A great and fixed gulf: Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31)--thoughts for the 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

A great and fixed gulf: Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31)

  

“But that is not all: between us and you

a great gulf has been fixed, to prevent those

who want to cross from our side to yours

or from yours to ours.” –Luke 16:26

That fixed gulf has been bothering me. It sounds slightly harsh, and even hard-hearted on the surface. And that feels like a kind of stumbling block messing with my idea of God’s love. Of course, having my ideas and notions challenged is almost always a good thing. Like most people, I too easily get set in my own patterns and habits of thinking. And it is good for me to be reminded that my ideas are not God’s. But, it is a particularly painful stumbling block just now because this week I have been listening to a few voices talk of “tough love.” And on the surface, a teaching like this might seem to be an affirmation of such talk. Tough love sometimes has to set boundaries, create barriers, even fix a great gulf between people, even people who want to help.  And yet, the tough love talk I heard seemed to have much more emphasis on the tough than on the love. And the voices seemed to only grow harder the longer they talked, opinions and ideas becoming fixed... The life-giving warmth of love fading into something cold and lifeless. So I am struggling with the idea of tough love, and with this vision of a gulf that seems intended to prevent the flow of mercy or compassion, and with the idea that this gulf was “fixed” (or created) by a loving God.

Ok; so, start there. (And yes—I understand this is a parable, and I may be over-thinking things. Again, let that be part of the very premise I am about to present.)

Now, with that groundwork in place, let me for a moment ponder some ideas about that “great gulf.” My initial concern is: why? Why would a loving, merciful, life-giving God (who—in fact-- is Love) “fix” a gulf between the saved and the lost to prevent souls from crossing? What would He be preventing? Repentance? Access to His grace? To His Mercy? His love? Why?

Of course, some might answer because real love is “tough,” and choices have consequences, therefore some souls may find themselves hopelessly suffering in Hell, because they deserve it. It’s natural consequences.  Divine justice. That reading turns this great fixed gulf into an element of God’s justice. Seen through the lens of “tough love” this fixed gulf is an actual barrier –like a vast chasm between two spaces, something like the afterlife’s version of the Grand Canyon—a truly uncrossable space—even for a Heavenly Evil Knievel. And yes, that feels like tough love. But, to my ear it doesn’t actually sound like God’s love.

And so, I turn back to the parable itself, wondering if there might be a clue about that gulf and how and by who it was fixed. A truth that might reveal something about the toughness of God’s love.

“There was a rich man who used to dress in purple
and fine linen and feast magnificently every day.
And at his gate there used to lie a poor man called
Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to fill
himself with what fell from the rich man’s table.
Dogs even used to come and lick his sores…”
Luke 16: 19-21

Do you notice another gulf in this story? The gulf between the rich man’s table and his gate? The gulf between the rich man’s feasts and Lazarus’s hunger? The gulf between his fine linen and purple garments and Lazarus covered with sores that are licked by the dogs. And what about those dogs? Are they there at the rich man’s gate to drive away poor ragged beggars? Or were they wild strays that also hungered for scraps, and licking the wounds of Lazarus was somehow a comfort to them and perhaps even him?

Ah, but I must let those dogs run free for now, and return to that fixed gulf. As I read this parable, that gulf isn’t fixed by God—but by the rich man. And it isn’t waiting for him somewhere in eternity, it is forming inside of him every time he feasts, and every time he turns away from the needs of the beggar who waits at his gate. It isn’t a sign of God’s judgment, but of the choices, the blindness and the selfishness that have shaped his life. It is a habit of the soul and is fixed by choice, not by God. The rich man lived a life of chasms and barriers, a life of self-protection, and self-defense one might say, protecting his own comfort and defending his own security with wealth and gates and dogs (maybe) and protecting himself from discomfort and vulnerability by carefully managing his finances and willfully turning away and ignoring others—especially those unpleasantly in need. This fixed gulf is not an imposed barrier or punishment from a righteously indignant God, but a sign of a Loving God’s willingness to allow His creation the freedom to be who and what we choose to be. Even if that means we make a private Hell from our own choices.

