension is a boggling place not to be academically understood and disappear in a puff of logic, but to be lived in and experienced and relished.

Beyond the grave and in that dimension, there is no marriage because we shall be like angels. This is not to belittle the sacrament of marriage or disparage it. Marriage is great for this side of the grave, but as any married couple will tell you, it is not quite perfect. You do get a human being after all, and they come with their own glitter and they come with their slicing irritations. What’s more, marriage is always for a finite period of time. It doesn’t last forever. All marriages end in divorce or death. Sorry to be so brutal, but that is the reality; but sometimes, just sometimes, even in the most flawed of spouses, we glimpse something of the other. Those moments when we know that we are cherished, forgiven and enjoye,d and we wish that moment could last for eternity.

Interestingly, the most unlikely places and the most unlikely people (take Moses, for example, a murderer and a refugee) are exactly the places and people that are the very interface for divine encounters.

And there is a disquieting question for us to ask the person in the mirror. What if I am the icon, the face of the divine? Tarnished and bruised and lined but all the more beautiful and exquisite because of my blemishes. If God sees in me something of the beloved and rejoices in that, in my quirky nuances and silences, in my inextinguishable jocularity, I learn again that the Master can choose any complexion, any scar, any beauty to give us a glimpse of ‘the other’ and if He can see it in me, then I must take the time and put in the energy to see what He sees in others.

Something also needs to be said about our Mt. Horeb. There are places where the shroud between this dimension and the other dimension, maybe the 7th dimension, is incredibly thin. Your parish Church might be one of those places and it’s worth asking yourself from where is your Mt. Horeb? Where was, where is, that place where you are most centred, most you and He is most present for you? The place where without any fanfare or prior warning, all of a sudden you find yourself ‘there’. It’s not something you can book online. Sometimes, like Moses, we are just idly minding our own business in a geographical place that we know well, which is boringly familiar to us and then we slip through the veil and we find ourselves rubbing shoulders with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They find us, not vice versa. Or maybe we have just given ourselves the space to realise we were always surrounded anyway.  Then there is no need for trick Sadducee questions about brothers with a genetic heart disposition who keep on dying and leaving a distraught widow. We won’t need to ask the hypotheticals or shake our fist. Our tears will come not from the bottomless well of deep sadness, but spring out of a fountain of measureless joy.

Perhaps this is why the Sadducees no longer dared to ask him any more questions. Because they were in his presence, looking into his eyes and they found themselves in the presence of Abraham, Jacob and Isaac. The air had become thin and they were in the 7th dimension.

Todays story begins at the Queen Vic market in Melbourne. It has a large veranda and sometimes they feed those who sleep rough there with a bottle of water and a BBQ.

Jeanine and I have stayed an inexpensive but comfortable hotel just around the corner from all this so we know the area well and we know who and what to expect. It’s not ritzy, it’s not sexy and glamorous and pretty much every time I have to check myself, remind myself, that I have no idea what has led these people to their destitution and I have no idea where and who they will be in 6 months time and what they will look like.

A mental illness, a case of abuse, the invisible scourge of  PTSD.

The trouble is that every time I consciously or subconsciously dismiss one of these little ones, I not only do a disservice to them, but, just as appallingly, I discredit and diminish my own self and therefore all my brothers and sisters. Everybody loses.

In his book ‘The promise’ Arnold Dix captures this eloquently and succinctly in his own encounter.

“I once gave money to a beggar on the street in Melbourne. The person I was with scoffed, telling me I had probably just been scammed. That immediate dismissal of a perfect stranger doesn’t sit well with me. Even considering that possibility gets in the way of the intention of my act to show someone a little kindness and some mercy.

Who cares if they spend that money on alcohol? Who cares if they don’t need it as much as they have implied?

When we do not take each other at face value, when we discard people because they do not act or look like we think they should, we do a disservice to each other as human beings.”

