After a first reading of today’s Gospel, we may find that it offers us a very sad, but very honest truth: those of us in contemporary middle class America are among the wealthiest in the world, and we often overlook the poor and outcast. Luke points out again and again that those who are last in this world will be first in the next, and if we take this message seriously, we know where the wealthy indifferent stand with God. While we may be more like the anonymous rich man in this parable, the story also hints at a powerful loophole that will, in fact, allow us to be saved – even though our we don’t deserve it based on how we have lived and what we have done.
The full text of the manuscript if found after the jump: