Sept. 29, 2013: 26th Sunday in Ordinary C

Are you often forgetful? One day as I was driving, I noticed that  the low fuel light indicator was illuminated  and so I drove into a gas station and started pumping (this was before they required you to prepay). As I was pumping, a thought passed through my mind, 'Where is my wallet?' I left it at home! 'Where is my cell phone?' I left it at home! I stopped pumping the gas but the pump was already past the $3 mark. I frantically searched for quarters inside my car. I rummaged and found $1.25 but I needed more. Of course I was thinking, ‘What should I do? Should I beg?’ I hesitantly approached a person on the other side of the aisle and asked, "May I borrow $2? I live around the neighborhood. I'll pay you back!" I could see the wheels in his head turning. I was so relieved that the person decided to trust me, or more accurately, have pity on me.

Just last week in our steamy 96 degree weather when I was stopped at an intersection, a young woman in her twenties was holding up a cardboard sign pleading for help. All sorts of "Don't do it" passed through my mind, but I rummaged up four quarters and handed them to her. Although her world and mine were separated only by the width of the glass window, our two worlds could hardly have been more different. Yet, had I not had that experience of begging for gas money, I would not have known the differences. As I drove off from the intersection, I could not shake the thought that under different life circumstances I could have been the person standing on that corner holding a sign, begging for coins.

We can be within arm’s reach of someone, yet be living in a different world from that person, and we will never know the difference unless we leave our world and enter the world of the other person. The rich man and Lazarus in our Gospel lived in opposite worlds, even though the worlds existed side by side. The shocking part of this story is that the rich man knew the poor man’s name, yet he didn’t see Lazarus as a human being, much less as a brother with whom he shared a common humanity. He was indifferent to him, and indifference is a great evil.

Could this indifference happen to us too? One lady told me that the new subdivision she moved into is a cold neighborhood. Almost everyone has a gas generator and beautifully landscaped home. However, no one comes out to visit each other on evenings or weekends, not even to wave or say hello. Her experience is such a contrast with that in her previous neighborhood where neighbors walked around in the early evening, visited, and looked out for each other. During the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav, they had neighborhood cookout parties; they didn’t have generators, but they had each other’s company.  Comfort make a person self-preoccupied, blinds a person to the needs of others, and hardens the heart. That is the real tragedy. An individual or a country loses its soul as it accumulates ever greater riches and comforts.

Mother Teresa said:
Hungry for love, Jesus looks at you.
Thirsty for kindness, He begs from you.
Naked for loyalty, He hopes in you.
Sick and imprisoned for friendship, He wants from you.
Homeless for shelter in your heart, He asks of you.
Will you be that one to Him?

Jesus is challenging us to gospel living. Are we witnesses, true witnesses to his teachings or not? Every time that we see or hear of someone poorer than ourselves, whether materially or spiritually, whom we could help and don’t, Christ is present; He is in our midst! If we do not reach out our hand and pour out our heart of love, it is Christ who goes on his way hungry, and thirsty and naked.

So where is Jesus really present among us? Pre-eminently in the Eucharist; just as truly in the sacred scripture. But what about the no less real presence of Christ Jesus in all those Lazaruses we meet each day?