2/11/25

All Souls Day

By a lovely coincidence, All Souls Day falls on a Sunday this year. Our day of resurrection. The first day of the week, when the women went to the tomb whilst it was still dark. They came expecting to find a sealed grave. But instead they found an empty tomb, a couple of angels and a ‘gardener’ in mufti. They came with spices expecting to anoint a corpse. They were given a different task. To spread some excellent news and all of this would have required a lot of trust and oodles of prayer. Trust is what we always do whenever we pray.

For the recipe of prayer always has a hefty wodge of trust. You can’t have one without the other. Like yeast in the bread or sugar in the chocolate. It is in our trusting, in our reluctant handing over of our departed, that we allow the possibility of peace and love to surround us. This is a harrowing task as we relinquish those who are most dear to us. And there is a big part of us that does not want to let them go. We’re really not quite sure that we can hand them over. We don’t know if we are ready, and perhaps, if we are ruthlessly honest, we never want to release them.

But what if, in fact, we don’t send them away from us, but rather entrust them to that other dimension, maybe the 7th dimension, where in fact they are actually closer to us in a special way that is both mysterious, poignant, and lovely. For in handing them over, we also commend ourselves.

You see, when someone we love so deeply and dearly goes over to the other side, a large chunk of ourselves goes over with them. To entrust our loved ones to an invisible God is to entrust a substantial part of ourselves. But we want to be in control of all of ourselves 100% and All Souls Day says that the number is wrong.

Can we really put aside our need to control? To allow what God wants, to replace what we want, what I want, what I need.

This is tough because often this purportedly loving God will, in return for our faith and our loved ones, give us questions instead of answers. He will take our laughter and give us tears. In return for our delectable memories, he will exchange a cup of futility and ache. But if we can surrender ourselves completely or begin to, or at least say that we want to, we come to understand that he does not take away the serrated knifing throb, but rather that His own piercing is actually our piercing. His tears for Lazarus… are our tears for our loved ones.

So slowly we begin to glimpse the reality that in our mourning, we are not separated from him at all, but he is right here with us. Not distinct from our torture, but immersed with us at the altar in our broken bread and hearts. No earthly thing can separate us at all. It just looks like it, and boy, it sure feels like it.

It is a long and very rocky road with boulders, futility and dust. Perhaps it will take a lifetime with lots of tricks and trips. We all know of times when we thought that we were travelling pretty well, thank you very much. We’re going OK. I can do this. And then from nowhere … a piece of music, an aroma, a photo, the compassionate unexpected word and all of a sudden we find that we are sprawled lying in the dust, weeping helplessly…. again… We didn’t see it coming, but here we are, tripped up, surprised by grief and surprised by the potent poignant privilege of having loved so very deeply for such a long time.

There is a sense in which the helpless and demolished loaf at the altar is the only thing that begins to make sense of that emotion and dark place which has always defied comprehension, words and logic.

This is my body broken for you. This is my blood poured out for you. These are my tears that I have shed for you. And when we have said that and begun to understand all that, when we have to come to that place where we have used up all our words and we are left with none. When we are gutted and empty. When we admit that we have no understanding but only raw emotion, when the last sob has escaped us, and we resignedly lower our furious fist of ‘why’.When we have lived eucharist, then, and only then, can peace and love begin to seep in and start to envelope us.

So in the last, reunited with our brothers and sisters, when we lie in the dust of our own grave, we will discover that peace and love surrounded us, and our burning desire to rest peacefully and eternally in you will finally be accomplished.

Lord, may no earthly thing
ever separate us from you,
But may everyone and everything support us
with a burning desire to rest peacefully and eternally in you.
Amen.

26/10/25

So What Happened Next?

Our story today begins in Portland where the wise old supervising priest sends me out to visit a home where he knows I will be well received. He knows that I will be  fed delicious cream cakes and caramel slice and maybe washed down with a refreshing beverage. ‘Only one mind Fr. David. Mrs. Gonzales makes a very serious G n T.’

