September 30, 2007 26th Sunday of the Year
I have a handout I want to give you today, and I'll get to that in a minute. First, when I read the Gospel today, I was reminded of a time a few years ago at St. Patrick when we had a homeless person who began to sleep on the porch of the church. We met to try to decide what to do about that; we found out who he was; we found out the agencies that he'd been dealing with. the advice that they had given him, and the list of resources that they had given him to go to. So we were satisfied that he had been provided with resources that could help. Finally, we decided that we couldn't let him sleep on the porch.
So it fell to me to go out to tell him that he couldn't sleep on the porch anymore. And I did so, and again gave him the list of resources that he had been given, and encouraged him to use those. And anyway, the conversation went very well, so I thought, and I walked back in through the church. And I thought of this Gospel. And I said, "You know, the rich man let Lazarus sleep at his door, and he still went to hell. And we're not even doing that." So my good feeling evaporated quickly.
Well, I use that story to illustrate something that Scripture scholars tell us, and that is that to understand what a Biblical text means for your life, you have to read two texts: You have to read the text of the written word, but you also have to read the text of your life and of the life that is going on around you.
So I want to askyou the question today: How do you read the text of our society and the existence of poverty and homelessness, and people who are uninsured? How do you read that text? I want to suggest some different ways.
When I grew up, the way we read the text was that people were poor because of some failing on their part, or some vice on their part. Are you familiar -- I'm not asking you to agree with it -- how many of you are familiar with that way of reading the text of poverty? And if you look in the Bible for justification of that way of reading it, you could find a little bit, and it would be in the wisdom literature and the book of Proverbs.
But if you were to read the prophets, you would find a whole different reading of the text of poverty and homelessness. Basically, what you would find would be an interpretation that said God has entered into a covenant with us; God has given us the land, and God has given us the resources, and God has told us to take care of each other. If there are poor people among us, if there are homeless people among us, it's because we have not kept the covenant with God.
Hard words, aren't they? My handout -- in the Jewish law there are 613 commandments, or mitzvot. I'm not giving you all 613, but I'm giving you a partial list that somebody gave to me. There's plenty for everybody to have one. I want to encourage you to look over them; just quickly look over them. The reason I printed them is that you might take them home with you.
By the way, another little side agenda I have in doing this is, I've been reading Pope Benedict's book on Jesus, and I'm impressed with his emphasis on how thoroughly Jewish Jesus is. Many of us Christians grew up with a kind of Christian chauvinism, where we think we've got it right and they didn't. But everything Jesus taught and knew about love came from the Jewish law, and Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. And the Pope, in his books, goes to great lengths to point out to us all the time how thoroughly Jewish Jesus is.
So anyway, as you look over them, do any of them strike you as -- any of them stand out for you?
Yes? Would you read to me?
"To relieve a neighbor of his burden and help to unload his beast." So, you know, there's one after that that isn't there that says you have to help him, help the beast, too. So even the beast of burden you have to help. That would be good for animal rights activists.
Anything else? (inaudible.) Jay gave a zero to the rich man and gave Lazarus 240, if we're keeping score.
By the way Lazarus, this poor man, is one of the few people in the Gospels who is given a name. It's in my letter in the bulletin. Do you know what the name "Lazarus" means? It's the Greek of Eliezar, which means, "My God Helps." So when you listen to the story, there's a rich man and a poor man named My God Helps at his door. And My God Helps ends up in Abraham's bosom, and the rich man ends up in the abode of torment. Interesting, isn't it?
Anything else strike you in that list, that you'd like to share? Okay, 175, "Do not demand of the poor man repayment of his debt when he can't do it." What would that say about our bankruptcy system today?
Number 222 says to keep the Jubilee year holy. The Jewish law required that every seven years debts had to be forgiven, and every seven years the land had to take a sabbatical and be let rest. And every 50 years you had to go back to the beginning; all the property had to go back to the original family that owned it, because they assumed that in the course of doing business, inequalities would emerge. And then those inequalities had to be wiped out every so often, so we could start again equally.
