Amos 6.1a, 4-7; 1 Timothy 6.6-19; Luke 16.19-31

A famous preacher was greeting his congregation after the service when a woman told him off for repeating a sermon he had preached a few weeks earlier in another church. He asked if she had put it into practice yet. As she fumbled for an answer, he said, ‘Well, my dear, I’ll keep preaching it until you do.’

It seems that Jesus’s attitude towards the Pharisees is a bit like that. He often tells stories against them and the way they lead the people astray, away from God’s true teaching and towards their own interpretations of it. And in this morning’s parable we see him addressing again one of his favourite subjects - the use of money and wealth.

We see from our reading from the letter to Timothy that it is taken for granted that some Christians will be rich, so money in itself cannot be the problem. They are told to be generous and to remember to rely not on their earthly riches but on God. But money is a difficult thing. It can easily take over and become our master. The Pharisees to whom Jesus was talking are described as those who love money, rather than sitting lightly to it and trusting God.

The Pharisees believed that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing and that they, who had wealth, must be living a life of which God approved, while the poor were being punished for their sin. They do what many 21st century Christians do, and pick and choose the parts of Scripture that fit with what they desire and ignore great chunks that say the opposite.

So they concentrate on passages like some of those in Deuteronomy that imply that wealth is a sign of God’s blessing, while ignoring the many, many passages that require those who have to share with those who do not have, to care for the poor, the foreigner, the widow and the orphan.

In the reading from the prophet Amos, we see a warning for rich people who feel secure, lazing around on their beds and couches, eating lots, drinking wine - some commentators suggest that idle songs means drunken warblings - and not paying any account to the devastation that has befallen their country. Such complacency!

Their revelry won’t protect them from exile though - in fact they, who have been given the responsibility of wealth, will end up being the first to go into exile. They have forgotten the poor and their religious duties to care for them. Wealth for their own ends leads only to exile.

The problem with money is that it can so easily separate us from God. Last week’s Gospel reading reminded us that no one can serve God and wealth. It is not possible to have two masters.

We may not think that we are rich but someone earning £20,000 is actually in the top 4% of worldwide earnings. Someone earning £40,000 is in the top 0.83%. Even someone in this country working full-time on the minimum wage is in the world’s top 12%.

The rich man had missed the warnings. He had had Moses and the prophets but he’d ignored their message. Instead of being a blessing, because of the way he’d approached it, his money had led to his separation from God.

The first part of the story was a well known tale of the time. Normally the person asking to send a message to those back on earth is granted their request.

But, as so often with Jesus, the parable packs a punch at the end. At the start the Pharisees are probably thinking - oh yes, we know this story. But Jesus turns it on its head. By changing it, his message becomes more powerful. The rich man can’t send a message because they’ve already heard the message through Moses and the prophets, but have chosen to ignore it. They won’t listen, Abraham says. Even if someone rises from the dead, they won’t listen.

Echoes of Jesus’s resurrection, and still nobody listens.

Here’s Heather Johnston’s retelling of the parable.

Ritchie got home from work and switched on the television to see the weather forecast.

He was playing golf in the morning with an important business associate and he hoped to clinch a lucrative deal with him over an expensive lunch afterwards. The forecast was good.

It was followed immediately by an appeal for aid for the famine crisis in Ethiopia. Ritchie turned off the television and went to shower and change ready for dinner with a glamorous model at the city’s newest exclusive restaurant, followed by a film premier.
 
The next morning he picked up his newspaper from the mat. The front-page headline read ‘New famine crisis in Ethiopia’. He turned straight to the financial section to check on the share index. Good. He’d made the right investments.
 
The mail arrived next; he was pleased to see a letter from a business colleague inviting him to stay in his holiday house in the Caribbean. The rest – including an Oxfam appeal for those faced by famine in Ethiopia – was junk mail, so he binned it.
 
He went off to his golf club. On the way he stopped to fill up his Porsche. As he was paying, a woman came and asked the garage-owner if she could leave a collection tin for the Ethiopian crisis on the counter. Ritchie walked out without a glance.
 
After golf, he clinched the deal over an excellent lunch, drank a celebratory bottle of champagne and drove off home in his Porsche. However, his judgement had been somewhat impaired by the alcohol; he took a corner too fast, wrapped the Porsche around a large beech tree and was pronounced dead by the paramedics at the scene of the crash.
 
When Ritchie arrived at the gates of heaven, there were thousands of people streaming through the gates. They all appeared to be waving tickets and being ushered through. He tapped one on the shoulder and asked what was going on. The man said they were Ethiopians and they were going to a great banquet.

Ritchie brightened up – dying wasn’t so bad if there was a banquet to greet you. When he got to the gate, the gate keeper asked him for his ticket, and, when Ritchie said he didn’t have one but he would pay for it now, the gatekeeper shook his head firmly, closed the gate and locked it, leaving Ritchie standing outside in shocked disbelief.
 
He sat down on the ground, trying to think of what to do next. Money had always been able to buy him what he wanted before. He felt tired and hungry. Soon, the most wonderful smells of cooking came wafting past.
He got up and peered through a knothole in the fence. There he saw the Ethiopians sitting down to the most wonderful banquet of every conceivable dish.

The gate seemed to have disappeared so he banged on the fence as hard as he could. The gatekeeper came and called over the fence, telling him once again that he could not come in without a ticket. Ritchie said he was very hungry and asked if it would be possible for one of the Ethiopians to come and bring him some food. The gatekeeper replied that on earth Ritchie had enjoyed all the good things in life while the Ethiopians had had nothing and in any case, there was a very wide, deep pit behind the fence that no one could cross.
 
Ritchie thought for a moment. Then he asked the gatekeeper if one of the Ethiopians could go and warn his brothers to change their ways so that they might get a ticket to heaven.
The gatekeeper answered. He reminded Ritchie of the TV appeals, the newspaper coverage, the collecting tins and all the other publicity that he had seen about the plight of the Ethiopians. If, like Ritchie, his brothers chose to ignore all of this, then there was no more that could be done.

“As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” We are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share, thus storing up for ourselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that we may take hold of the life that really is life.

Sunday 7th October - Trinity 18/Harvest Festival
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Harvest Festival Service, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
6.00 p.m. BCP Harvest Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 8th October
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Tuesday 9th October
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
12 noon Deanery Chapter, Royston

Wednesday 10th October
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Thursday 11th October
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
12 noon NSPCC lunch, Town House, Barley

Friday 12th October

Saturday 13th October
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.00 a.m. (until 4 p.m.) Mission-shaped children training day, Christ Church, Bushmead, Luton

Sunday 14th October - Trinity 19
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Holy Communion with baptism of Jake McPherson and Oliver Hay, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
3.00 p.m. Baptism of Oscar Hamblin, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Wednesday 17th October
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group, High Bank, Reed

Saturday 20th October
evening Friends of Reed Church Race Night, Village Hall

Sunday 21st October - Trinity 20
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion with baptism welcome, St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. CW Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Thursday 25th October
1.00 p.m. Interment of ashes of Jean Cheyne, Barkway churchyard
8.00 p.m. Deanery Pastoral Committee, The Rectory, Barkway

Saturday 27th October
2 p.m. Church/village hall jumble sale, Reed Village Hall

Sunday 28th October - Bible Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion + Junior Church, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
5.00 p.m. Discover Sunday Party of Light (all-age worship), St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Tuesday 30th October
7.45 p.m. North Buntingford Group: The Very Revd Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, speaking on St Mark’s Gospel, Rushden Village Hall