Chat about the wedding photo you’ll see on the mantelpiece and you won’t be stuck for conversation.

And my supervising priest bless him, was absolutely right.

The cream cakes were delectable, the caramel slice to die for and yes, one G n T was more than enough. He was also right about the wedding photo on the mantelpiece. It sparked a jocular, witty conversation and Mrs.  Gonzales looked smashing in her wedding photo whilst the striking gentleman by her side actually turned out to be the first of three husbands she had the pleasure of sharing her life with.

You would never know this in the singular photo of the first wedding. It takes yummy treats and a heady G n T to deliciously tease out what happened over the years.

All that is just a very jaunty way of explaining that in the gospel we are only given a snap shot of what happened in the story. It’s very much like a photo or a short reel of action. Nothing less, but certainly nothing more .. We are left to our imagination and speculation as to what happened the next hour, the next day, the next year.

This can be both infuriating as we wonder what happened and it can be a lot of fun as we are not limited in any way to the future scenarios. Everything and anything is up for grabs.

Todays gospel story about the rich young man is a classic example of this kind of tease.

Here’s a few wild guesses about what I think may have happened after the business broker goes away sad.

Given the virtuous status of the rich man when he arrives at the feet of Jesus, the way Jesus sees into his heart and looks at him with love, the instant recommendation from Christ that he leave everything and follow Him,  I don’t think we can ever safely conclude that the young man never accepted Jesus’s offer.  In fact, I think quite the opposite would be more likely.  How swiftly we can dismiss others on the cursory experience of a first meeting.

What if next week or next month or even at the end of the financial year, the wealthy young man cashed in, sold up, went down to Anglicare and did what the Master asked of him.

Jesus was always ready to teach His disciples new lessons on what it meant to be His follower, He knew what words would most effectively benefit the young man for his salvation, as well as the words which would help His disciples understand His mercy and love for them.

The rich young man had everything going for him. Not because he was wealthy, but because of the virtue he had acquired through following the commandments of God faithfully all his life.  Jesus already knew him through and through. He must have known, too, that he would not be able to embrace His challenge immediately like Matthew, the tax collector.  But that was okay.  It gave Jesus the opportunity to reach out to those around Him and through time to you and me. Jesus revealed what the power of His grace and mercy is like.  If our heart is open to grace, God’s mercy can accomplish in us what would otherwise be impossible for us to accomplish on our own.

The Master gives the rich young man no less a chance for salvation than you and I when He says that “for humanity, [attaining salvation] is impossible, but not with God.”  The really good news is that Our God does not turn His back on those who strive to be faithful.  He is most eager to help those who have fallen out through weakness.  Did the rich young man return to take up Jesus’ challenge?  I like to believe he did.  It gives me hope in the unfathomable mercy of an ever faithful Father, who never tires of drawing us to Himself in persistent love.

Just like with the rich man who went away sad, discouragement will get the best of everybody. This will happen many times during our lives when challenges in life seem too ferocious.  The important thing is to bounce back in faith, to continue to practice virtue to the best of our abilities. Thereby we remain open to the workings of grace in our souls. In the end, our eyes are cast on the inestimable treasure we were able to store up in heaven, not just for ourselves, but for many others as well.

What happened next with the wealthy young man is a great question. The better question is what happens with you and I.

My Misspent College Days

My college years were heady days of lectures, wine, song and prayer. We wrote essays, or tried and we used to have these things called tutorials. A hapless student would be asked to prepare a paper and the others would savagely tear it to pieces, arguing the toss and pointing out the flaws in the logic. I think today we would call it a healthy, robust debate but at the time it seemed cruel to those who were of a more sensitive nature. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out the theological niceties of the divine and proving that somehow we were the gatekeepers and guardians of the impeachable truth.

It was not until I heard a line from a colleague some 40+ years later that I began to see things from a much healthier perspective. My friend said something like this.

