Giving Makes You Feel Good
Amos
6:1a, 4-7 I Timothy 6:11-16
Luke 16:19-31
To the church in the
diaspora[1]
& to the church of the unchurched[2]
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, Lord.
Jesus
said to the Pharisees: Once upon a time there was a rich man who dressed in
purple garments and fine linen and ate splendidly each day. And there was a
certain beggar named Lazarus who, full of sores, was laid at his gate. He would
gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs
would come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by
angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich
man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in
torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And
he cried out, “'Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in
water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.”
Abraham
replied, “My child, in
your lifetime you had it good, and Lazarus had it bad. Now Lazarus is
comforted, and you are in torment. Moreover, between
us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who
might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.” But the
rich man said, “Then I beg you, Father, send him to my father's house, for I
have five brothers, so that he may warn them lest they, too, come to this place
of torment.” But Abraham replied, '”They have Moses and the prophets. Let them
listen to them.” He responded, “Oh no, Father Abraham, but if someone from the
dead goes to them, they will repent.” Then Abraham replied, “If they will not
listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone
should rise from the dead.”
The Gospel of
the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus
Christ.
----------------
Introduction
Another A+
St. Luke got an A+ for the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son read on 15th and 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle C). This Sunday he gets another A+ for the parable of a rich man whom tradition calls Dives[3] and a poor beggar whom scripture names Lazarus. All three parables are found only in Luke’s gospel, and that’s why he’s my favorite evangelist.
Hammed- up versions
You
can ham up the parable of the Prodigal Son, or you can read it quite simply.
You can have a rebellious son crying out to his dad, “I’ve had it! I’m getting
out of here. Give me the money that’s mine.”
Or you can have the son calmly saying, “Dad, it’s about time I get out
on my own. Could I please have the inheritance that falls to me?” Both versions
can do justice to the original Greek. Simply read the parable becomes a Parable
of Everyman -- a parable of every son
and daughter who must (like the fledgling robins in late spring) leave the nest
and fly away on their own.
You
can also ham up this parable of Dives and Lazarus, or you can read it quite simply.
As a boy I remember seeing a hammed-up painting of the parable. It hung in my
pastor's office where he was giving my sister and me (children of Italian unchurched
immigrants) instructions to become Roman Catholics. There was Dives, very overweight and bedecked
in a tent of purple finery. He was sprawled
out before a sumptuous table loaded down with platters piled high with
drumsticks and legs of lamb, and with fruit bowls heaped with pomegranates and mangos
and overflowing with luscious grapes. Dives was cruelly and selfishly
indifferent to poor Lazarus lying at the foot of his table begging for crumbs. The
painting, as I remember it, was compressed; it had everything squeezed
together. Only inches away from the table was a wrought iron gate at which the
poor beggar was laid, and dogs were licking away at his sores. As a little boy
I was deeply impressed with that gross depiction, and to this day I still see it
hanging there in my pastor’s office.
But
a hammed-up version of the parable loses a personal message and takes us off
the hook. We can easily dismiss it exclaiming, “Thank God that‘s not me. I
could never be as gross as that cruel and selfish Dives dressed in purple.”
The
words of the parable, in themselves, do not suggest anything gross. The rich
man, in fact, might not be overweight but sveltely slim. He might be a rather decent
fellow, a good neighbor, a religious person. Daily he goes to the office where
he is pleasant enough to his associates. Then after putting in a hard day’s
work, he heads for home. He arrives at his wrought iron gate (a distance from
his very nice house and his dining table). He quickly passes through it not
noticing Lazarus lying there. Tired and
hungry he has a drink before dinner, and then sits down to eat a splendid meal.
An unremarkable indictment
It's possible that Dives and Lazarus never
met, and that therefore nothing terribly gross ever transpired between them.
