A rich man is hosting a
dinner party. He and a few special friends are reclining on cushions, as
platters of exquisitely prepared food are presented for his approval. Servers
bow and exit; courses follow one after the other. There’s silly chit-chat, bursts
of laughter, and a good deal of belching. The food is, after all, very good; and
there’s lots of it. Now huddled at the door is that beggar Lazarus, he’s always
in the neighborhood; he’s no trouble at all; doesn’t ever bother anyone. It’s
just that he’s infected and covered with sores. Sometimes they get so itchy; he
even lets dogs lick them. (And everyone knows where a dog’s tongue has been.)
Keep your distance, Lazarus is definitely unclean. If anyone dares come close
enough, Lazarus always extends an open hand waiting for something; truth be
told he’d be happy to have a few scraps left on the floor after one of these
banquets, but no one’s offered...
How the poor who followed
Jesus must have loved hearing him tell this story of divine reversal, relishing
the ending as the rich man gets his, burning in Hades while poor Lazarus has at
last found rest, nestled in Abraham’s bosom at the heavenly banquet. You get
what you deserve after all; no one fools God. Right?
Well. It’s clear that both
characters in the parable are very poor and wounded, Lazarus through neglect
and misfortune, but the rich man is poorest of all, blinded in his complacency.
Poor Lazarus has nothing more to lose. But the rich man is frightened to death;
he’s got everything to lose. And he’s so clueless that even from Hades he’s
trying to get people to do things for him. Now we know that oppressors usually
oppress because they themselves have been oppressed, abused, ignored. Perhaps
not that long ago, the rich man in our parable was himself poor and ignored,
and he knows he doesn’t want that life again. Keep it all out there, so it’s
not near me, so I won’t see it; leave the pain at the door begging to be let
in. But the invitation is to be brave enough to break the cycle by refusing to
do unto others what’s been done to me. My poverty, the sores and wounds of my
own misfortunes are not places to live; licking my wounds or lashing out
because of them will lead me nowhere.
Undoubtedly in this
cautionary tale, Jesus is reminding us that our actions have consequences. And
something about the parable is surely meant to make us uncomfortable. Still, I
don’t think Jesus is telling us this story just to scare us into being good.
You know, “Be nice, or there’ll be hell to pay.” There’s something more. God’s
heart is always riven by the
cry of the poor. Jesus invites us to have
hearts like God’s heart. He invites us not to be afraid to embrace the poor.
Now Jesus loved to eat and
drink with rich tax collectors and sinners, a few of whom probably wore more
than their share of purple and fine linen. He loved hanging out with them, for
he knew they were poorer than they realized. Later Jesus himself will end up
poor and suffering like Lazarus, crucified outside the gate, covered with
“sores”- the cruel wounds of his passion. Like the rich man he too will be
dressed in purple and fine linen, but it will be the purple cloak of his
mockery and the linen of his shroud. Jesus is the Key to understanding this
story. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ;
that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you through
his poverty might become rich.” Through his poverty we have become rich.
In his dying and rising Jesus,
himself has crossed the “great chasm” between the place of comfort where
Lazarus now finds rest and the place of anguish where the rich man is in
torment. He is the Bridge. Ever disguised in the distressing face of the poor
and most abandoned, Jesus is at the same time the wounded Healer, who has come
back from the dead, not as avenger to zap us in the end if we mess up but as
“forgiving victim,” his power expressed in the weakness of love. His own
experience as the victim of his passion is not a place where he gets stuck. He
neither curses his oppressors nor relishes his victimhood. He trusts that he is
the beloved of the Father and so he is free to suffer because he knows it does
not define him.* Now risen, he shows us that there is nothing to fear because like him we are at once poor, very wounded sinners and richly
blest and most beloved.
We need not be afraid to
welcome the poor one. For Lazarus isn’t the smelly, diseased other; he is
me. Not other, but me. Compassion involves growth in this
insight, this ease and desire to welcome the scary other and stop running away
from him. Compassion leads us to union and intimacy with my very wounded inner
self, the wounded neighbor who no longer needs to be avoided, and ultimately
with the truly “other Other,” God most high who in Christ has become God
most low, most lowly, wounded, vulnerable and always at the door, though we are
so liable to miss him or close the door in his face.
How can we help but think
of Saint Francis, who realizes one day that he must embrace that leper, the one
from whom he had fled as the most repugnant of outcasts. Small wonder that soon
after this embrace, Francis will hide in a cave and cry his heart out, grieving
over all his sins. In the leper he has come too close to the trauma of bitter
self-recognition, the place, the reality to be avoided at all costs, has become
the scene of encounter, healing, and freedom. Jesus was right there, of all
places, in his “distressing disguise.”
A drowsy complacency is always a temptation. How will I notice the poor one very near that I may find repugnant? Who is the ignored or forgotten outcast in my world, in this monastery, in my heart, in my mirror- the part of me that won’t go away, always begging to be let in even though I want to keep it at a safe distance?
We do not have to run away
anymore. Christ Jesus is here at the door waiting to be let in, the
sore-covered beggar, bearing the wounds of his own cruel passion, the wounds of
our many passions. Each morning in the Eucharist the Divine Beggar invites us
to Holy Communion with him. As we consume him, we beg that his merciful compassion
may consume us more and more.
James
Tissot, Lazarus at the Rich Man's Door. * See James Alison, Broken
Hearts and New Creations. Homily by one of our monks.