‘What if, it is not about what we think about God on any given day, but rather it is about what God thinks of us each and every day. Maybe if I had heard those words, grasped them, clutched them to myself and integrated them into my soul, the last few decades may not have been so torturous.

For the truth that I have come to understand, nearly too late is that I can argue the toss and ponder and panic about the unfathomable God, but my energy would be more fruitfully expended in just allowing the delicious reality that the Master adores me and wants to continue to engage with me, even when and especially, when I have been at my most ghastly and shabbiest.

It is not about what I think of God on any given day. It IS about what God thinks about me (and you) each and every day.

The Openings and Closings we call ‘Funerals.’

Even after 40 years, I still regard it as a poignant privilege to attend a funeral. Perhaps more so now that my own funeral draws ever closer. Frequently, I’m the person up front trying to make sure that it all goes smoothly, but at the same time not drawing attention to myself. It’s not about me. It has never been about me.

Someone popped up once in the back row of the funeral whom I didn’t know. We got chatting at the wake over a couple of frothies and some sausage rolls.

In his own words, he had come for ‘closure’, and what lay behind his comment I take to my own funeral and grave.

But he was right. Funerals are about closure. What is past and gone must now be commended to the past and gone. We may not forget about the person, but we can never get them back again, no matter how much we might ache to.

Funerals are also about opening. We are invited to a different, new, wonky, rocky pathway. One which, if we are honest, we would rather not have to stumble along. But we have no choice, and pained and grumpy as we might be, this long and tortuous path is the one we must tread.

Some of us are crazy enough to believe that the one we think we have left behind often walks with us. Encourages us, maybe even weeps with us and always cheers us on. For them to,o something has changed. There is closure on their past life, but what if in dying to this world they live refreshed, liberated and renewed in another dimension where the distance between them and us is disconcertingly thin. Closure and opening coexist in the same place and at the same time.

You Need to Hear This!?

One day, a friend kindly passed on his gratitude. I quickly fobbed it off and replied that my actions were just what I do. It is who I am.

Swiftly, he replied, ‘Yes, but you need to hear what I am saying. ’ He was congenially firm, and it made me pause and take notice.

His polite insistence for me to pay close attention to his thankfulness was ringing in my ears long after I put the phone down.

Now there are two bits in his one sentence. First, there is my need. There is a part in all of us that has a need to accept recognition and gratitude when it is offered. To own it and accept it as an integral part of ourselves. We should not simply brush off heartfelt and authentic comments from others. We need to understand that we actually do some good stuff sometimes. Sure, not 100% of the time, but all of us want to leave others and the world a better place. And while we might fail sometimes, all of us strive to achieve a high standard and set the bar accordingly.

The other bit to my friend’s comment is the word listen. I wonder how many times I have been spoken to and not really listened. How many times has someone written to me and I have passed it off as old so and so, just being polite and minding their manners? Most of the time, people really do mean what they say, and if they didn’t mean it, they wouldn’t say it. It is especially powerful, I think, when they have actually made the time and expended the energy to write a letter.

I need to Listen with a capital L, not just to show the appropriate respect to the speaker, but for mine.

The Marvellous Ministry of Myf

Some of you may be aware that my daughter, Jacky, and her husband, David, have a corgi named Myf. Like all pets, Myf has a marvellous, subtle, almost indiscernible ministry.

Part of Myf’s ministry is that she selflessly takes the blame for other people's unsociable noises and odours. You know this has happened when someone exclaims ‘Myf!’ with a false sense of horror and surprise, and it’s really quite obvious that Myf is not to blame at all; but then how can a growing Corgi defend herself against such lurid accusations?

Outwardly at least, Myf doesn’t seem actually to do a lot. She takes Jacky and David for lovely walks in Central Park. She eats food that no other human being desires, and sometimes goes to doggy day care for a social day out. On some of her walks, she has learnt that the owners of particular shops will offer her treats and put out bowls of water for her to drink from. This is all very charming and cute, but perhaps one of the most important things that Myf has done and continues to do, maybe without knowing it herself, is to make encounters possible with people she has never met before.

