Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time -C
Today, we are gifted with Jesus’s words, which attempt to instruct us about the Kingdom of God through a parable. The parable is a well-known story about a rich man oblivious to the plight of a poor man named Lazarus, who was homeless and covered with sores and desired only the scraps from the rich man’s table.
As the story unfolds, the rich man dies and is taken to the netherworld, where he experiences extreme torment. Off to the side, he glimpses Abraham with Lazarus at his side. The rich man cries out to his father in faith to pity him. Even in the rich man’s suffering, his narcissistic tendencies remained. His suffering did not change him one iota, because he still had no empathy and compassion for anyone except himself. After all, he believed he was superior to Lazarus. He petitioned Abraham to have Lazarus serve him by requesting that Lazarus dip his finger in water to alleviate his parched pain. Only after Abraham denied his request did the rich man show some compassion for his brothers living a similar life; he did not want them to end up where he went, for it was too late for the rich man. Abraham responded, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.”
We ought to take careful notice of this parable’s structure. The concise teaching spans the present and the future and is relevant to every person. We live life in time, and after it ends, we go somewhere depending on how we chose to live in that time.
There are three central characters, two of them having a significant role. The rich man and Abraham have speaking roles, while Lazarus says nothing; his contribution is nothing more than his life status and reward in the afterlife. It is no accident that the prominent figure remains nameless; he is only referred to as the rich man. This character’s depersonalization is meant to emphasize that his actions are depersonalizing, not fit for one created in the image of God. The message is clear: our continued selfishness has a cumulative effect; the more we ignore the needs of others instead of our own desires, the more our personhood deteriorates with every subsequent act.
The rich man, so self-absorbed throughout his life, could never have empathy or compassion for those who had less than himself, for his time was spent on his own pleasure. When kindness and compassion are squeezed out, blindness enters. As the days passed, the rich man could not see Lazarus on his doorstep—a classic example of the sin of omission. The rich man had a chance to help Lazarus, but he did not take the opportunity to do so during his life, because he was already blind to the needs of others.
The bubble the rich man lived in served his needs well. He ate sumptuously each day without caring for those who went without. And so, his life went on in relative comfort until he died. The place where he was sent was quite a shock, for there was no peace.
The rich man’s journey to torment is a result of his lifestyle. His life culminated in a cascade of small, selfish events that led to his place of a death-like existence. Selfishness has a cumulative effect; it usually starts small and snowballs into exacting our very personhood from us, as it did with the rich man who had no name. Recall the Nazi’s tried to reduce the Jews to objects by identifying them with numbers instead of their names. To remove a name is to remove their importance as individuals created by God. The rich man did that to himself.
Most Christians know they are to help the poor and those less fortunate. The real challenge is not that, but rather a slow descent in seeing our fellow brothers and sisters with compassion and empathy. It starts quite unnoticeably, like a thief in the night. We have numerous opportunities to help those in need, but often, they are displaced by another reason not to. Giving our money to the less fortunate is easy; what is not so easy is giving our presence and time.
We might be terribly busy or rationalize that someone else, like a closer family member, should be doing the work. Or some professionals can do the job. Each rationalization diminishes our ability to imagine ourselves in the shoes of the suffering around us. If we continue to follow that path without sufficient reflection, a part of our compassion and empathy evaporates.
When we compound the mindset of excusing ourselves from helping others, the cumulative effect of our inaction diminishes our compassion and takes another part of our personhood away. We often do this to ourselves until, like the rich man, we become utterly blind to the needs of others. Days of lost opportunity turn into weeks and weeks into years, and suddenly, we face our own mortality. Blind and devoid of empathy and concern, we cry that it should be given to us.
Ultimately, our lesson for this week is to reflect on the opportunities to share gifts we have received with others while being cognizant of the sins of omission we may commit and firmly believing we must amend our ways. Only a person with compassion and empathy can give to another without expecting something in return. Sounds like something? It should, it is love.
One of the worst things that can happen is that through our repeated actions, we kill off our compassion and empathy, which only leads to the destruction of our personhood, leading to a life of torment. We pray like our lives depend on it, and we never lose sight of those in need because our lives depend on it.