The Rev. Jeremy Thompson, St John Lee comments on Luke 16 v 19 – 31.

IF you have ever been to a baptism I have conducted, you will know that I speak about children being inquisitive and how important that is in terms of their journey of faith.

Children have such open minds, are so free to accept new ideas, new experiences; they have a naivety that actually makes them vulnerable.

We adults, in contrast, tend to shy away from the new and the novel. We have fixed views about how things are.

We adults live with a “healthy” dose of scepticism; we take innovation with a pinch of salt. Once we have made our mind up about something, it’s not going to be changed. The effect of this is to close down; to limit our understanding of what might be possible, what God might be going to do.

The rich man, Dives as he is traditionally known in the story of Lazarus and Dives, was very much of that nature.

Dives was wealthy, worldly, knowing. A man who knew how the world worked and had pretty well-organised views about what was what.

He’d made his pile by fair means or foul. So when he has an experience that doesn’t fit with his world view (admittedly a post death experience) he realises the perils that those who are like him are in. A closed mind leads to hell!

When I was a child, my father loved to quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet whenever I expressed awe and wonder at some new thing. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio”, he would say, “than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Elsewhere, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who believe and yet have not seen.”

If we keep an open mind, we might just be drawn into heaven.