What happens when the three of them are strolling through lovely Central Park is that Myf will unabashedly approach other dogs and their owners just to say ‘Hello’. With other dogs, there is often some sniffing going on, just like we would shake hands. People stop, ask if they can pat Myf, and engage in conversation. What is your corgi called? How old is she? How long have you had her, and so it goes on?

Often, at a particular place, at a particular time, on a particular day, various dog owners gather so that their canine pets can play together. More chatter, more laughter, relationships are started, strengthened and enhanced. And when you are in a new city, in a new country, an adorable Myf is just what is needed to help you get to know a few people who have a common interest.

You see what a gift Myf has been, continues to be and will be into the future? Apart from barking at human noises in the hall, Myf has effortlessly helped to integrate David and Jacky into a community of people they would never have met.

Myf has also taught her proud owners the privilege and responsibility of caring for someone other than themselves. Often this is not easy and there is a sacrifice to be made. Like the ‘nature calls’ and illness in the middle of the night. The worry when Myf gets sick, is off her food, or is just down right belligerently disobedient and will not move unless she is physically picked up and carried. It’s been quite a journey for Jacky and David, and they continue to carry out their ownership duties with love, aplomb and joy.

Myf, for her part, as far as we can tell, has done all this whilst just lolling about, being fed with treats and occasionally getting grumpy with the vacuum cleaner. How do you get a voluptuous life like that?

Now,… and this is the really good bit. Is it not possible and probable that, without our realising it, we too have made encounters possible with other people? This happens frequently, and it is not until sometime later that we realise that something quite beautiful has blossomed from something we had completely forgotten about. So unremarkable was that event, that conversation, that we didn’t bother to deposit it into our memory bank. It was just another day, another frivolous piece of chatter. But something happened, something was happening, and we enabled it to happen. While we walked blithely on, a seed had been planted, and things have changed.

But it does come with a note of caution. That just as our words and actions can bring about great harmony and friendships, you will be painfully aware that sometimes, without our realising it, we can also have a negative impact and God’s plans can be thwarted.

So if God can use a humble, lovable and quite cute corgi, one who lives in Manhattan and has the curious name Myf, a dog who has no grasp on the English language, has never gone to school or studied theology, then he can use and I to reflect some of his unconditional love to world that aches for his forgiveness and peace.

Myf’s marvellous ministry is not just to those on the other side of the planet but also as an inspiration for us in our everyday life.

Want more faith? First, put on your apron.

When you initially read over today’s gospel, it appears as though we have two quite distinct and different pieces of literature.

First, the disciples come asking for their Faith to be increased. It seems a perfectly logical and commendable question. If only everyone would ask for their faith to be increased, then the Church of God would be sorted out, world peace would settle upon the planet, and the housing crisis would be a thing of the past.

You would think that, being the wise and compassionate, supportive, and encouraging Messiah that Jesus is, he would give his disciples an easy three-step programme, one that anybody can do at home, for all to complete in the comfort of their lounge room.

But No. Instead, they get a verbal rebuke.

“If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Clearly, chaps, you’ve got a way to go.

And what follows seems a completely unrelated story altogether. Clearly, a dotty old monk, working late at night by a fluttering candlelight, has missed out a connecting paragraph, and we are left with a disjointed and puzzling piece of text.

In classic Jesus style, he answers the disciples' question with his own question.

“Will any one of you, who has a servant ploughing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down at the table’?  Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterwards you shall eat and drink’?  Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty’

It took me far too long to see it, but I do believe there is a connection between the two.

If you want more faith, gentleman… very well, this is what it will involve.

