Today I will talk about – Wealth, Poverty the Middle Class and the Kingdom of God
Jesus spoke in parables for a reason
They can be interpreted on many levels
Literally – real weath and real poverty
Spiritually – rich in faith, poor in spirit
Analogically – rich man as the pharisees, Lazarus as the people of Israel
Today I will be looking at the parable in the literal sense.
Also, when someone remains unnamed in a parable, the listener is invited to see themselves in that role.
From our earlier meditations, we know that wealth in and of itself is neither sinful, nor virtuous,
Poverty in an of itself is neither sinful nor virtuous
Being somewhere in the middle class is neither sinful nor virtuous
Yesterday, we celebrated the feast of King Wenceslaus, who ruled an empire,
on Friday we will celebrate the feast of St. Francis
who renounced all wealth and lived and died in abject poverty.
Both and many like them are celebrated as great saints.
So, what’s key?
If wealth or poverty is neither virtuous nor sinful, what was the Rich Man’s sin? Was it that he did not feed Lazarus with the scraps from this table? Not really. Was it that he did not bath his wounds so that he might be healed? No so much…
No, the Rich Man’s sin was that he did not even SEE Lazarus. He was blind to the reality of another man who was right on his doorstep. He had the means, but he did not have the vision.
Wealth, in and of itself is neither virtuous nor sinful, but wealth at the service of the gospel can make all the difference! By the same token, poverty in and of itself is neither sinful nor virtuous, but poverty lived in service to the gospel can make all the difference.
It’s not being rich or poor or somewhere in between that matters…It’s what you do with it. None of us is without the means the to live the truth of the gospel, to proclaim it in lives of faithful service of the gospel
But to do so, we see, pray, discern, and then to act as we are able.
I’m not sure what has been going on in this town since I left for Italy three years ago, but we have a marvelous gift in that it is virtually impossible to drive through town without seeing the poor.
This believe it or not, is a marvelous gift. What do I mean?
Well, let me tell you about the first time I ever met Mother Teresa, now know as St. Teresa Kolkata
(actually, it’s the only time I ever met Mother Teresa)
It was while I was in the seminary in the mid-1990’s. The seminary was having an in-house silent day of reflection on the Compassion of Christ. There was a morning, an afternoon and an evening conference.
At the afternoon conference, at the end of his talk the spiritual director the house said, “Gentlemen, the dress code for Vespers this evening is formal. We have a very special guest coming.”
Now we had all been on enough high school retreats by this time and so we laughed among ourselves and said, “Oh yes! Jesus is coming!”
But then he continued and said, “Mother Teresa is in Rome. We have invited to join us for evening prayer and she has accepted.”
Not that was something different. So we said among ourselves. “Are you going to dress up? Do you think she is really coming?”
Well, we did and she did.
She entered the room and we all stood up out of respect.
Then she knelt down to pray.
So we all knelt down to pray.
And at the appropriate time during Vespers, the rector invited her to speak.
Now the first thing you noticed about Mother Teresa was that she was only about 4 and a half feet tall. Apparently height is neither virtuous nor sinful either.
The second thing is that she liked to talk and there was no one in that room who was going to try to silence her.
We were all anticipating what great pearls of wisdom might come from the mouth of the saint.
And this is what she said to us, “My young brothers, you who want to be priests, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength…and this is how I have done it…”
And then for the next 45 minutes she just told us stories about things she had done and how God had opened her eyes to see the poverty on the streets of Kolkata, and she had found her vocation in serving Christ in the poorest of the poor. She did not do it to get noticed. In fact in the middle of her talk she said: “You know, I would rather bathe a leper than talk to the press.”
And as she continued, we all noticed that there was really nothing all that extraordinary to what she was doing, nothing any of us could not do.
No, the great wisdom of Mother Teresa is that she did very ordinary things, with an extraordinary love, and she did it without compromise.
Near the end she said to us, “People are always saying to me, Mother Teresa, I want to come to Kolkata to help you serve the poor. And I always say to them, ‘Don’t come. You find the poor in your own neighborhood and you serve Christ in them.’”
If we have eyes to see, we do not have to look very hard to find the poor in our town. How shall we serve Christ, by serving them?
I encourage you to read my column in the bulletin this week. In there I note with great interest how three private entities have pledged over $40 million over the next five years to address the problem of homeless in Anchorage. That is quite a lot of resources. Time will tell if it will make a difference.
But what about you? What about me? What about all of us as the parish family of St. Patrick? What shall we do…such as we are – wealthy, poor, or somewhere in between?
We may not all be called to extraordinary things, (Although I am convinced some in this room are.)
But we are all called to see, to pray, to discern, and then to act as we are able.
[The Story of the Boy and the Starfish.]
Perhaps it is something as simple as washing feet at the Brother Francis Shelter, or to bring food for Clare House, or to donate clothes, or to fund a worthwhile project…
No, it’s not so much doing the extraordinary things that will get us to heaven, but rather doing very ordinary things with an extraordinary, uncompromising love.
And that, I assure you, makes all the difference.