16 Pentecost, Cp21, September 29, 2019
Amos 6: 1a,4-7 Psalm 146
1 Timothy 6: 11-19 Luke 16:19-31
Today we’ve read a parable of Jesus which paints a picture of the afterlife. A place like Arizona is like the afterlife why? The afterlife includes topography of mountain tops separated by a “chasma mega,” a great chasm, a big ravine, or as they say in Arizona, a “Grand Canyon.”
The afterlife is presented as consisting of a great divide among people; in the Gospel parable, the divide is between a poor leper and a very rich man. They lived in close proximity during their lifetimes but the rich man had taught himself to be unaware of the poor man. And by neglecting the poor man, he did not develop what human beings need to live together well; he did not develop empathy for someone who needed his empathy.
If division and lack of empathy is the character that we can take to our graves resulting in apparent eternal separation from one another, what would be the opposite of the “Grand Canyon?” The opposite would be the the “Grand Bridge.”
How do we manage to avoid “separation” from others becoming the lasting characteristic of our lives when our lives end?
Each of us is born into various situations of separation that are natural to our life situations: race, nationality, economic situation, educational difference, religious and political party differences. We inherent in our birth locations lots of condition which might socially program us towards separation among people who are “different” from us.
If the spiritual transformation of our lives means anything, it means that we must commit ourselves to a life of being bridge builders among people. The way that we build bridges is through learning empathy. And the way that we learn empathy is to generalize to others the similar feelings of pleasure and pain that we ourselves can feel. Empathy involves the projection of imagination that if I can feel pain then so can others. And if I want freedom from my pain and suffering when it happens, then so others also would want relief from pain and suffering.
But empathy is not enough; empathy must inspire the actions of love and justice to the relieve the distressed conditions of other people. The actions of care inspired by empathy are the bridges which reach across the divisions among people.
What is the Gospel challenge for us today? Let us fear the ending of our lives with the eternal character of separation from people. What that means, if we are separated from our neighbor, in the end we are also separated from the good people of faith like Abraham.
The positive which comes from this negative is to be inspired to make our lives into bridge building. Bridge building begins with the learning of empathy. Empathy is the ability to project ourselves into the lives of other people and assume that their needs are enough like ours so that we know that we are called to reach out to relieve pain and suffering, but also to promote the conditions for life, liberty and the pursuit of the happiness of others.
How do you and I want to enter our afterlives? With character of separation from others or as bridge builders among people?
The parable of Jesus is meant to show us the error of building canyons of separation with people in our lives. Let us be inspired in learning empathy and bridge building as the chief vocations of our lives. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment