Reply #8: Yes, indeed, Christ's teachings were

[Joe Chi Minh]

almost *all* centred on the injustice and misconceived pride of the religious/political Establishment towards the poor, and the superior faith and consequent spiritual status of the latter in God's eyes.

It wasn't even that the Scribes and the pharisees failed to observe many of the religious externals which others didn't; they did. Rather, it was their presumption in assuming virtue on their own part for that, rather than telling themselves, after doing what was their duty, "I am an unprofitable servant, I only did what I was supposed to do". But worst of all, it was their hypocrisy in leaving aside the weightier demands of the law, mercy and justice; instead, straining at a gnat, only to swallow a camel.

Remember the parable about the Pharisee in the synagogue, who prayed to the effect that he paid tithes of all he possessed, he was not a thief or adulterer like the tax collector, declaring, indeed, that "he was not as other men are".

The tax collector, on the other hand, dared not raise his eyes, and asked God to have mercy on him a sinner. "I tell you", Christ said, "this man went home justfied rather than the pharisee". (May God have mercy on the soul of the wretch who presumed to reproach Bill Clinton for his sins, while taking exercise in Central Park).

But of all Christ's most incandescent diatribes against the rich, the parable of Lazarus and the rich man must be the most fierce. In relating that the very street dogs licked Lazarus' sores, he was clearly implying that, in their hapless, stumbling compassion, even the dumb beasts put the rich man to shame, as it happened, everlasting shame. Since they obeyed God's purpose for them, albeit by instinct, they belong to a superior order of creation to the blindly selfish rich man, who fails to meet God's purpose for him. Spiritually still-born.

It is noteworthy too that Christ did not give the rich man a name. Christian tradition, rather, assigned the name Dives, since the clergy, being historically drawn from the upper and middle classes, tended to be interested parties! There can be few things more distinctively personal than one's name, and the implication seems to be that the rich man failed to attain any kind of true humanity. One of the aspects of the parable of the Good Shepherd seldom remarked upon is precisely that, however much God ultimately transcends any possible human knowledge of him, he wants us to see him, not as an impassible and impassive monolith, but rather as the *ultra* human Christ, as witnessed by his lament over Jerusalem (more specifically, its ruling classes). To love, is not to be weak but to be strong -which means that the Holy Trinity is actually ultra personal, not impersonal.

The parable of Lazarus is almost, of itself, like a miniature synopsis of the Gospels.

Other interesting points brought out were the pernicious and baneful political influence of the rich. (We have to generalise, as indeed, Christ did, in order to make sense of the world). Christ didn't say that the rich man didn't give Lazarus anything, but that no-one did.
Indeed, he didn't even state that he was a bad man, but, by the voice of "Father Abraham", spoke to him in a most kindly way, (even while pointing out to him that there was an unbridgeable gulf between him in Hell and Lazarus in Heaven). "My son", he said to him, "remember that you did receive your good fortune in your life-time, and Lazarus, no less, his ill-fortune; and now he is in comfort and you are in torment. And besides all this there is a great gulf fixed between us and you, so that there is no passing from our side to you, no crossing over to us from yours".

Then, when the rich man asked him to send Lazarus to warn his five brothers, "Abraham said to him "They have Moses and the prophets". And when the rich man replied that they wouldn't listen to them, he replied, "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets that, in that case, they will be unbelieving still, though one should rise from the dead". And how prophetic that was!

There will, of course, be many Democrats, too, who won't be greatly taken with Christ's message here, but that is the reality. The main vocation and purpose of the affluent, an absolute sine qua, according to Christ's own sole description of the last Judgment in anywhere in Scripture, is to render practical help and assistance to the less worldly and more spiritual, i.e. the poor; and indeed to those brought low in any way. Thereby, the prayers of the afflicted for them will be able to prevail with God.

The pecking order in this world is essentially upside down. End of story. There is absolutely no reason why someone who is technically severely mentally retarded in this life, should not have a superior understanding of the physics of this material universe, in the next life, than Einstein; Einstein, moreover, in the next life. Assuming such understanding would still be of any interest to anyone, so inferior is the order of God's physical creation in his own scheme of things.

"And my counsel to you is", Christ said, "make use of your base wealth to win yourselves friends who, when you leave it behind, will welcome you into eternal habitations. He who is trustworthy over a little sum (wordly possessions) is trustworthy over a greater; he who plays false over a little sum, plays false over a greater; if you then, could not be trusted to use the base riches you had, who will put the true riches in your safekeeping? Who will give you property of your own, if you could not be trusted with with what was only lent you?

No servant can be in the employment of two masters at once; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will devote himself to the one and despise the other. You must serve God or money; you cannnot serve both.

The Pharisees who were fond of riches, heard all this and poured scorn on him.And he said to them, "You are always courting the approval of men, but God sees your hearts;...". (Mark 16: 9-15)