And this reading—again, let me remind you (and myself ) that my understanding could be clouded by my own willfulness or prejudices, focused through the lens of my own theological preferences, BUT… there are two things about God that seem pretty clear to me: 1st, that the Love of God excludes no one, and 2nd that the way we receive that Love is what determines our eternity. Are we open to it? Do we long for it? Have we nurtured within ourselves the desire to be in His presence, to enter fully into His love? To die to ourselves and say with utter certainty: Thy will be done? Or have we nurtured within ourselves a desire to become our own gods, to selfishly protect and defend our own opinions and ideas like they were sacred idols, make an altar of our own security and safety, putting always our own desires and needs on that altar, and chanting always to ourselves: My will be done?

In fact, I wonder now, isn’t it clear that—how we live shapes that gulf and fixes it in place. A tough love that excludes others, drives them away, ignores their humanity or has no patience, compassion or sympathy for frailty and weakness --that kind of love --Is it really love? Or is it actually an emptiness that creates a gulf and fixes it inside my own heart by ignoring those in need, the vulnerable, the challenging, the lost, those who are different, those who make me uncomfortable?

Or have I built a bridge across that gulf by opening my heart and life to those in need, by feeding the hungry, caring for the sick and the sorrowing, visiting the prisoners of poverty and loneliness as well as those in actual prisons?

 

In other words, we can hide from love behind a gulf of “toughness” or we can lay down our lives, take up the cross, and let the Love of God become a bridge between us. 

 

And all of this does have (for me) a very personal connection.  I had a brother who was not easy to love. He was an addict, a thief, a drunk, a man who would promise to change, but found the effort often beyond him. And there was a time when I turned away from him. Didn’t want him around my family, my children because I was afraid of what he might do or say.  He made life hard, uncomfortable. And things often got broken when he was around—vases, toys, feelings.  I was afraid of him, of what his needs might demand from me, and of losing the secure, comfortable life I was trying to build for myself.  In the end, as he was dying in utter poverty, his dog, always beside him, his only comfort… I have to wonder.  What would have happened if I had taken up his cross, instead of driving him away?  I was not a bad brother, helping him with money when needed, talking to him on the phone for hours when he would call… But I was not a brother who was willing to lay down his comfortable life for the sake of another.  My love wasn’t tough.  It was cowardly.

 

The memory of my brother, and my failure, has shaped my life. Every day I must ask myself: Have I fixed a gulf or become a bridge? Which kind of love sounds tougher to you? And which one sounds more like Jesus?

Take up your cross and follow Me, Jesus says.  Talk about toughness.

And who is my neighbor --Some thoughts for the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time & the Parable of the Good Samaritan

 "But wanting to justify himself,
he said to Jesus: And who is my neighbor?"
Luke 10:25-37

The Catholic church follows a liturgical cycle of readings. What this means is that the readings at each mass are pre-determined, scheduled, following a 3-year plan. The cycle completes itself and starts over every 3 years. Years are designated A, B & C---and currently, we are in year C.  What this means in practice is that instead of a priest or liturgist selecting particular passages from scripture because they fit some pastoral concern or address a specific issue, the readings are determined by the cycle and every 3 years on the 15^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, we hear the same series of readings including the story of the Good Samaritan. One of the odd blessings about such a system, is that the choice is not ours, the message is not selected by us, but imposed upon us and that imposition, if we allow it, can become a blessing of opportunity.  It calls us out of the hamster-wheel of our habits and hungers and preferences, and invites us to look at life through a different lens, see the world around us from a different point of view.