Part of that mentality, you see, is that we have obligations, and our overarching obligation is to act in such a way that we heal the wounds in our society, that we heal the earth, that we heal the poor. And those obligations take priority over any rights that we have and over any privileges that we would claim. So if there are poor in the land, it's because we are not keeping faith with God. Wow!
Take those home with you and read them.
Yes? (inaudible.) Yes. The "we" is the whole nation. And there are, within Judaism, strands of universalism where the "we" becomes all of humanity. But it's not just my clan or my family, but the "we" is very big.
Yes? (inaudible.) So they're not talking charity, but justice. And again, yeah, it's changing the structures of our society and culture as well, and obligation is there.
Well, it's a tall order isn't it? And needless to say, they never did it. That's why the prophets were forever condemning them. And by the way, when you read in the Old Testament expressions of God's, anger, God's judgment, we grew up reading them as though God is judgmental toward us as individuals in our individual sins. The condemnation is always the sins of the nation, and the judgment is on the nation and on its political and religious leaders. It's not on the failings of weak individual human beings, but it's a judgment on political and religious leadership. Wow!
Anyway, I hope that's disturbing to you, and I hope it triggers a lot of thinking. And last, I want to conclude with a reference to the parable today, and a question.
Robert Frost is quoted oftentimes -- there's a poem, "Fences Make Good Neighbors," and in that poem Robert Frost is walking a fence with his neighbor, and they're repairing the holes in the fence, and the neighbor says, "Fences make good neighbors."
And Robert Frost says, "Before I build a fence, I would like to know who I'm keeping out and who I'm keeping in."
And well, you see, in this parable there is a gate. Gates are there so you can go through them, right, from one side to the other? And in the parable, when the rich man is alive, he has an opportunity to go through the gate to My God Helps. When he fails to do so and dies, what becomes of that gate? It becomes a chasm so deep that you can no longer cross from one side to the other.
So another disturbing question I want to leave you with: Where are the gates in your life, where you might be invited to go through the gate, and if you don't, that gate might become a chasm?
So it fell to me to go out to tell him that he couldn't sleep on the porch anymore. And I did so, and again gave him the list of resources that he had been given, and encouraged him to use those. And anyway, the conversation went very well, so I thought, and I walked back in through the church. And I thought of this Gospel. And I said, "You know, the rich man let Lazarus sleep at his door, and he still went to hell. And we're not even doing that." So my good feeling evaporated quickly.
Well, I use that story to illustrate something that Scripture scholars tell us, and that is that to understand what a Biblical text means for your life, you have to read two texts: You have to read the text of the written word, but you also have to read the text of your life and of the life that is going on around you.
So I want to askyou the question today: How do you read the text of our society and the existence of poverty and homelessness, and people who are uninsured? How do you read that text? I want to suggest some different ways.
When I grew up, the way we read the text was that people were poor because of some failing on their part, or some vice on their part. Are you familiar -- I'm not asking you to agree with it -- how many of you are familiar with that way of reading the text of poverty? And if you look in the Bible for justification of that way of reading it, you could find a little bit, and it would be in the wisdom literature and the book of Proverbs.
But if you were to read the prophets, you would find a whole different reading of the text of poverty and homelessness. Basically, what you would find would be an interpretation that said God has entered into a covenant with us; God has given us the land, and God has given us the resources, and God has told us to take care of each other. If there are poor people among us, if there are homeless people among us, it's because we have not kept the covenant with God.
Hard words, aren't they? My handout -- in the Jewish law there are 613 commandments, or mitzvot. I'm not giving you all 613, but I'm giving you a partial list that somebody gave to me. There's plenty for everybody to have one. I want to encourage you to look over them; just quickly look over them. The reason I printed them is that you might take them home with you.
