The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to contemplate how our actions toward others reflect our trust in the Lord or in something else.
Life with Trust
The reading from the Prophet Jeremiah declares “blessed are those who trust in the Lord.”
Blessed are those who trust in the Lord1
Psalm 1 describes the Two Ways of living.
* [Psalm 1] A preface to the whole Book of Psalms, contrasting with striking similes the destiny of the good and the wicked. The Psalm views life as activity, as choosing either the good or the bad. Each “way” brings its inevitable consequences. The wise through their good actions will experience rootedness and life, and the wicked, rootlessness and death.2
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus teaches the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
* [16:19–31] The parable of the rich man and Lazarus again illustrates Luke’s concern with Jesus’ attitude toward the rich and the poor. The reversal of the fates of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:22–23) illustrates the teachings of Jesus in Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” (Lk 6:20–21, 24–25).3
Colleen Chiacchere shares that we are called to repent, or to change our perspective, and move beyond the mindset that we usually have. We are called to know our own belovedness, which helps us reach out to help others know their own belovedness. We are asked to enter deeper into our relationship with Jesus, and the poor. We are called to see each person the way God sees them. We are called to build a more loving and inclusive world through our acts of penance, almsgiving and fasting.
As I have been reading and unpacking Fratelli Tutti (Pope Francis’s most recent encyclical), with my Christian Life Community faith sharing group over the past several weeks, I couldn’t help but make the connection to chapters 2 and 3. Pope Francis calls us to move out of the social category that we are in, beyond borders and norms. He urges us to reach out, like the Good Samaritan, to built a social fraternity built on love, respect and care for each individual person, even if they are not in our own circle or tribe. He calls us, like Christ does, to envision and work towards a more inclusive community that welcomes and lifts up each person. Christian love means prioritizing, or changing our mindset towards, a growing concern for everyone’s personal, communal, national and international good, especially by including those hidden on the margins (93-98). 4
Don Schwager quotes “Creator of both rich and poor,” by Saint Augustine of Hippo, 3540-430 A.D.
"God made both the rich and the poor. So the rich and the poor are born alike. You meet one another as you walk on the way together. Do not oppress or defraud anyone. One may be needy and another may have plenty. But the Lord is the maker of them both. Through the person who has, He helps the one who needs - and through the person who does not have, He tests the one who has." (excerpt from Sermon 35, 7)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 16:19-31 comments that Jesus told this parable to wake us up to the reality of the poor—people who are right in front of us but whom we do not see because we are too focused on ourselves. These are the people whom, like Lazarus, God cares for deeply. He suffers when any one of them suffers, and he calls us to respond to their cries. So what can we do?
God wants us to have the same generous heart that he has, one ready to give freely to people in need. Jesus’ parable shows us just how important it is to God that we take care of one another. So today, open your eyes and your heart to someone who could use more of God’s love in their life—through your prayers, through your presence, and through your provision. “Jesus, give me your heart for the ‘Lazarus’ at my door.”6
Friar Jude Winkler comments that Jeremiah was pointing to our inner motivations that sometimes drive us away from trust in God. Lazarus (“God helps”) is named but the man with very rare and expensive purple garments is not named. Friar Jude reminds us that even the Resurrection does not convince some to avoid choosing the path to death.
Brian McLaren describes what he calls “contact bias,” when a lack of personal and ongoing contact with people who are different from us causes us to fail to see them for who they truly are.
But if we are willing to listen to [“the other”] and learn from them, we can break out of our contact bias, which opens us up to seeing in a new way. . . . On page after page of the gospels, Jesus doesn’t dominate the other, avoid the other, colonize the other, intimidate the other, demonize the other, or marginalize the other. Instead, he incarnates into the other, joins the other in solidarity, protects the other, listens to the other, serves the other, and even lays down his life for the other. [1]7
Brian McLaren, Jacqui Lewis, and Richard Rohr, discuss “Why Can’t We See?,” from October 5, 2020, in the podcast Learning How to See, episode 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2020, podcast, MP3 audio). Our comfort with our place in life inhibits our mission to bring full life to ourselves through our care for others.
References
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