Jesus came to lead us into a relationship of love with God and our neighbors. External symbols such as the cross or hearts indicate our spiritual journey into love. But walls, fences, and chasms are symbols not of love but of a deep divide. As human communities gradually expanded after Creation, narratives that differentiate developed. These narratives evolved into ideas of superiority and inferiority, community insiders and outsiders, based on wealth, power, and ancestral privileges. But Jesus proclaimed a different world. Jesus said, “my kingdom is not of this world.” “This world” is the realm of sin, self-focus, temporary pleasures, inequality, insensitivity to others’ needs, and ultimately separation from God. Jesus’ world is one of unending love, grace, mercy, and human dignity. Jesus invites all persons to move beyond the fences of “this world” and step into His kingdom, to experience the joy of life in harmony with our Holy God.
In next Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 16:19-31) we will read Jesus’ parable which illustrates the great divide between God’s world of love and the earthly realm of a self-centered life. The parable, therefore, presents two contrasting characters. One is an unnamed rich man who enjoyed many social privileges expressed in his costly clothing and daily sumptuous feasting (V.19). The prevailing religious ethos was that to be wealthy was to be blessed and to be poor was to be cursed by God for being a sinner. The rich man, lavishing in “blessings” of earthly goods, was an insider who had no concern for the second character, Lazarus, a poor man, an outcast. Lazarus remained as the outsider, symbolically laying outside the gate of the rich man’s home. He was desperately hungry and would have gladly received the crumbs from the rich man’s feasts.
It happened that both Lazarus and the rich man died. In death, the two men were again separately situated. Lazarus resided in comfort being “carried away by the angels to be with Abraham” and the rich man was in Hades experiencing great agony. Unable to release his earthly attitude, the rich man looks across the dividing chasm and calls out to Father Abraham asking him to send Lazarus to help relieve his distress. The rich man’s earthly perception was unchanged. For him, Lazarus remained inferior, unworthy to even be addressed directly. He was blind to his own failure to love and care for Lazarus on earth, in obedience to God’s commandment to love. He was also blinded to the nature of God’s kingdom where all are loved, where the first will be last and the last made first to attain God’s world of justice, equality, and dignity for all persons.
The consequence of the Great Divide is eternal separation from our fellowmen and from God Himself, but Jesus calls us to healing, to mend the Great Divide. Attachment to money and social privileges lure us away from God. Jesus proclaims, “you cannot serve God and wealth.” Healing, therefore, begins with honest self-examination. We confess our attachments, our love of humanly created chasms of wealth, class, race, and social privileges that alienate us from God and each other. Chasms that inhibit Christ-like relationships of care, compassion, and forgiveness. As we surrender to God’s way of love, we discern His higher calling. We are awakened to God’s invitation into His eternal realm of love, grace, and joy for everyone!
Prayer: Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
