The poor are God's gift to us!

Homily

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

26 September 2010

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

The poor may be God's greatest gift to us. Let me say that again. The poor may be God's greatest gift to us. Oftentimes, for those of us who get locked in our own little worlds, paying attention to the poor is the surest way out for us. Today's Gospel challenges us to see the poor not as annoying, not as a problem to be solved, but as God's greatest gift to us. This is certainly true with the rich man. The greatest blessing God ever gave to the rich man was this poor man Lazarus. It wasn't his riches. It was the opportunity God gave the rich man to escape his independence and isolation. God offered the rich man the surest way to save his soul. But the rich man could never see Lazarus as a gift. He only saw him as a annoying burden, something he wished he could get rid of.

This gift of a poor man laying at our doorstep is an impossibility for most of us living in Lawrence Kansas, at least in the way that the rich man experienced it. Lying on someone's doorstep is trespassing. Panhandling on private property is illegal. Most of us would call the cops, and have the person removed from our doorstep. Yet I am not saying this to increase our feelings of guilt. The laws that protect privacy and property are not in and of themselves unjust. Allowing panhandling anywhere and at anytime usually does not improve the lot of the poor, and just as there are prudent reasons for maintaining safety and order in a society, so also there are prudent reasons why many who work with the poor tell you not to give money to anyone who asks. Despite the sharpness of today's Gospel, there are many good reasons for our giving alms in ways that will genuinely help people, not in ways that are in the end counterproductive.

Still, lest we end up isolated like the rich man in today's Gospel, it is incumbent upon us to see the poor as God's greatest gift to us, not as a problem to be prudently solved. Even if we do not have a Lazarus waiting for us at our doorstep on our way home from Church this morning, still we should look forward with joy to our next encounter with the poor, and if there are no such encounters in our immediate future, we should plan to go visit the poor, for they are indeed God's gift to us, to save us from our greed and self-reliance.

Mother Teresa gave a definition of compassion which I contemplate often, but have an impossible time living up to. She said that compassion is believing another person's life is as real as your own. I find this to be a beautiful definition. I still don't know how she accomplished it. Mother Teresa defined compassion not so much as empathy, feeling what another person is going through. She defined it as knowledge - a faith that another person's life is as real as your own. From this faith flows love. Compassion is not forcing yourself to love another, it is a love that flows from faith. I know that when I encounter a person in need, physically or emotionally or spiritually, I do not first ask myself if this person's life is as real as my own. Instead of focusing on the person I focus on the problem. I instead wonder immediately if I can fix the problem, and I measure how much time, energy, attention and money it might take for me to fix the problem. And if I don't want to give that much, or if I can't, instead of giving what I can, I try to run away. I try to ignore the problem, hoping it will fix itself. I try to be as generous as I can, but it is always measured based on what I think I can afford and what I think might work. It is rare that I can truly see my own neediness in the needs of others. It is hard for me to believe as Mother Teresa says, that their life is as real as my own. It is hard for me to be excited for my next encounter with the poor, believing as she did that in meeting them I will meet my true self.

Jesus instead tells us his disciples. Give to everyone who asks of you. I think about this every time I toss away requests for money, every time I ignore a beggar, every time I walk away from someone that wants some of my time and love. Jesus says give to everyone who asks of you. He doesn't say what to give them. He doesn't say how much. He doesn't say we have to solve everyone's problems. He says to give, not counting the cost, for the measure with which we measure will be measured back to us. Jesus lets us judge ourselves through the lens of our generosity to those in need. We are to always give something - a prayer, a compliment, or a dollar. We are to give to everyone who asks of us.

The Gospels from the last two weeks help us to see almsgiving as one of the surest ways to accomplish our salvation, to fit our souls for heaven. It is true that one who is focused on giving to others, one who comes not to be served, but to serve, is eternally happy. If a person goes into their day knowing that the only thing life owes them is the opportunity to love and to serve, it is impossible to take away that person's joy! If there were no poor among us, we would have to invent them, for without the poor we might lose the best way to keep our hearts from becoming hardened like the heart of the rich man.

Today's Gospel also reminds us that we have no excuses. God has revealed through the law and the prophets, and most of all through the paschal mystery of His Son, who He is and what His commandments are. Love one another as I have loved you. God has made Himself clear. We have no excuses. Yet God's commands are not burdensome. Though they may on the surface appear hard, they save us from something much harder, hardness of heart. They save us from ignoring the deepest desire of the human heart, which is to make a perfect gift of one's self in love. God's commands are not an imposition on us, they help us to be fully alive and fully ourselves, and they keep open a future where our lives get bigger and bigger until they end in God, rather than our hopelessly accepting a life that gets smaller and smaller, ending only in ourselves.