Our gospel this weekend is the story of Lazarus and an unnamed rich man. And in many ways, the core of what Jesus is driving at picks right up from where we left off last week:

“You cannot serve both God and Mammon”

You might remember from last Sunday’s homily that the word “Mammon” is closely related to the word “Amen.” 

Whenever we spend our time and efforts saying “Amen” to worldly wealth and riches and security, then what we are really doing is worshipping a false god — An idol that competes with and then ultimately wins out over God unless we repent!

This week, we meet a man who has been regularly saying “Amen” to Money. We don’t know his name. But we do know his daily habits:

He dressed in purple garments — which tells us this guy is loaded, because purple dye was the most luxurious, most costly available in the ancient world.

He also wore “fine linen” — this translation is apparently somewhat softened. What it’s really referring to is that this rich man even had the fanciest, the most luxurious UNDERPANTS on the market.

We also learn that he dined sumptuously each day. He feasted day in and day out. He never denied himself any good and delicious fancy thing.

And while all this indulgence, all this selfish waste was going on — there was a poor man named Lazarus right at his door. The name “Lazarus” is the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Eleazar” which means “God has helped.”

When they both eventually die, Lazarus goes off to the bosom of Abraham — a place of peace and tranquillity — a great feast! While the rich man goes off to the darkness of the netherworld, a place of suffering and pain. A chasm now separates them, and even if Lazarus wanted to cross over and give him some relief… he could not. The rich man has tragically doomed himself to this place of isolation and torment.

I think there are three basic warnings here that we can identify and briefly break down:

  1. The rich man had too much… and Lazarus didn’t even have his basic human needs
  2. The rich man insisted on having the best of the best of the best. The absolute highest quality stuff.
  3. The rich man didn’t even seem to see Lazarus. He was blind to his presence!

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  1. The rich man had too much… while Lazarus didn’t even have basic human needs.

This is sort of the heart of this whole exchange. It’s the most basic distinction between Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus lies helpless and empty-handed right at the rich man’s door, while the rich man feasts with reckless abandon and insane excess… 

The juxtaposition is dramatic and is meant to disgust us.

The bottom line is: We are responsible for one another. We are especially responsible for the poor. If we have what we need… but we don’t make efforts to take care of the poor, we’ll likely go to hell. 

It’s as stark as that.

Mother Teresa once said: “God does not create poverty. We do, because we do not share.”

It might sound like something we only tell toddlers, but apparently we all still need to hear it:

We need to share. 

And this is not a gentle nudge… a good-natured encouragement to do something nice and make this world a little bit better, a little bit kinder…

No, it’s actually a moral requirement. 

It’s a matter of justice… and the whole point of the virtue of justice, as Josef Pieper points out is “to give the other what is his or her due.”

The poor deserve — as a matter of simple justice — our generosity! Especially when we have more than enough, and they have nothing.

If you want to feel convicted and challenged on this point, go read the Church fathers. They are shockingly clear: 

When we have more than what we need, our surplus doesn’t actually belong to us. It belongs to the poor.

St. Ambrose, the guy who helped St. Augustine convert to the Catholic faith once said: “You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his.”

Pope Saint Gregory the Great agrees, saying: “When we give to the poor what is essential for them, we are not doing them a personal favor, but rather restoring to them what is theirs. More than an act of charity, we are fulfilling a duty of justice.”

And then there’s this hugely convicting quote from St. Basil — 

“The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear mouldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so many are those whom you wrong.”

Yikes. 

I can’t help but think of my own closet at the rectory, where I have more than one jacket, more than one pair of Brooks, more than one hoodie, more than one Steelers jersey, more than one roller coaster t-shirt… And yet there are people on this planet who are naked and have no way of clothing themselves.

Are we feeling convicted yet?

Now, I’m not telling you all to go and donate everything you own… But perhaps a practical step we can all take together is go and take stock of our own wardrobe. And out of a spirit of detachment, we can decide to make some tangible sacrifice of something that we genuinely don’t need. 

And I really think this sacrifice should hurt a bit. Give something away that you actually like… not that ratty old thing that you’ve lost interest in anyways and you’ve been meaning to replace…

No, don’t give the poor the worst of your leftovers… the scraps that fall from your table — Consider giving them some of your best! 

This flows right into the second lesson from today’s parable:

  1. The rich man insisted on having the very best of the best of the best…

Not only does the rich man have an extreme excess while Lazarus doesn’t even have basic human needs… the rich man ALSO insists on having the ABSOLUTE HIGHEST QUALITY stuff.

He has purple garments… a mark of royalty.

He has the most opulent food and drink EVERY SINGLE DAY.

He has the very very best underwear!

It’s a good lesson for us:

Where are we insisting on having the best and the highest quality stuff? Do we ever sort of turn our nose up at certain things, certain brands, certain restaurants, certain grocery stores, certain neighborhoods? Have we in certain ways built up a kind of snobbery in our hearts?

If so, we should work against it.

One of my favorite examples of this is what my friend Fr Kyle O’Connor, who currently serves up in Salem at Our Lady of Perpetual Help has decided to do.

Instead of buying Oreos… the name brand cookie, the best of the best of the best — he VERY INTENTIONALLY buys these weird, off-brand Oreos called “Twist-and-shouts.”

The reason? 

He doesn’t want to get too used to the good stuff!

He doesn’t want to be so attached to the best of the best of the best that he becomes snobby about what cookie he eats… It’s simple but effective. And ironically enough, in so doing, he has come to really enjoy the cheaper off-brand cookies anyways!

But the point still stands…

“My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.”

What ways can we deny ourselves “the good stuff” in view of and preparation for the eternal good that we are actually destined for?

  1. The rich man wasn’t able to see Lazarus. He was blind to his very existence.

The last key point I want to draw out from Jesus’ parable today… is that Lazarus was totally invisible to the rich man. 

His limp and nearly lifeless body was just part of the ordinary, daily background of the rich man’s life as he went off to his fancy feasts and purple underwear. 

He unfortunately developed a kind of nonchalant indifference. So that even before they both died — a kind of chasm lay between them.

Dorothy Day once said these incredibly convicting words: “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” 

In order to love people, we need to first be able to really see them. To recognize and acknowledge their dignity and their existence.

When we see a homeless person or someone who is in desperate need, we need to stop and ask ourselves: Do we really actually see them? Or are we sort of just looking past them? Are we unconsciously photoshopping them out of our view? Are we avoiding eye-contact and sort of editing them out of our brain-processing because their presence is sort of inconvenient and uncomfortable to us? 

We can even do this while actively helping them! We can very easily look past the person even while doing charitable deeds… We can become so focused on fixing the injustice of a situation, getting the material stuff all in order, fighting for societal progress that we tragically miss the encounter with the human being right in front of us!

There’s a really beautiful quote from Mother Teresa where she said this: “If I wasn’t able to discover Jesus hidden under the disguise of bread, I wouldn’t be able to find Him in the distressing disguise of the poor.”

That’s the question we always need to ask: Do we see Christ in the poor? Or do we just see a problem to be rectified? Do we see Jesus the Suffering Servant, the Man of Sorrows, the Divine Beggar… or do we simply see a policy issue that the government needs to take care of somehow?

As we direct our attention once again to Jesus under the disguise of bread and wine — let’s ask Him for the grace to see him under the disguise of the poor, and then to take good care of Him there.