Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, New York
This story is supposed to raise questions for us, but not
for the reasons you might think. Today’s gospel is not a theological analysis
of heaven and hell. It’s not about rewarding the poor for being poor and
punishing the rich for being rich. It's not about what will happen to us after
we die. It’s about how we live today. This parable is asking us to acknowledge
and deal with the gates and chasms that separate us from each other. Jesus is
telling us that how we live today has consequences for tomorrow, not just for
ourselves but for others also.
He’s asking us to face the poverty not only in the world,
but in ourselves. Lazarus doesn’t just represent poverty in the other. Through Lazarus
we see the rich man’s poverty. That may be one reason why we build walls
between the rich and poor, those on the inside and those on the outside. We
don’t want to look in the eyes of a Lazarus and see ourselves. If we did, it
would require something more of us.
Our choices matter. Our priorities set a direction for where
we’re headed. Our values and actions shape what we become. We see it in the
rich man. Jesus is warning us that today’s gates become tomorrow’s chasms. At
some point the gates we use to shut out parts of ourselves or exclude another
become the chasms that isolate and confine us.
The chasm that separates the rich man from Lazarus reflects
his impoverishment. It’s another manifestation of the gate that separated them
in life. The gate and the chasm are the same thing.
Consider all the ways we set gates between ourselves and
others; between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, black and white, gay and
straight, Muslim and Christian, immigrant and citizen, neighbor and enemy. The
list is endless. Those gates are not a condition of circumstances but a
condition of the human heart. The gate that becomes a chasm always exists
within us before it exists between us. It’s a symptom of our impoverishment.
This parable challenges us to examine our own heart to name
the gates that separate us. We all have them. What are the closed gates in your life today
that are separating you from yourself or another? What is impoverishing you
today? It might be fear, anger, resentment, jealousy, indifference, guilt,
grief, old wounds, loneliness, cynicism, prejudice, to name a few. What gates
do we need to open to experience abundance, to discover our identity, to live
with meaning? What gates does our country need to open?
What would it take to open the gates of compassion for
others, generosity and sharing, healing and wholeness, forgiveness and
reconciliation, justice and peace, vulnerability and love? And what would it
mean for our life? I suspect it would change the way we pray, the depth of our
relationships, the significance of our lives, and what we hope for the future.
Jesus lived God’s concern for the poor and expects us to do
the same. We reveal God’s presence in our lives by acting as God acts. We help
the poor, feed the hungry, house the homeless, care for the sick, visit
prisoners, love our enemies, and work for justice and peace because that’s
simply who and how God’s people are to be. Gates destroy relationships. They
unmake God’s purpose for creation.
Whatever gates we carry within us, every time we love our
neighbor as ourselves, every time we love our enemies, every time we see and
treat another as created in the image and likeness of God, gates are opened,
and chasms are filled. It’s a choice set before us every day. It’s not easy work,
but it is possible. Jesus demonstrated it in his life, death, and resurrection.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Power without love is reckless and abusive.
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.1
That’s what the kingdom of God looks like. We already have
everything we need to accomplish it. Christ’s love, mercy, grace, and presence
make it possible for us to ensure that our gates do not become chasms. This is
our work, and the salvation of the world. +Amen.
1 Martin Luther King Jr, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (Harper & Row, 1967),37.
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