 

And so, in the midst of all the strange and terrible goings on in our country, a president who seems to think he is a king, a congress that acts like cartoon minions, and agents of the government running around in masks arresting nursing mothers, day-laborers, and college students, we might have wanted to hear a message about justice or about the collapse of society, about God’s wrath on corrupt leaders… But, instead this Sunday at mass we will hear the parable of the Good Samaritan, and each of us will be given the opportunity to consider: what kind of neighbor am I?  

 

The story of the good Samaritan is probably one of the most familiar of all the parables. It is the story of a man who is beaten and robbed and left for dead on a roadside and three people who walk by his naked body.  Two of them, a priest and a lawyer, keep going. They see the man, but walk on without helping.  Only the third, a Samaritan (someone Jesus’s audience wouldn’t have wanted to associate with), stops and helps the man, caring for his wounds and taking him to safety.  Re-reading this parable I have come to wonder if it may be the most radical of all the parables.  Not only does the Samaritan stop and help the wounded man, but he takes him to an inn, watches over him, then pays the inn-keeper extra money to help.

 

And it all starts with a lawyer asking about the law, about the rules, asking about what is required to be a good Jew; as if he is trying to get Jesus to say: these are the minimum requirements to avoid breaking the law, to stay out of trouble with God.  The lawyer has quoted the law to Jesus, the rules: You must love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.  And when Jesus affirms it, the lawyer, as if looking for a loophole, asks: But, who is my neighbor?

 

The lawyer’s simple question reverberates with the self-justifying sound of fear. Behind it one senses a fear of obligations and limitations, and the very human worry about having enough, about running out of time, energy, resources. But instead, Jesus answers with a story of generosity and compassion, discomfort and self-sacrifice.  The Samaritan is on a trip, headed somewhere, he doesn’t know the man, has no obligations toward him, and yet he alone, of the three responds with love; he alone sets his own plans and needs, perhaps his own obligations and limitations aside responds with compassion, selflessly allowing the needs of another to become an opportunity to serve.   Historically, Samaritans were seen by the Jews as outcasts or rejects; heretics and half-breeds. And yet it is the Samaritan, not the “good Jews,” the Priest and the Levite, who shows concern for the victim, who treats even a stranger with compassion, with love.

 

Instead of answering in legal terms, Jesus flips the question with a story about radical kindness. Shifting the focus from requirements and culpability to generosity, He asks the lawyer: Which of the three, do you think, acted like a neighbor?  He turns the focus away from othering, from borders and tribal distinctions --who is my neighbor—making it personal –what kind of neighbor am I? 

 

Who is my neighbor, the lawyer asks, and Jesus responds with a parable about a stranger, and radical compassion.

 

Jesus is challenging us to act with love not just toward family and friends, classmates or co-workers, not just the easy and the familiar, but to treat with love, with radical generosity, even when its uncomfortable, when its unplanned and disruptive to our schedule, even when it’s scary.  He calls us to see through the Law into the Love. A Love that connects, that binds us all, friend and foe, family and stranger.

 

And there are few stranger than our current president, and few more frightening, and possibly none who needs love more –unless, of course, we count the widows, the orphans, the homeless, the refugees, the prisoner, the naked, the hungry, the thirsting…

 

And yet, even as I write this, I wonder might we not find all these qualities lurking somewhere beneath the prideful and belligerent façade of this man who seems to think he is a king.  And yet, again, are we not called to love all people? Not just those who are easy to love, who make us feel comfortable, or safe. The real opportunity comes unplanned, in the uncomfortable, in the chance to give of ourselves completely, without expecting anything in return.  

 

And one thing this parable makes uncomfortably clear: it is impossible to love someone if we are too busy “othering” them. Whether it is the immigrant, the refugee, the disabled, the different, or just a poor victim left wounded and naked in a ditch.

 

One of the blessings of having a liturgical cycle, is that readings are forced upon us; imposed, instead of proposed. And because they are, they can catch us off-guard, unprepared, surprising us with their prophetic truth and demanding that we pay attention.   In a sense, they come as unexpected as an encounter with a stranger in need. Whether it’s comfortable or not, we are called to listen, to engage, and if we are willing—to respond, to be changed, to let the words challenge and change us.  