After you have had a hard day in your day-to-day grind of life, the important work of serving others begins. Gird yourself, put on your apron, peel the spuds, lay the table, pour the wine, scrub the pots and pans, do the dishes, clear away, wipe the benches and put out the breakfast things for tomorrow.  Do all of this without seeking any reward, any thanks, no pat on the back or gold stars, except that you know you were doing what was expected of you. It is not just about doing, but it is the attitude with which you do it. Understand that it's not about you. It was never about you, and if you want to increase your faith, really want to increase it, then you dive headfirst into the mundane and the dreary. Increase your faith by embracing your failures and rejections. You will discover that sometimes the most effective prayer is that which feels most ineffective and futile. Or as another really super priest once put it. “He is most intimately present when he seems most bitterly absent.”

You see, part of the fallacy of the disciples’ request is that they expect the master just to dollop out faith as easily as chicken pie. Expecting God to do our faithfulness for us is like a slave expecting to be waited on by his master. I’m terribly sorry to say that attaining more faith does not, in my experience, work like that. More faith and growth in faith is our responsibility. It is hard won, over a stupidly long period of time. It is manufactured and stirred around deep within us with: tears as well as laughter - dreariness as well as excitement - boredom as well as exhilaration. And for some reason, growth in faith is easier to see in others rather than see it in ourselves, and if someone could explain why that is so, boy, I’d really love to hear from you.

Faith is gradually infused into us when we simply rock up, put on our apron, maybe even a pair of rubber gloves, do our work, say our prayers, shed our tears and giggle uncontrollably. We will increase our faith when we sob with those who ask the bitter, hard questions. The ones that only have a cement pylon of silence for an answer. We increase our faith when we incessantly love the grumpy and irritating people into heaven.

It is in the daily grist of simply doing our work that we discover, to our delight, amazement and surprise, that actually, we have come a long way over the past few decades, and our faith has actually increased not because we got a kilo in a quick business transaction, but our faith has increased because of our bruises and skinned knees. Something happened, was happening, is happening at the altar rail Sunday by Sunday. It happened to the bread and wine, it happened in those around us, and it happened to you, and goodness gracious, it even happened to that crazy Fr. David.

So while on the surface of it the two chunks of today’s gospel seem completely unrelated, they are in fact a single unified question and answer session.

Expecting God to do our faithfulness for us is like a slave expecting to be waited on by his master.

Want to increase your faith?

Sure, this is how.

‘Put on your apron, prepare supper for me, and serve me; 

Let’s make a splash

Today’s reflection was handed to me on a silver platter by a year 10 student long ago and far away.

She said something like, ‘You know Fr. Oulton, I really like the way that we can splash about with crazy ideas in your class. We learn just as much from the discussion as we do from some crummy old textbook.’

Splashing about in the waters of ideas is a splendid pastime. Often, we try really hard to come up with a well-reasoned, logical answer that is always right. It works well in the maths world. But (un)fortunately, it's not just a maths world.

It's also a messy, murky, shifting, always evolving world. The answer is not easily found and is often illusory and inadequate for your problem.

So what if, in all our angst, frustration and solution-driven mentality, we simply stopped shouting, lowered our blood pressure and just splashed around in some alluring concepts for a while.

Those who go the hard road, yelling into the air and pumping their fist in the hunt for common sense and decent answers, might try slipping into a trendy pair of flamboyant bathers and just sploshing about in the water. Do some sprinkling and tossing with others. True, we’ll get a little damp, but the answers we are looking for are not to be discovered in numerals and theorems, placards and shouting. Our answers are in the action, playfulness, chortling, yippees and surprises.

Often, I thought I was just messing about with the ideas and proposals, getting drenched with others and getting saturated myself, only to learn that actually there was one other in the water with us. He is the most vigorous in his frolicking, loudest in laughter, the most sopping in water content, and I couldn’t wait to make a splash.

28/9/25

Who is Mr Nobody?

Over the last three Sundays, we’ve had three stories, all exclusive to Luke and all talking about the misuse of cash.

