Ryuichi Nakamura's Excellent Sunday Gospel Reflection on The Rich man and Lazarus

Christian Living
Sunday Gospel Reflection #1
Ryuichi Nakamura Sr-C

September 26, 2010
Lk 16:19-31

Everyone is born equal, with the same rights, the same degree of duties. And they are to be treated equally as well. At least, that is how the world should be. But often, we find that how it should be, and how it is, are two contrasting cases. Despite the fact that governments have laws guaranteeing the human right to equality, the rich become richer while the poor become poorer. Many institutions, ideologies and events have been set up in the past, all attempting to once and for all secure the equality of all people. However, until today, societies and systems tend to favor the few rich, and ignore the majority poor, at least until the latter cause an uprising. All people are equal…but apparently, some people are more equal than others.
That is what the unique Gospel of the day condemns: us committing to our selfish natures and forgetting that we are part of a whole, that we are one in God’s creation. Nowadays we tend to overlook the substantial and focus on the material. Even worse, we do it for our own benefit at the demise of less fortunate people. Worst of all, we don’t seem to feel a tinge of guilt when we do so; it has simply become part of the norm, part of what we see through the goggles of blind habit. Looking at the story, anyone could see that the rich man chose to satisfy his already well-off self rather than help the desperately poor Lazarus who was right outside his door. But what most would fail to see is the immaterial side of that action: the rich man chose to express greed over love, chose hell over heaven. Of course, being blinded by earthly matters and vanity, the rich man didn’t look at it that way. Not until he was free of the said earthly matters; in other words, dead.
Unfortunately, the rich man symbolizes us more than Lazarus does. We most certainly do not sit outside mansions begging for food, but we most certainly have enough to feed ourselves five, eight times a day. The Gospel starts off by showing us this uncomfortably familiar situation, but then it becomes unusual: it visualizes what happens after death. This Gospel is perhaps unique in this aspect, in showing us what would happen to two people after they are judged. It’s almost as if Jesus had meant us to speculate on what would happen after our own deaths, and in turn, evaluate our present lives. And, given the present poverty line of the Philippines, this we desperately have to do.
Certainly, if I were Lazarus, I would have kept trying to sustain myself by looking for a job, and above all, trusting in the Lord. But as much as I would like to think that if I were the rich man I would help Lazarus right away, I highly doubt I would react this way had I not read this Gospel. I would’ve shrugged it off like the next person. Guilty. Only by changing my attitude and, in turn, my actions that I can truly make amends for the times I have neglected my duty to my less fortunate brothers and sisters. Only by realizing that all that I have comes from God and, in the end, returns to Him, that I start to see past the material, and give greater value to the moral. And only by initiating the change within ourselves can we truly start equality in our society. And hopefully by then, the poverty line wouldn’t be so darn high.