 

Perhaps this moment in American history is a similar kind of challenge. We can debate the president’s policies and behavior all we want, but we must realize—he is ours, we elected him, and in some very frightful way—he is us! He is a challenge to be met, and we can either keep walking, pretending we don’t see, or we can stop and say: this cannot be. I must do something.

 

Is this not a time when we musts stop looking at borders and races, memberships and “tribes,” and instead open our eyes to the humanity of all people, look upon even those who don’t look like us, act like us, think like us, not as a problem to be avoided or cast out, but as an opportunity to encounter and become. Instead of asking: Who is my neighbor? we must ask: Who is in need? And what can I do to help?  In this unexpected and unplanned moment, we find not just a challenge or a duty or an obligation, but an opportunity to become the people we all want to be, the person who walks toward the cross, the neighbor who—in our hour of need—we all hope to see.

 

Some more thoughts for a rainy Corpus Christi Sunday

 

“Give them some food yourselves.” Luke 9:12-17

 

How often do we hesitate to offer help, because we think: what good will it do? I can’t solve this. I don’t have anything to offer. Or my small gift won’t make any difference? That hesitation, that fear seems to me, to be at the heart of this past Sunday’s gospel reading from Luke (Corpus Christi Sunday).  It was the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, feeding 5000 people with only 5 loaves and 2 fish. A story of not enough becoming all that’s needed.

 

Too often we might find ourselves listening to these stories and saying: That’s all well and good, but they had Jesus standing right there.  I have to go home and deal with sick kids, a clogged sink, the check-engine light in my car and a neighbor who never mows his lawn. I don’t even have enough left in me to have not enough. I’m all used up.  I was feeling a bit like that myself yesterday, but let me tell you of a little gift I received—something that seemed—at the moment-- like hardly anything, but which is still feeding me today.

 

There was a bit of rain Sunday. It started after mass. A series of downpours blew through, each one seeming pretty heavy while it lasted, but followed each time by sunshine and clear skies. Anyway, at some point I thought the rain was done and I realized we had a couple of prescriptions that needed to get picked up, so I headed to Walgreens. As I was leaving, my wife asked me if I would also go next door to Randalls and get her some Kozy Shack Tapioca pudding. It was Sunday, after all. 

 

So, off I went. A few gray clouds and a few drops of rain on my windshield should have let me know what to expect. But I didn’t. I was looking forward to waiting in a long line at Walgreens so I could have some reading time. And I’d brought my copy of Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom, along with me for just such an occasion.  So, imagine my disappointment when there was literally no line. No one at the counter except the bored young clerk waiting just for me. As she was finding my medicine, I heard one of the pharmacists asking: Were we expecting this much rain?  And I looked out the drive-thru window. The sky was dark and a gray sheet of rain was pouring down.

 

And yet, by the time I paid and got to the front door, the rain was slowing down again. The cashier at the front counter was looking for an umbrella. He laughed and made some comment about thinking he left his car window down.  But, my main concern was my book. No one wants a wet copy of Absalom, Absalom.  I stuck it into the bag with the medicine, folded the bag like an envelope and headed out the door, pretty sure I could make it to Randalls without too much harm coming to me or the book.  As my wife likes to say, I won’t melt.

