The Presence of Need
“Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus” Luke 16:24
Send – How difficult it is to remove the blinders of our own cultural surroundings! When I returned from Honduras and wrote about a family in desperate need of housing, I received an e-mail from a woman who lives there. She said that it was startling to read my report because the situation is so common-place in her world that she is numb to it. She thanked me for examining this reality from a different cultural viewpoint. It made her more aware of her own environment.
That reminded me of the comment by an African bishop. After touring the United States, he was asked what he thought of the church in America. He said, “I never knew you could accomplish so much without God.”
We need a trans-cultural bucket of water in the face in order to become sensitive to our own circumstances, whether we live in luxury or poverty. The outsider often shows us what we cannot see. Such is the case with Lazarus and the rich man. But the rich man never wakes up to his true reality, even when he is consigned to eternal torment.
The sin of the rich man is not riches. Jesus does not condemn his wealth. He is condemned by the blindness of his wealth. Lazarus lay before him, at his gate, but he would not see the need. His wealth was not the problem. It was self-indulgence without compassionate regard that put him in eternal torment. As we shall see, he never understood his own sin.
We share the rich man’s neglect. We indulge ourselves and justify our actions on the basis of a false “blessing” theology. We rationalize our desires and excuse our apathy by claiming favored status with God. We say, “God has blessed me with a good life and I am simply enjoying His gifts. I live a moral life. I’m not stingy.” We have forgotten that piety devoid of kindness is diabolical. Jesus is our true model. The Owner of all gave all that He had to rescue me. What makes me think that His purpose was to provide me with a life of accumulated enjoyment?
The rich man pleads. “Send Lazarus”. The Greek is pempo, a verb for sending agents and emissaries. “Father Abraham, have mercy and dispatch that poor man to serve my need.” The rich man’s attitude toward life has not changed, even in hell. The poor exist to serve the rich. So send Lazarus to do my bidding. Do you suppose God saved you and me so that we could accumulate affluence through the labors of the poor? Or was Mother Teresa closer to the truth? Will we learn the lesson that the rich man could not learn even in hell?
