26^th Sunday in O.T.; September 29, 2019

Am 6:1a, 4-7   Ps 102   1 Tm 6:11-16   Lk 16:19-31

Deacon Jim McFadden

 

Many of us find the homeless to be unnerving and annoying. They disrupt businesses in downtown areas. They relieve themselves in public, creating health issues. And, sometimes they’re just scary. Recently,   going to and from school, there’s been a homeless person begging for money on a traffic median. He’s there in the early morning or earlier and he’s still panhandling at the afternoon rush hour. Sometimes I’ll give the money, but most of the time my window stays rolled up. As I sit waiting for the light to change, I check off the reasons why I shouldn’t give him any money: he’d just use the money for booze and drugs…I’d just be enabling him…why can’t he get a job?…why should I give him my hard-earned money?

Then I remember what Pope Francis once said when you encounter a homeless person, ask their name, and as you give them some money, touch them—make contract. Pope Francis is someone who also gets underneath my skin. And, when I reflect upon today’s Gospel, I understand why. The  gospel story of the rich man and Lazarus is intended to make us feel uncomfortable.   For those who are financially secure, who have a home that they can comfortably reside and enjoy, this story is meant to bother us. It’s meant to annoy us just as the homeless often do.

Let’s look at the story which is beautifully told by Luke who is a great literary writer. In a few lines Luke sums up the rich man’s character: “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day” (Lk 16:19). Today, we’d say he was dressed in Armani suits and dined in the finest Sacramento restaurants or was served in his home by a gourmet chef. This man has all the goods in the world. But, did you notice that he’s never named? A name is a way of making a connection with somebody. Very subtly, Luke is telling us that wealth can isolate us from the rest of the world—walling us in, protecting us and separating us from the rest of the world. Our wealth can also keep God at bay. As such, God does not know us because we are worshiping mammon and not him.

Notice how the rich man is utterly indifferent to the beggar, who lies at his doorstep. This is not somebody you can breeze by like I so often do. But, if Lazarus is lying on his doorstep, that means every time the rich man leaves or enters, he’s got to step over him.

Lazarus is clothed not in fine linen or purple, but in sores. He doesn’t dine sumptuously every night; instead, he starves. The rich man steps over him, probably finding him very annoying . And, the rich man probably comes up with the why he shouldn’t help him.

Well, Lazarus dies and is carried to Abraham’s bosom. That’s a tender image as he’s taken into the generous space that Abraham has open to him. What the rich man was never able to do, Abraham does. The rich man never reached out to Lazarus and included him in his embrace. He never touched him as Abraham now does.

We hear then that the rich man dies and is buried.  And, he is in torment. What causes torment? I think it is the suffering that comes from isolation. We are meant to be connected with one another in and through Christ Jesus, who is God among us. When we log ourselves into the narrow confines of the ego, we run counter to our nature which is meant to be in communion with God and in fellowship with our brothers and sisters. When we’re not, we accordingly suffer.

Brothers, notice how this cuts both ways. If I’m isolated from God, I’m isolated from everyone who God loves. If I’m in touch with God, I’ll be in fellowship with his children—ALL his children, including the homeless. But, if I’m isolated from my fellow human beings because the group they belong to, the more I’m isolated from God. The deeper connection I have to the world draws me into the Creator of the world.

The rich man is closed in on himself: curvatus en se as St. Augustine so aptly put it: he’s caved in upon himself and that’s the torment he’s in. The rich man begs Abraham to send a warning to his brothers who remain alive. “But, Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them’’’((v. 29). This is why this parable should stop us in our tracks: we have Moses and the prophets too!

Let’s cut to the quick: the fundamental platform of Catholic social teaching is that God is the Lord of all of creation and hence the owner of all things. Nothing in the end really belongs to any of us. Our use of our wealth—which includes our gifts, talents, and our very life—is relative to God’s will and the needs of my brothers and sisters, especially those who are in need. We don’t control our wealth; God does. We don’t have absolute ownership of our possessions; we simply have the use of them. We are permitted to be the stewards of creation, but the purpose of that stewardship is to cooperate with God’s intentions.

People of God, this is nothing else than a revolution of how we think about our possessions, gifts and talents, and time. Everything you are, everything you have is a gift from God. Your life is not your own because it belongs to God! Therefore, you are the steward of your life, but not the controller, not the dominator.

In the Middle Ages the great Church doctor St. Thomas Aquinas said that while we are entitled to our property, that’s not an absolute right because the use of our possessions is relative to the needs of the Common Good.

            That’s a staggering challenge because we have to ask how do I use what I own whether it be my time, talent, and resources. I can’t say stewardship means what benefits my or my group. No, your use is relative to the Common Good of the whole human family.

I don’t care how wealthy you are: whether you are a Bill Gates, a Warren Buffet, or a man in blue at nearby Folsom Prison.   None of what we have is absolutely ours; it belongs to God. Therefore, the question is why has God permitted me to have my gifts, talents, and resources? If we ask that question, your life will take a radical turn.

Back to the parable. What would have gotten the rich man out of hell? If he had embraced Lazarus. Sure the poor need the rich to get out of poverty, but the rich need the poor to get out of hell! Perhaps that’s why Lazarus was situated at the rich man’s doorstep to give him the opportunity to be freed from his ego-driven isolation.

Why is that homeless person so consistently standing on the median? So I can get out of hell. Perhaps I may have the opportunity of reaching out to him to break free of my own tendency towards isolation.

Ask that question when you come to a situation in which you can concretely help. Why has God given me this wealth that I have and why has God placed this person or group in my path…on my doorstep? Brothers and sisters, who’s on your doorstep?