And yet, when both die, Lazarus is carried to the Bosom of Abraham, while Dives
is buried in a place of torment. Listen to the indictment against Dives. Hear
how remarkably bland it is. "My
child in your lifetime you had it good, and Lazarus had it bad. Now Lazarus is
comforted, and you are in torment" (Lk
He’s indicted for conveniently choosing
not to see the very gaping need of Lazarus and coming to his aid. He’s indicted not because he did something very
bad to Lazarus, but because, at the end of the day, he chose (in a very refined
sort of way) not to do something very good for him. Dives is indicted for choosing, subliminally
at least, not to have the eye and heart which see the need of another lying at
his gate. He’s indicted for not being a sensitive human being.
Not being inhuman
The missalette always carries a very
brief commentary on the Sunday scriptures. The commentary for this Sunday
characterizes the parable of Dives and Lazarus as blunt and ends by asking a
challenging question: “Who is lying at your gate?” When someone lying at our
gate has a gaping need (like starving Lazarus full of sores licked by dogs)
most of us will stop to respond to it. But to respond to such gaping need does
not really make us human; it simply precludes us from being inhuman.
There are people out there who will not
respond even to a gross gaping need. There are Jewish priests and Levites out
there on the road to
Some of the people lying at our gate
(family members, neighbors, co-workers, relatives, and friends) have needs that
are not as gaping as Lazarus’ but are more refined and less gaping. They are needs
perceived only by sensitive eyes and hearts. At the end of the day it’s being sensitive
to the refined and less gaping needs of others that really makes us wonderfully
human.
A refined and invisible
need
After
living in this wonderful house of mine, into which I put much labor and love
for twenty-eight years, I am forced by circumstances to move on. That obviously is going to be a traumatic
experience. (Someone has said there are
three painful experiences in life: divorce, death and moving.) Recently
some newly met friends heard of my predicament and were genuinely concerned. By
email they wrote, “We are coming to
What sensitive eyes and hearts! What truly
wonderful human beings! The e-mail message was a bit overwhelming, and it gave
me courage for the ordeal ahead.
The rich man from Assisi
Here it is the last day of September. Tomorrow is
the first day of one of the nicest months of the year, especially in
No true biographer of the saint ever neglects to
tell the story about the beggar and Francis -- son of a wealthy merchant of
When the business transaction was finished, Francis
suddenly realized the beggar had quietly slipped away -- feeling unworthy of
attention. Seized with compunction he dashed out of the shop leaving all the
bales of precious velvets and embroideries unattended. He raced through the
marketplace “like an arrow straight from the bow," writes G. K. Chesterton. Through the narrow and winding streets he
finally came upon the beggar and heaped a healthy sum of his father’s money
upon him. That story is
the parable of Dives and Lazarus in reverse.
The rich
man from Hope, Arkansas
The commentary for this Sunday asks a
challenging question: “Who is lying at your gate?” For former president Bill
Clinton it’s the very globe of the world that’s lying at our gate. On
In attendance were over
one thousand leaders of business, government and non-governmental organizations
representing over 70 countries and including 52 current and former heads of
state. During the opening session, President Clinton announced five new
commitments, including over $1 billion by the Norwegian and Dutch Governments
to reduce maternal and child mortality.
Addressing the meeting
Because of the Monica Lewinsky
affair, Bill Clinton was pursued relentlessly by a culture obsessed with sexual
morality instead of compassion morality. Compassion morality sees a globe lying
starving at the gate and dogs licking its sores. Rich man Bill Clinton sees a
global beggar down at the gate and calls the globe to do something about it.
Bill Clinton is another rich man who puts the parable of Dives and Lazarus in reverse.
Conclusion
Giving makes you feel good
The
sexual morality which pursued Bill Clinton (and now Senator Larry Craig) is
cheap morality. It pursues others and makes them pay up, but it doesn’t cost
one’s self one red penny. Compassion morality, on the other hand, is costly. It
cost the Samaritan on the road to
[1] Diaspora is a Greek word
meaning dispersion. Originally it referred to the settling of scattered
colonies of Jews outside
[2] By “the unchurched” is
especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church
has left!
[3] The Latin word for rich is divis.