The obscene extremes of wealth and poverty

I have just read an article which had recently collated international statistical data on wealth and poverty, and found that the richest 85 people in the world own as much wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion (i.e. approximately half of the world’s population).  Dig deeper than the top 85 richest people and the figures, in some ways, appear even worse. The wealth of the 1% richest people amounts to $110 trillion (£60.88 trillion), or 65 times as much as the poorest half of the world.

Let’s not call these extremes of wealth and poverty by any other name, than obscene! The bible is abundantly clear about whose side God is on in such matters, repeated again and again throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Given the dreadful poverty that so many people in the world experience, we need to face these passages of scripture afresh without blinking and giving ourselves no wriggle-room for inaction. So, to start us off, here is one very familiar story that Jesus told, found in Luke 16:19-31:

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’ He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’

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