26th Sunday year C- Lazarus

There's an old story about a boy walking along the shore of a beach.  On the beach, the tide was starting to go out.  The beach was lined with starfish.  As the boy walked along, he saw an old man.  The old man was picking up a fish, one at a time, and setting it back in the water.  So the boy ran up to the man and asked what he was doing.  The man said.  These starfish have washed ashore, if they don't get back in the water, they'll dry up and die.  The boy said, there are thousands of starfish on the beach, you can't possible make a difference here.  The old man calmly walked over to the next starfish, picked it up, set it in the water, and said…."it made a difference to that one"

Isn't it amazing how we can choose to see things the way we want to see them.  When something is presented in front of us, we can decide how we choose to see it.  Sometimes we can get lost in how big the world is, how things seem to be crashing down or falling apart, and we just want to throw our hands up in the air and say "I can't do much, so why try."  So we just try to bury our heads in the sand and pretend the problems don't really exist.

Today we hear the story of Lazarus and the Rich man, each and every day the poor man Lazarus sat at the rich man's door.  Not in the corner, not on the street, but lying at his door, the gospel makes it sound like the rich man almost had to step over him every day to get into his house.  So every day, as the man walked past, he had the chance to help Lazarus, or even show him some small kindness, but he chose not to.  Even the dogs came to visit Lazarus and tried to help.  A dog licks a sore as a way to clean it out.  So even the dogs came to try to help Lazarus while the rich man wouldn't even throw his scraps.

How many times have we used the excuse, "I didn't know"  or "where would I start" as an excuse why we don't need to help those less fortunate among us.  Even when we do notice them, how often do we use the excuse, "they're just lazy" or something like that.  Yet, if we don't even offer a little kindness, a small greeting, a bit of our time, how could we possibly know that? 

It's hard to imagine what it would really take for some of us to actually begin to see and engage the poor in our midst.  After all, isn't that what the story is really about?  What would our Lord have to do to wake us up?  After all, just as the Father Abraham told the rich man, if they didn't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even if someone did rise from the dead.  We know the guy who rose from the dead.  We're hearing his words today.  Do we listen to him?

So really when we get down to it, it's REALLY about who is rich or who is poor.  But rather about how we choose to treat those around us, do we notice those around us? Do we at least extend our hand to those  poor around us.  Do we choose to ignore the message God gave to us about helping those less fortunate?

Sometimes when we read these gospel stories, especially the ones that condemn someone.  I've always found it helpful to try to think for myself, so what exactly would the good person look like.  Who would be a good example of a good rich man who really does notice the poor, and values them.  To me, there's one man who comes to mind almost immediately.  I'm sure we could all think of others, but Oskar Schindler, I think was the sort of man who really did notice the poor man at his door.  When he saw people in trouble, he tried to help as many as he could.  Perhaps he couldn't help them all, but he could certainly do something, and he did.  I think of the hundreds of brave families who risked their lives hiding jews during the second world war, the ones the Jewish people of today refer to as "the righteous."

Now none of us will probably ever face that sort of situation, but we do encounter the poor every day.  In our town, with housing prices at what they are, it's easy to just pretend they don’t exist, to ignore them.  Yet, isn't that just what the rich man did to Lazarus?  Our Lord even answered the rich man's plea, someone actually rose from the dead to tell us what we need to do.  For our part, we actually need to make the effort.  For every one of us, what can we say we've done this week for the less fortunate?  Thankfully I can say that we do have many, many groups in our parish that work to support them.  If you're not sure where to start, any of our groups would welcome you and show you how.  We have the knights of Columbus, to the Catholic Daughters, to St. Vincent DePaul, the Gabriel Project, Elizabeth Ministries, and I'm sure I'm missing a few, and that's just within our parish, the wider community here offers dozens more.   Each of them work to take care of those who are poor , hurting, or lost, we have so many ways to help….if we want to.

Some of us here already to a wondeful Job of service, and Yes, for some of us it's easy to say we're too busy, we can't put the time in, but when we say that, don't we sound an awful lot like the rich man, who wouldn't even let Lazarus eat the scraps from his table?  Even if it's only a scrap, there is certainly something that each and every one of us can do.