The
prophet Amos has his sight set on the “complacent”
who
“lie on beds of ivory.”
Anyone
here sleep on an ivory bed?
I
didn’t think so -- even if we sleep on sheets
whose
thread count is important to us,
beds
bedecked with pillow shams, duvets, mattress toppers,
bed
skirts and memory-foam mattresses
that
mold themselves to our body’s contours.
I
wonder what Amos would think of all that?
The
prophet also had it in for those who
“stretched comfortably on their couches.”
We
do that, too, unless we’re stretching out
on
our motorized, heated, vibrating
leather
massage recliners.
And
like the complacent in Zion we also eat the best of foods,
]the
native grown, the free range-raised and the organic,
often
accompanied by the finest of wines, even if domestic,
which
we drink from the most appropriate of stem-ware,
large
bowl glasses for reds, smaller ones for whites.
And
all of this we do, as in Amos’ day,
anointed
with the best oils:
scented
perfumes, lotions, colognes and after shaves.
And
while we might be mildly indisposed
by
the collapse of the poor, the starving and the homeless,
generally
speaking we’re not made ill by these realities
as
we spend billions upon billions of dollars
on
our own comfort and luxury.
The
rich man in the gospel had the same problem.
He
dressed well and dined sumptuously,
all
the time ignoring the poor man, Lazarus,
who
was lying at his front door!
Can
you imagine
a
poor, sick man collapsing at your front door
-
and doing nothing about it? Of
course not.
Even
if you didn’t invite him in,
even
if you didn’t go out to help him,
you’d
at least call the police and get the man some help.
But
the question for us is this:
how
do we define “front door?”
Why
are we often moved to respond only in proportion
to
the proximity of those who are in need of help?
And
what if we live in a community
whose
front doors are sufficiently secluded
to
collapse on our front steps?
Are
we any less responsible
if
that homeless person collapses
in
the streets of Boston?
In
the gospel story both Lazarus and the rich man die
and
go to their respective eternal rewards.
When
the rich man asks that Lazarus be sent
to
warn the man’s five brothers
to
be more generous to those in need, he’s told,
“Even if someone should rise from the dead
-
they will not listen to him…”
Well,
someone has risen from the dead - Jesus.
And
he has come to tell us, today, that we can’t risk
‘being
satisfied and complacent
in
responding to the poor, to those in need -
wherever
they may be!
There
is no measure of distance that relieves us
of
our responsibility for those in
need.
And
indeed, while the poor may not fall on our doorsteps,
the
poor are close to us, right here in town.
The
Holy Family St. Vincent de Paul Society
is
a group of parishioners who respond to calls
Holy
Family Parish receives
from
those in need, right here in Concord.
The
calls come through the parish office and we relay them
to
the St. Vincent de Paul folks.
It’s
not unusual for us to get 3 or 4 calls - a week
from
people in Concord who need housing assistance, food,
clothing
and assistance in paying gas, electric and heating bills.
One
way of assisting in this work
is
to donate to St. Vincent de Paul.
There
are boxes for this purpose at the doors of our church.
How
much should each of us give in reaching out to the poor
and
in support of those who reach out to them in our name?
We
each have to make that determination on our own.
But
the scriptures tell us clearly today
that
determining our generosity to the poor should be measured
in
proportion to our generosity to ourselves
with
comfort and luxuries.
We
live in a well-protected community here in Concord.
We
don’t find the poor on our doorsteps.
and
even when the poor live on our own street
or
around the corner,
we
are often protected from knowing who they are
and
what their needs might be.
What
the scriptures ask of us today,
what
they demand of us today,
is
that we not be complacent,
that
we not allow our comfort and luxury to blind us
to
the needs of others in our neighborhoods, in Boston
and
around the whole world.
It’s
not so much our nice things on which we’ll be judged
but
rather on our complacency about those in need.
What
the scriptures warn us of today is this:
how
easily our nice things can lead us to be complacent
when
others need so much for us to be generous.
I
am sure that as we come to the Lord’s Table today,
there
are some among us who are in need
and
others here who have the resources to help them.
And
even if no one in need is with us at this Mass,
the
poor of the world come in spirit to this altar
in
the person of Jesus
who
made himself poor that we might be rich in his grace.
In
a few moments, we will share in a banquet
(not the feast Amos decried,
nor
the table of gospel’s rich man)
but
rather, the banquet which is the life of Christ given for us
first
on the Cross
and
shared with us now, again,
in
the Bread and Cup of the Eucharist on this altar.
May
the nourishment we receive here
in
Communion with Christ, with one another
and
with all those in need, make us quick to be generous
from
the bottom of our hearts.
