Streams of Mercy

Sunday’s passage from the gospel of Luke tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus – one inside the gate of abundance and one outside, and invisible to the other. I began by saying “We’ve all seen him – we’ve all seen Lazarus.

• He lies on a pile of newspapers outside a shop doorway, covered with a rough blanket, and rattles a few coins in a tin cup, asking for money.

• Sometimes he’s sitting at the turn-in near Wal-Mart, holding his “will work for food” sign.

• Sometimes he’s walking down the highway, carrying his groceries, looking back over his shoulder at oncoming cars, hoping to thumb a ride.

• Sometimes he’s a little child coming to school on a cold winter morning without a coat.

• Sometimes he’s the young single Mom, with babies in tow, holding up the line as the checkers work with her WIC checks to buy food for her children.

• Sometimes he’s the elderly woman living in a car in the parking lot at the local Wendy’s.

• Sometimes he’s the elderly man who walks the streets carrying all he owns in a backpack, spending his day moving up and down the street and his nights wherever he can find a placed to sit for a while.

• Sometimes Lazarus is the grandmother struggling on her meager Social Security check to care for her grandchildren whose parents have abandoned them for drugs.

We see Lazarus all over the world on the nightly news – black and white, male and female, old and young, Christian, Jew, Muslim and on and on. We see Lazarus every day of our lives, in all times and in all places. But do we see him? Do we really see him? Or do we miss him, and failing to see him, pass on by?

Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus not so much as a condemnation of wealth, or a lesson about wise use of our money. It’s a story of not seeing the obvious, and of failing to do anything about it.

If Jesus was on the side of the poor, and we are followers of Jesus, then we, too, are called to be on the side of the poor and to bless them, not just with words but also with heart-warming deeds of lovingkindness, like Jesus himself.

May God open our eyes to see the need all around us and move our hearts to respond in faithful ways.

Elizabeth