John Hill, talking about today’s readings at the men’s group, called to mind how different the readings sounded two weeks ago from today. Two weeks ago we heard about the lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son and how merciful, patient, and loving our God is. Today we hear of a basically good man who happens to be rich who ends up tortured by flames in the netherworld. God seems different and unpredictable.

Certainly from a juridical perspective God is erratic. And most of us, despite our verbal profession otherwise, see God from a juridical point-of-view. We would like rules clearly written. Do I really need to come to Mass every week? How late can I come to Mass and it still count, or how early can I leave? How much do I have to give as a donation and to whom? When Jesus was asked by a young man what a person needed to do to gain eternal life, he told him to follow the Ten Commandments. When he said he had, Jesus told him to sell all he had, give it to the poor, and come follow him. We know the Commandments are not the whole picture but we are not sure exactly what else we must do. When we search for the right rules to follow, we end up guessing, hoping, or seeking out the opinion of someone prestigious like the pope, the bishop, a leader we admire, or perhaps a purported visionary.

The only way to reconcile these two sets of readings is to let go of the image of God as a judge and see God as a Father. This is the image that Jesus most often uses. As the father in the story of the lost son, he was anxious to have his son back. He wanted to forgive and welcome him back into the family. He calls on the older brother to treat him as a brother. We have a hard time with this reading because we tend to be more like the older son and seek to judge and sentence the younger son. We don’t want him as a brother.

In today’s gospel we usually identify with the rich man to a certain extent. He was as far as we know a good man. We presume he acquired his wealth honestly, was a good Jew, and gave alms the same as most other people. He’s not a criminal nor is he an immoral person. But of course we want to disassociate ourselves because of his fate. When we hear he was a rich man, we imagine Donald Trump and say to ourselves, “That’s not me.” The Glenmary’s came up with an illustration/exercise that gives some perspective. They gather a hundred people in a room and divide them into groups representing the population of different countries and regions. Of the one hundred people, eight would be the proportionate number representing the population of the USA. Then representing the resources of the world, there are a number of loaves of bread. Those eight people representing the USA get 56% of all the bread! As much as we like to disassociate ourselves from the rich man, we are the rich. We as a parish are generally a richer population that our country as a whole.

The issue with the rich man in Jesus’ eyes is that he failed to see Lazarus as his brother. This is what unites these seemingly different scripture readings. Jesus calls us always to live as family. We need to forgive one another and to help one another. We met with a man yesterday who will be building our pole barn. He arrived later than planned and he explained that he and some other members of his parish were trying to start up a food pantry. He asked us for directions on how to avoid helping those who don’t really need help. But there is no fail-safe method. If you seek to be generous there is practically always someone willing to take advantage of it. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence of able-bodied men sitting around all day drinking beer. We hear horrific stories of welfare queens. Acting alone, most of us would give up when we feel used and taken advantage of.

Yet with our family we don’t give up. We try to act smarter and we seek to work with other family members to try again. This is part of why a parish community is so important. Through our outreach ministry we seek to assist people in ways that actually help them. As a parish family we seek to support the desire to treat others as family even when they don’t appreciate what we offer. It is far more important that we seek to be loving members of God’s family than that we are successful.

God doesn’t have a set of rules to follow. We are not judged and sent to heaven or hell depending on our compliance with any code of ethics. Jesus command is to love, to love as family. When we live as family, caring for all our brothers and sister, we are already a part of God’s kingdom. That’s why Jesus can say the kingdom of God is in your midst. All God gives us we are to us for the sake of God’s family. God’s kingdom is his family living with mercy, forgiveness, and generous concern for one another.