Year C / 26th Sunday / Ordinary Time
Readings: Amos 6.1a, 4-7/ Psalm 146 (R/v 1b) / Timothy 6.11-16 / Luke 16.19-31
There is an elephant in the room.
This is a phrase in the English Language we call a metaphoric idiom.
It means that there is an obvious truth that is being ignored.
It also suggests that there is an obvious problem
or risk no one wants to discuss.
I would like to suggest that there is indeed an elephant, or two,
present in all our lives.
It is one that we often shy away from talking about honestly,
let alone engage truthfully.
Almost all of us often run away from it,
or we try hard to ignore it as best as we can, like it is not there.
Sometimes, we cleverly talk about this elephant
through another person’s experience of it.
We are however being challenged to confront this elephant
this morning through the parable of the rich man and Lazarus
in our gospel reading from Luke.
I believe most of us know this parable well.
We are familiar with its story.
And we are even more familiar with its moral teaching:
beware the dangers of wealth and power.
The rich man lives an entitled life; he excludes the poor like Lazarus.
He surrounds himself with walls of disinterest
and so, he does not care to feed the needy,
nor to hospitably reach out to welcome them,
or even more, to make his wealth a commonwealth for all.
Our sympathetic Christian hearts
are most understandably in solidarity with Lazarus,
and so, we cheer with the outcome of this parable:
the rich man in death is banished
from an afterlife of bountiful goodness
that Lazarus now shares with Abraham.
He is separated from the heavenly
as he is cast into the netherworld to live his afterlife.
I don’t think our moral Christian sensibility
has any difficulty in judging this reversal
between the fortune and status of the rich man and Lazarus
to be right and just.
In fact, I am sure, we judge the rich man a sinner for his selfishness.
What divides the rich man from Lazarus at the end of the parable is,
as Abraham declares, a chasm that cannot be crossed.
But the irony of this is that there was an earlier chasm
that the rich man could have crossed
and so saved his life by reaching out to Lazarus.
Jesus tells this parable to effect a change.
He tells this to the Pharisees to challenge them
to more honestly embrace the Jewish Law of loving God and loving neighbor.
This morning he is seriously challenging us
to cross the different chasms
that divide us from the Lazaruses in our world
and in this way, to save our souls.
Yet, we often don’t think of these chasms as divisions we create, do we?
We are quick, clever, even shrewd enough
in identifying these chasms, these divisions,
these obstacles that prevent us from helping another,
as society’s fault, as faults others have made.
Yes, there are continuing gaps in education, in economic opportunities,
in the justice system, in access to healthy food and clean water,
and in racial and gender equality .
And yes, these are socially constructed,
structurally part of the realities we inhabit.
But haven’t we also seen some chasms that divide
that the people around us have created?
Chasms like telling one's children in fear
to keep away from classmates who have two daddies or two mommies?
Or, like joking insensitively
about another whose skin color or gender is different?
Chasms too like refusing to celebrate in jealousy
the good fortune of a neighbor or a work colleague?
Or, like distancing oneself in self-preservation
when it is obvious a family member is about to make the wrong choice?
Sisters and brothers, if we are honest enough,
you and I will have to admit that we too are guilty
of creating similar chasms that divide?
What might some of these be in your life?
Worse still, we are guilty too of refusing, more often than not,
to bridge these chasms
when another says, “Help me, please,”
or, when one’s suffering eyes cry out, “Will you not accept me?”
or when somebody pleads, “Hold me and keep me from falling.”
We can justify that these divides we create do protect us;
they can assure us our happiness;
they will allow us to live the kind of lives we want.
Some will even argue that without them as firewalls
-- to use computer language --
we will not be able to survive the world well.
But these very chasms are in fact the elephant, or two, in our lives.
The elephants in the room of our lives
that we don’t want to admit to, to talk about,
or even to want to change at times.
If we dare to reflect on these self-created chasms
with eyes of faith, however,
we will find ourselves needing to admit that they our own selfish ways
of being like the rich man.
They not only divide us from others;
they numb us to another’s need for life.
The greater tragedy we create with these chasms we put in place is this:
we are not locking out those in need from our lives
as we are paradoxically are locking ourselves out of heaven.
Our refusal to bridge any kind of chasm that separates and divide
is our rejection of the life-saving opportunities
these ones in need offer us for salvation.
These ones who we want to ignore, to shut out, to turn a blind eye to
are in fact like life-lines God throws out to save us
from floundering even more into sin.
Finally, I cannot help but think of how timely today’s parable is for us all.
Nine months after New Year’s Day,
when we consciously or unconsciously
resolved in one way or another to amend our lives,
today’s parable is a wake up call.
It must wake us up to the reality
that this reversal the rich man and Lazarus experience
can be our own self-punishment on judgment day,
for failing to live well our Christian lives,
which Jesus exemplifies, is really to give life to others.
Indeed, the grace of honestly engaging
the elephant, or two, of our self-created chasms
that divide us from others, and more so, from God,
is that we can more honestly grapple with that either/or reality
of choosing between being selfish and being selfless.
And so to try to answer the question, “What if this parable is true for me?”
might be the most helpful good news we can contemplate on today.
Doing so can safeguard us
from squandering the opportunities
God will indeed continue to offer us,
through the many Lazaruses we will meet,
to save ourselves for the good life with God eternally.
preached at Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, Dorchester, Boston
Add a comment