By the way, another little side agenda I have in doing this is, I've been reading Pope Benedict's book on Jesus, and I'm impressed with his emphasis on how thoroughly Jewish Jesus is. Many of us Christians grew up with a kind of Christian chauvinism, where we think we've got it right and they didn't. But everything Jesus taught and knew about love came from the Jewish law, and Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. And the Pope, in his books, goes to great lengths to point out to us all the time how thoroughly Jewish Jesus is.
So anyway, as you look over them, do any of them strike you as -- any of them stand out for you?
Yes? Would you read to me?
"To relieve a neighbor of his burden and help to unload his beast." So, you know, there's one after that that isn't there that says you have to help him, help the beast, too. So even the beast of burden you have to help. That would be good for animal rights activists.
Anything else? (inaudible.) Jay gave a zero to the rich man and gave Lazarus 240, if we're keeping score.
By the way Lazarus, this poor man, is one of the few people in the Gospels who is given a name. It's in my letter in the bulletin. Do you know what the name "Lazarus" means? It's the Greek of Eliezar, which means, "My God Helps." So when you listen to the story, there's a rich man and a poor man named My God Helps at his door. And My God Helps ends up in Abraham's bosom, and the rich man ends up in the abode of torment. Interesting, isn't it?
Anything else strike you in that list, that you'd like to share? Okay, 175, "Do not demand of the poor man repayment of his debt when he can't do it." What would that say about our bankruptcy system today?
Number 222 says to keep the Jubilee year holy. The Jewish law required that every seven years debts had to be forgiven, and every seven years the land had to take a sabbatical and be let rest. And every 50 years you had to go back to the beginning; all the property had to go back to the original family that owned it, because they assumed that in the course of doing business, inequalities would emerge. And then those inequalities had to be wiped out every so often, so we could start again equally.
Part of that mentality, you see, is that we have obligations, and our overarching obligation is to act in such a way that we heal the wounds in our society, that we heal the earth, that we heal the poor. And those obligations take priority over any rights that we have and over any privileges that we would claim. So if there are poor in the land, it's because we are not keeping faith with God. Wow!
Take those home with you and read them.
Yes? (inaudible.) Yes. The "we" is the whole nation. And there are, within Judaism, strands of universalism where the "we" becomes all of humanity. But it's not just my clan or my family, but the "we" is very big.
Yes? (inaudible.) So they're not talking charity, but justice. And again, yeah, it's changing the structures of our society and culture as well, and obligation is there.
Well, it's a tall order isn't it? And needless to say, they never did it. That's why the prophets were forever condemning them. And by the way, when you read in the Old Testament expressions of God's, anger, God's judgment, we grew up reading them as though God is judgmental toward us as individuals in our individual sins. The condemnation is always the sins of the nation, and the judgment is on the nation and on its political and religious leaders. It's not on the failings of weak individual human beings, but it's a judgment on political and religious leadership. Wow!
Anyway, I hope that's disturbing to you, and I hope it triggers a lot of thinking. And last, I want to conclude with a reference to the parable today, and a question.
Robert Frost is quoted oftentimes -- there's a poem, "Fences Make Good Neighbors," and in that poem Robert Frost is walking a fence with his neighbor, and they're repairing the holes in the fence, and the neighbor says, "Fences make good neighbors."
And Robert Frost says, "Before I build a fence, I would like to know who I'm keeping out and who I'm keeping in."
And well, you see, in this parable there is a gate. Gates are there so you can go through them, right, from one side to the other? And in the parable, when the rich man is alive, he has an opportunity to go through the gate to My God Helps. When he fails to do so and dies, what becomes of that gate? It becomes a chasm so deep that you can no longer cross from one side to the other.
So another disturbing question I want to leave you with: Where are the gates in your life, where you might be invited to go through the gate, and if you don't, that gate might become a chasm?
Labels: Homilies
posted by Fr. Larry Voelker at
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