Homily for Sunday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/093007.shtml

I don’t know about you, but this Gospel about the rich man and Lazarus stirs up so many emotions in me. When I think of the man Lazarus with his sores being licked by dogs, I first of course think of Mother Teresa and of her willingness to serve the most destitute in the streets of Calcutta, India. I hope you are praying, as I am, for the rapid canonization of Blessed Mother Teresa. I was pre-medicine while at KU for my undergraduate degree, so part of me likes to think that I could handle caring even for people with open sores, but this Gospel passage reminds me that most of me is like the rich man who passes by as quickly as possible. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, I am more like the priest and the Levite who pass by the opposite side of the road and try to stay on schedule than the Good Samaritan who stops and cares for the man in the ditch. In today’s Gospel there is a dramatic reversal. The rich man is paradoxically much more in need than Lazarus, but this is hidden until the afterlife. The rich man was spiritually blind, and so could not see himself within the life of Lazarus, nor could he believe that the life of Lazarus was as real or as important as his own. This disease of spiritual blindness is much more debilitating to our eternal health than the open sores of Lazarus. The worst disease from which we can suffer, my friends, is to believe that we are self-sufficient.
Abraham does not make a lot of appearances in the New Testament, but plays such a great role in today’s Gospel story. The one whose faith paved the way for Moses and the prophets is the one to announce to us in today’s Gospel story the reality of heaven and hell. Since we believe that there is no salvation except through the grace of Christ, the appearance of Abraham in heaven should get us to pause, at least for a second, to ask why He is there, since Abraham did not know Christ. In our Eucharistic prayers at Mass you and I pray consistently for all the departed, Catholics and Christians and non-Christians, and those whose faith is known to God alone. We pray that Christ’s victory over sin and death will be extended to those who did not have the Gospel of Christ preached convincingly to them, yet responded with sincere hearts to the call to live good, generous and virtuous lives. So seeing Abraham in heaven, who was not baptized while on this earth and did not receive the Eucharist, gives us hope that all men can be saved. Didn’t Jesus say as much, as He pronounced his mission to reconcile all things to the Father, and not to lose anything within that entire creation that was handed over to Him?
But at the same time that the appearance of Abraham gives us hope that all can be saved, even non-Christians, the reality that we can choose a permanent home away from God; namely, hell, is also emphasized. Abraham’s pronouncement that the chasm between heaven and hell is so great that it cannot be passed is a good news, bad news pronouncement. The good news is that our freedom is real, not an illusion, and that God will honor our choice whether or not to love Him. The bad news, of course, is that our freedom is real, and our use of that freedom today has eternal consequences. Abraham’s revelation that one who will not listen to Moses and the prophets will not listen to the resurrected Jesus either shows that the habits we form with our freedom produce lasting fruit. With every choice we make, we either are formed in virtue or in vice. Every good choice we make increases the likelihood of our choosing the good again, and every bad choice we make increases this likelihood of our choosing the bad again. This is the reality of the moral life, the formation of habits of virtue or vice. The parable of the dishonest steward last week puts it this way – one who is faithful in small matters will also be faithful in large ones, and one who is unfaithful in small matters will also be unfaithful in large ones. It is erroneous to think that given one last great chance to choose Jesus on this side of heaven, we will be able to shrug off all our habits of unfaithfulness or addictions to the things of this world in an instant. The rich man has a firm habit of choosing material things rather than using his freedom to love the things of heaven, and it is not until this habit is removed after his death that he is able to see clearly and to choose rightly. As a pastor who has visited many people in the hospital at the end of their lives, I can attest that this is true. Death bed conversions are more rare than those who change very little at the end of their lives. The choices we make today will make a permanent impact on the person we will be at the end of our lives. That is the good news and the bad news of having real freedom.
Is anyone in hell? Well, Satan surely, but after him, it is not for us to judge. Today’s Gospel is not about scaring us into being good so that we don’t go to hell anyway. The fear of God that is holy is not a fear of punishment. It is a fear that comes from having a real relationship with God, and from not wanting to damage this relationship. Especially in today’s Gospel, we are encouraged not to fall to the sin of idolatry by preferring the things that make us rich in this world to the eternal riches of heaven.