I think the first thing to say about today’s gospel is it’s not about the hereafter. It’s about the here and now. It’s a parable, not a prescription about how to get into heaven. And it’s a parable about wealth and poverty, about a rich man’s table and a poor man covered in sores. It’s about a man who enjoys a feast and a man who lives in famine. And read alongside the reading from Amos, it’s a wider message about too much comfort and too little discomfort, about being preoccupied with material possessions such that the agony of those around them is ignored. It’s a parable and a prophetic word that could just as easily have been written today.