On the 14th of September, we had the parable of the lost coin. Last week, we had the dodgy steward who got caught with his hand in the till and set about to win friends and influence people. In today’s gospel, we have a very clear contrast between the guy who has a truckload of cash and the beggar who has nothing. Clearly, Luke sees our hard-earned currency as an integral part of who we are and what the Christian life is all about.

Luke is at pains to point out the whopping and stonkingly sized discrepancy between the poor man in the gutter and the rich man. Purple clothes in Luke's day were the Prada and Gucci of today. Purple dye was expensive to get, so if you dressed in purple as our good friend in the story does, then you knew that you had made it. You were in.

But there is a quirk in this story that I learnt only this year in 2025. The poor man’s name is Lazarus. He is a specific, quantifiable knowable person for Jesus. His name, “Lazarus,” is very appropriate, for it means “God has helped.”

But there is a prize of a cherry ripe bar to anyone who can tell me the name of the rich guy in today’s story. His  name … is … well… he doesn’t get a name. He’s Mr Nobody. What is Luke trying to tell us here?

Here’s my guess. That in his repetitive and belligerent disregard for Lazarus and all the poor at his gate, the rich man becomes an anonymous, unknown Mr. nobody. His character and that which should make him who he truly is are diminished. Ultimately, he disappears in the mirage of ostentatious self-entitlement. I should hasten to add that His failing is not being wealthy.  It’s not a sin to have a boatload of cash. The question is what you do with it. The flaw in Mr Nobody is that he consistently, consciously chooses not to share his wealth. The spot on his soul is his blind spot to the impoverishment that is on his doorstep. And the real tragedy is that he not only fails to see the poor man and what he might become, but in his lack of vision, his own potential is unfulfilled. He would flourish if he became generous and actually enhanced someone else's life, instead of pushing out his own girth. Thus, he is visionless to his own self-worth. He not only lets the poor man down but, more poignantly, lets himself down. This is why Luke does not give our entrepreneur a name. The guy in the purple Gucci shirt has become a nobody.

And so the trick is that the rich man in the purple shirt is actually poor, and Lazarus gets his name in print for all eternity, to say nothing of his comfy place in Abraham’s bosom in heaven.

This dynamic is not only true of the relationships and people we don’t know, but also the people and relationships that we do know.

We must always say no to the relationships that exclude. Our relationships can be suffocated through indifference, neglect and unwillingness to engage. It is not the cutoff who become nameless and anonymous, it is us because we diminish ourselves and cut ourselves off from the potential that the Master offers.  With his pierced hands, the wounded, the neglected, the lonely and the hungry, God offers us continuous opportunities to become wealthy.

In 604, a gentleman called Gregory gave us this insight.

“When we give to the poor what is essential for them, we are not doing them a personal favour, but rather restoring to them what was always rightfully theirs. More than an act of charity, we are fulfilling a duty of justice”

We do the right thing because it is the right thing, not just to make the other person feel better, or to make ourselves feel all yummy inside, but because it is what the Master asks of us, and that is enough.

It is something we can choose today and every day along our journey. If we can see or sense his living presence in the fragile, broken bread and outpoured wine, it should be an easy step to see him clearly in the fragile and broken in our community.

We choose this journey of selflessness. And sometimes it will seem smooth and dandy, and sometimes it will seem nothing less than just plain hard work. We will rub shoulders and encounter the unglamorous and those who have never made any sense to us. But if we persist and look afresh upon the face of the unlovely, one day we will arrive.

And we will know we have arrived when we confront our insecurities, when we are challenged by that which seems uncomfortable and disagreeable. When we gaze upon those whose wounds are licked by dogs and who are on our doorstep… those who will sleep rough and cold and hungry whilst we feast sumptuously.

‘Go and learn what this means, ’ said Jesus.

‘What I desire is mercy, not sacrifice.’ Become a somebody. Not a nobody.