Where's Lazerus

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson C. S. Lewis was told about a gravestone inscription that read; “Here lies an atheist – all dressed up and nowhere to go.” Lewis quietly replied, “I bet he wishes that were so.”

Confronted with an illness or a person possessed or simply in need of a salvation, even if it were a Zacheaus up a tree – Jesus deals with what God puts in front of him. Even when someone approaches him for healing and Jesus recognises this is not his deal the womans plea Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Matthew 15 The Faith of a Canaanite Woman.

She may not be Lazerus but she was in front of Jesus and he dealt with it.

Secondly – How are you dressed?

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day

Did you know that the global apparel industry is valued at 3 trillion dollars (while the luxury clothing industry is estimated at 300 billion dollars? Excuse me while I pick up my jaw off the floor.

The UN estimates ending world hunger each year would cost $30 billion. So ending world hunger since 2003 would have cost $450 billion.

It is estimated that a person dies of hunger or hunger-related causes every ten seconds. Sadly, it is children who die most often. Yet there is plenty of food in the world for everyone.

Maybe The Devil really does Wear Prada.

We cannot possibly take responsibility for world hunger but we can check ourselves and ask – When we discover Lazerus on the sidewalks of life what can we do and what can we do without?

The man in the reading – is wearing the best of Prada in His day. Purple cloth – was an absolute luxury because of the rareness

Robes of purple were very costly, because of the scarcity of the shell-fish (murex trunculus) from which the Tyrians obtained their celebrated dye; or from the rareness of the purple fish, from which, the Phoenicians extracted their rich varieties of purple.

Of nearly equal costliness was the "fine linen," in which the rich man was clothed; composed chiefly of the Egyptian flax or Bambusa, which was of a soft texture, and so expensive, being worth its weight in gold, as to be worn only by princes, priests, or people of great estate.

(1857 William Bacon Stevens)

Oh my have you ever seen the richness of royalty in this world and what about the so called greats of the church Archbishops and the such like parading around with purple robes and often dark secrets? Purple is also the colour of the so called gay movement although to fair the often look sad not gay as they parade around in purple drawing others into the vortex of their broken world.

Ambrose, commenting on the rich fool who built bigger barns to store his goods, said, "The bosoms of the poor, the houses of widows, the mouths of children are the barns which last forever."

In the rich man’s world purple is the new black. Why?

Because it leads to darkness.

Getting rid of wealth or handing it over to the poor is a challenge to Christians – Annanias and Saphira in the book of Acts sold some property but kept some back and lied about it – it cost them their lives.