"There was a rich man who...dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his feet was a poor man...who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table."
Luke 16:19-21
The story of the rich man and Lazarus really makes us squirm, doesn't it? And why is that? I think it is because we can easily write a check to Lazarus, but we cannot look Lazarus in the eye. And Jesus wants us to look Lazarus in the eye. It is hard for us to actually see Lazarus as a real human being. To us, he is a social problem, a failure of the system. Lazarus puts a fear into our hearts; the fear that one day, we may be Lazarus. So, we tend to de-humanize Lazarus. We make him an anomaly. We can't look him in the eye, because we are afraid of what we may see looking back at us...a valuable human being. Dearest Jesus, help us to see the poor as you see the poor. Each human being has been created in your image and each person holds the value of your love. Help us to see the true value, that is, the richness of each human spirit in each person we encounter today. And as your servant, Mother Teresa, used to say, the real poverty is the poverty of being unloved in this world. Help us to ease that poverty...Amen. Love, heidi
Friends, I will be in Leavenworth this weekend to commune with the sisters! I will be back next week with the Heidi-grams!
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