Equal In God’s Eyes
If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets,
then they will not listen to somebody who raises from the dead.
When we are born into this world as a child,
we have very little sight.
We see only in black and white,
and until we develop our sight,
we cannot even see past eight inches.
Our sight develops based upon what we need.
And at that point all we need is our mother.
We see our mother and that is all we need.
Over time, with the help of our parents,
we develop our sight to the point where
we move from 20::200 eyesight
to eventually 20::20 over a year.
In that time of interaction, our parents help us to see,
and then we learn to filter what we need to see
and we filter out the majority of what we see.
Our parents, our siblings, our friends,
our food, our house, and eventually,
we get more and more data.
In other words, we are very biased
right from the very beginning
of what we see and how we see.
And ultimately that never really changes much
until we decide to change it.
We remain that way.
Today's gospel is a call to see differently.
In the gospel today, we have this rich man,
who by the way is not named, and Lazarus, who is named.
Now the rich man is not condemned for what he does,
but for what he fails to do,
or in particular, what he fails to see.
He does not even see the poor man.
He walks right past him.
He does not recognize him.
There is no malice on his heart per se.
He simply does not do anything.
And then, even in heaven, he still does not see.
When he dies and goes to the nether world,
he still sees the poor man as a servant.
He tells Moses, please have Lazarus dip
his hand in water and tip him.
So he still sees a servant.
And even when the Moses comes back at him,
he says, send Lazarus back to my brothers,
yet again still a servant!
The rich man does not get it,
he does not see that we are all equal.
That is of course the purpose of this passage in the gospel.
It is humbling to be reminded that
we are trying to learn that we are all equal.
That that we are all children of God,
whether rich or poor,
whether we are Catholic or not Catholic,
whether we are straight or gay;
nothing matters except we are his children.
We are all, in the eyes of God, equal
children of his, and we are called to love one another.
This is where Paul's letter today comes in.
He teaches his disciples that Jesus wants us to remain,
to be patient, to be kind, to be loving,
and to foster true devotion, to treat each other as equals.
So what does that mean for us today?
It means that we ought to try to see differently,
to see as God sees.
And with that sight,
we then we notice something different,
that we are equal.
Bear in mind that we all tend to see,
not the way things are, but the way we are.
And so to make this change of sight,
to see as God wants to see us,
we have to change ourselves.
And we have to change ourselves
according to the way Christ wants us to change,
in order we see everyone as equal.
We gather around this table to celebrate
so that we can learn to see again the way Christ sees,
the way God sees us as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Today as you go about your life,
look at your brothers and your sisters,
your neighbors, the people you meet in the store,
the people you work with,
the people maybe you do not like,
the people you disagree with,
whether they are political disagreement or civil,
or whether it is on policy,
or whether it is about the way we live our lives.
Know that everyone is a child of God,
and we are called to love them,
and we have to change to make that reality.
So today, let us know by our actions
that we love one another and
that we are all equal as children of God.
If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets,
then they will not listen to somebody who raises from the dead.