Are we at least paying attention?

Homily for September 25, 2016 (26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, C)
Amos 6:1a, 4-7; Psalm 146; 1 Timothy 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31

Recently we welcomed a new neighbor near our friary located at a busy intersection only a few miles from downtown Chicago.  I’m not sure if “welcomed” is exactly the right word, but she definitely “moved in,” complete with a chair and a sign urging drivers approaching the intersection to give her their spare change.  She seemed nice enough and welcomed the food we offered her.  One thing I noticed was that while she was asking for money she didn’t seem to have a cup, box or anything in which people could put it—anything, that is, other than her hands.

The following morning her chair was empty and the area around it was a mess.  Thinking she had abandoned the spot, I picked up her sign, the garbage and the broken-down chair and put them with the trash bins in a nearby alley.  However, when I checked after Morning Prayer and Mass, the young woman had retrieved her items from the trash and was back in her spot.  She didn’t seem to be having any more luck than the day before. As I write this, she’s still coming back with the same sign, the same chair…and wearing the same clothes.

People panhandling or otherwise asking strangers for donations seem much more prevalent in Chicago today than when I lived here decades ago.  While they have long been on corners or in doorways or alleys downtown, they can now be found at expressway exit ramps and at busy intersections in many of the city’s neighborhoods.  Many of them carry handwritten cardboard signs explaining their plight, often with “God bless you” at the bottom.

These are the modern descendants of Lazarus in our gospel reading.  We may choose to give or not give to them. We may wonder about their stories, worry about their safety or even question their motives.  We may ask ourselves about the best way to really help them and others in similar straits.  But we ignore them at the peril of our faith.  “Out of sight, out of mind” may sometimes work for us; but as Jesus tells us in the gospel reading, it doesn’t work for God.

Jesus uses the parable of the rich man and Lazarus to warn us of the consequences of the gulfs that we create in this life and of ignoring others in need.  Amos condemns those of Israel who treated the poor like commodities or accounting categories rather than human beings.  Those concerns are as relevant today as they were centuries ago:  some still live in wanton luxury while others suffer in abject poverty, and the systems that undergird such injustices are powerful.  But they are entirely of our making.  As producers, distributors and consumers of the world’s goods and services we are ultimately the fingers of Adam Smith’s invisible hand.

Psalm 146 reminds us of who God is and, more importantly, what God does.  Our Creator delivers justice for the oppressed, feeds the hungry, frees captives, gives sight to the blind, raises the fallen, loves the just, protects strangers, sustains widows and thwarts the wicked.  As children of God, we are called to do the same, heeding St. Paul’s exhortation in our second reading to live the values of “righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience and gentleness.”

None of us are able to give something to every person in need.  There will always be more hands out than we can fill, more pleas for help than we can heed.  But even if we can’t always give, are we at least paying attention?  When people aren’t in our sight, can we still keep them in mind?  +