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The Gospel of Luke is often called the Gospel of God’s compassion, the Gospel of the lowly being raised up. St. Luke was a physician, trained to comfort and heal those who were afflicted, and he couldn’t help but highlight the mercy of Jesus in his account of the Lord’s’ life. Each us should be challenged today by the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. The parable is not meant to condemn those who have worked long and hard for their financial gains. It is not meant to dump on the rich. The parable is meant to help us recognize the responsibilities that go along with our blessings. This story calls us to examine whether or not we are good stewards of God’s gifts and how we use what we have.
One of the dangers of riches is that they can make us feel self-sufficient and become self-absorbed. Once we can provide for ourselves and have what we want, it becomes easier to focus only on ourselves. Another danger of acquiring wealth is that there is no limit to it. No matter what we have, we always want more and there is already someone else who has more than we do! This is the criticism of the prophet Amos in the first reading. The rich of his time are sleeping on beds of ivory. Think of all the poor elephants such beds would condemn! More importantly, it is taking something that was considered a treasure in small quantities and making it absurd. The same is true of their wine-drinking; there is nothing wrong with having a glass of wine. These fools had so much of it, they were drinking it out of bowls; which was a sign of their excess and their shamelessness in living life completely over the top. Their lifestyle made them oblivious to the suffering and need of those around them. Because of this blindness, they are condemned.
The same is true of the rich man in the gospel parable. His blindness is what lands him in hell, not his wealth. However, by using his wealth only for himself, he became completely unaware of poor Lazarus, who would have been happy with the leftovers the rich man didn’t even want. Lazarus is completely invisible to the rich man. He didn’t see him as a fellow human being, deserving of help and compassion, regardless of the reasons that landed him in such desperate circumstances.
As people who live in the richest nation on earth, we are at risk of this same blindness. Who is invisible to us? The poor, the unborn, the immigrant, the prisoner, the lonely, the disabled, the mentally ill, the elderly? How many people do we pass by who are reaching out, who are longing for something from our table, and we don’t even realize they are there, much less that they are starving and suffering? As a people of faith, the greatest thing we have is our relationship with God. We are surrounded by so many spiritually starving people, people who have many material possessions but still feel utterly empty, depressed, unloved. How often do we share our spiritual riches with others? How often do we pray with and for someone? How willing are we to enter into deeper discussions than simply the weather or sports? Can we sit and listen or are we always on to the next thing? I wonder if many of us catholics are like the rich man in the sense that we dine sumptuously here at the table of the altar. We receive the body of Christ, the bread of life, which is worth more than any earthly treasure, and yet we are so often hesitant to share any of that richness with others. This spiritual generosity is far more important that how much money we give to the poor, as noble and necessary as that is.
This spiritual blindness is just as real today as it was when Jesus preached this parable. We have to work to maintain our spiritual vision and remain aware of those around us who are suffering and starving, physically, spiritually, mentally, or emotionally. Without an active habit of stewardship, generosity, and self-denial, we will quickly become like the rich man: oblivious, self-absorbed, and deserving of condemnation.
To wrap up this up, let me offer you a real-life instance of this parable that happened during World War II. You might already know the story but the similarities are uncanny, at least until the end; the end is very different because of grace and conversion.
In 1939, a German businessman joined the Nazi Party and he immediately began to get rich from the Nazi invasion of Poland. He took possession of a factory, seized from Jewish owners, and began the manufacture of various products. To increase the margin of his profit, he arranged to have his factory manned by hundreds of Polish Jews, essentially as slave labor. During this time, he enjoyed great financial success and spent much of his time, money, and energy endearing himself to various high-ranking German officers and members of the local government. Then, in 1942, this businessman witnessed a raid on a Jewish ghetto in Krakow and was struck by the cruelty of the soldiers to the people living there. Furthermore, he was appalled that many of them were his own factory workers and were rounded up and taken away, only to be murdered in concentration camps.
Because of what he saw, this wealthy businessman, a member of the Nazi party, experienced a change of heart and began to use his wealth to help his workers in need. Over the next few years, he would use his influence, his money and his energy to bribe officials and save the innocent lives of over 1000 Polish Jews, whom he called “his children”. By the end of the war he was practically broke, having invented numerous jobs and bribed many officials to protect as many persecuted Jews as possible. That man was Oscar Schindler and his noble efforts were made famous in a movie called Schindler’s List.
Although this rich man was imperfect and had some serious faults, he allowed his heart to be changed and used his wealth for mercy. And after the war, when he no longer had anything, he received mercy and assistance from the very people he had helped.
May you and I share our spiritual and material riches freely instead of keeping them to ourselves. May our eyes be opened to the needy and hurting who are all around us. With God’s grace, we can avoid the horror of spiritual blindness and become good stewards who enjoy not only the blessings of this life, but more importantly the everlasting blessings of the life to come.
