The passage for this week is the story of the Rich Man who ignores Lazarus, a beggar who sits on his doorstep (Luke 16:19-31). In our National Health, Welfare State, Voluntary Sector society ‘Lazarus’ might be a person living next door to you, someone with their child in the same school as yours, even someone who sits near you in church. We do not always immediately recognise when someone is struggling. The poet Steve Smith wrote ‘I was much further out than you thought and not waving but drowning’. When we do realise that someone is in trouble there are always reasons for not doing something – ‘I don’t know them’, ‘they might be embarrassed’, ‘what if I say the wrong thing’. The moral of the story of Lazarus and the Rich man is that doing nothing is as bad as doing the wrong thing – it is better to be right than to be correct.

Weekly reflections on the Gospel for the coming Sunday are available on request. They will come once a week and will never be more than 200 words. If you would like to receive these emails then please email the Parish Secretary