Merits of our Deeds

Thursday March 12

Readings: Jer 17:5-10; Lk 16:19-31

In the reading from Jeremiah, we hear God say that God alone probes the minds and hearts of people and that we will all be rewarded according to the merits of our deeds.

And we might say, “Well, that’s not so bad….I’m a good person.”

Then we read the gospel.  Things start getting a little dicey here…

Jesus tells the Pharisees the story of the rich man and Lazarus.  Lazarus, a sore-covered beggar, sits outside of the rich man’s gate and dies of neglect and starvation.  The rich man, we assume, dies of “natural causes”.  When they meet in the afterlife, there’s a big chasm between them (no different than in life, eh?).  Abraham stands in that gap and reminds the rich man that no one can cross.  Abraham also reminds the rich man that while he was on earth he had good things.  It’s now Lazarus’ turn.  The “merits of their deeds” catches up with them.

This is a cautionary tale that Jesus tells us and I would HIGHLY recommend that you read Ched Myers’ reflection on this passage here.  This is also a passage that is not meant to be read individually. The rich man represents a collective as does Lazarus. This gospel passage is a social commentary as well as an individual indictment.

Myers says that the world we live in is more than twice as unequal as the one that Jesus inhabited (and Jesus was outraged by what he saw around him, imagine if he dropped back in now!) and those of us with even moderate means have grown accustomed to the vast separations between rich and poor.  If we are not poor ourselves, we generally have very little contact with people living in poverty.  Their plight, their skills, their hopes, joys, fears and dreams remain largely invisible to us.  People living in poverty can easily become part of the landscape and a taken for granted part of the world we live in.   So much so that we do not even notice them anymore.

And even if we might be conscious of people living in poverty, there is a strong narrative at work about what people can “do” for them with almost no consideration for what they have to teach us or contribute to our lives.

Admittedly, most of us did not create the fragmented world that we live in.  But we choose the degree to which we accept it or work to change it.

And notice that even after his death, the rich man still tries to order Lazarus around for his own purposes (he tells Abraham to “send Lazarus to my father’s house to warn my brothers…”).  Even in death the rich man did not see the humanity and equality of Lazarus and once we have come into power and privilege, we do not surrender it easily. In fact, it starts to shape us.

Truth be told, many of us have learned to live with a lot of inequalities – including poverty.  Justice requires that we pay attention to these.

For today, try to notice and engage someone who might usually be invisible to you.  Try to know them as an equal – some who, like you, has a story, has hopes and dreams, has talents and skills and is a child of the living God.