 

Coming out of the store, I noticed a woman walking up with an umbrella, a solemn, distracted –maybe even annoyed—look on her face. And then I heard a man’s voice, and turned to see an older man hunched over his grocery cart, looking quite anxious that he might be forced to stand there a while or risk getting soaked if he tried to get to his car. He was speaking to the woman—something I would have been quite hesitant to do—and asking her if he could borrow her umbrella to get his groceries into his car. He gestured toward a car parked just feet away at the curb. My gut instinct told me this woman was going to either ignore the man, pretend she never even heard him and just keep going. But to my surprise, she said, Sure. And handed her umbrella to a complete stranger.  It was then I noticed a group of people were there, huddled against the wall watching the rain and waiting for it to stop. And suddenly I had the bittersweet feeling that I wished I could have done that. I wished I could have been that woman. Why hadn’t I brought an umbrella? if only…

 

Then I realized, I’m driving my mother-in-law’s old car. And she always kept an umbrella (or two) in the little cubby between the front seats. So, instead of rushing into Randalls to get my pudding I turned mid stride and headed to the car. Dropping off my bag (and book) I found an umbrella right where I expected. Bright pink. Okay… A guy has to work with what he’s got. Anyway, I popped it open and headed back toward the store.

 

Standing there, outside Randalls was a woman with her adult son, a man with mental disabilities. The two of them were huddled close together near the carts, both of them looking distressed. So, I offered to help them get to their car—me and my mother-in-law’s dainty pink umbrella. The woman hesitated, but her son looked at her and made an anxious sound.  Shaking her head, she gestured: I’m parked way out there.

 

I said, That’s okay, and raised my umbrella over her son’s head and tried to cover her as well. Before we could take a second step, there was suddenly another a young man walking with us, opening another umbrella, and saying: Now you’ll have two.

 

And the four of us walked as one to their car, he and I holding our umbrellas over the mother and the son and both of us getting good and wet.  At the car the son seemed to get more nervous about getting wet, and about letting go of his mother’s arm.  Opening his door, she helped him inside, as we stood there with our umbrellas bumping into each other, water dripping from our hair and down our necks.

 

The woman said: We didn’t expect this, and she held up a little bag that I recognized.  And I said: The pharmacy?  And the young man getting buckled into the car looked at her and said: Yes. We have to pick up our medicine. There was something slightly comical in his droning voice, as if he was repeating something he had heard –maybe once too often.

 

Anyway, with a little care we got them into their car (mostly dry) and wished them well and the young man and I headed back toward the store. The rain was letting up even more—just drips mostly. And he, as young men will do, lowered his umbrella and began closing up.  I turned to him and said, Thank you so much.  And he, giving his umbrella a shake, looked me in the eye and said:

No –Thank you.

 

And suddenly I could feel my old chin trembling and my eyes filling with tears. Suddenly I was thinking of that Gospel passage: Feed them yourselves, Jesus tells us.  Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Don’t hesitate because you don’t have enough.  Suddenly the lesson of the Gospel was quite clear. Just try. Offer. Give. Share. Whatever you have; God will do the rest.

 

Sunday morning, the rain, the anxiety, the simple need for help. It was all there. In the Gospels the Apostles tell Jesus, This is a lonely place, send the people away so they can find food and shelter. But Jesus says: Don’t send them away. Take care of them yourselves.

 

Yes.

 

And for me it all became clear because an old man afraid of the rain asked a stranger: Can I borrow your umbrella? And she said: Yes.

 

I must admit I envied her willingness to share, to simply say: yes, to someone in need. But I also envied that she was prepared, ready for that grace-filled moment.  Not just by carrying an umbrella, but despite whatever was going on in her life, by having a heart open to saying, Yes! Sure. Here you go; take mine.  Her generosity planted a seed in me that quite literally got soaked by the rain. Which means that the young man with his umbrella and his graciousness, was –in some sense—an apple falling from the tree. You see, our little gift may not be much, but we don’t know what God will do with it. We don’t know how God will use it, to change hearts, to inspire others, to feed a hunger in someone’s soul, or to just help a worried mother get her worried son safely back to their car.   

 

Open your eyes, and you will see: Miracles happening all around you. Open your ears and you will hear: the voice of God whispering His love, everywhere. It wasn’t the multiplication of the loaves and fishes this time, just the multiplication of the umbrellas, and the willingness to say: Yes! 

 

It may not sound like much, but for this soul in need on a rainy Sunday, it was more than enough.