Divine Dialogue of God with the Soul
“‘Then I beg you, father,
send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers,
so that he may warn them,
lest they too come to this place of torment.’
But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets.
Let them listen to them.’
He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham,
but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'”
In this passage, a rich man dies after having lived a sumptuous life within his sumptuous house, contemptuously ignoring the poor beggar who for years lay at his doorstep waiting in futility for even a crust of bread. The rich man is condemned to hell, while the poor beggar is carried to heaven. In this conversation, the man in hell is begging father Abraham (one of the holiest prophets in the history of the nation of Israel), to send the once poor man, now gloriously in heaven, to bring him a drop of water to cool his suffering. While this sounds like a condemnation of the rich and a canonization of the poor, the people who heard this parable would have heard Jesus saying that it was the cold indifference which the wealthy man showed for those less fortunate than himself that resulted in his ultimate loss of heaven. It was a necessary lesson, because at the time of Jesus, the people believed that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing and approval, while poverty and suffering were considered a proof that God was displeased with such souls. We know that God doesn’t operate that way. Or we should know that.
Just last week I was a passenger in a car as we went over a busy bridge. We were caught in the flow of the traffic, so when I saw a man with a cardboard message standing up ahead at the end of the bridge, I wondered how anyone could stop long enough to pass him some bills. But as we drew close to him, I had a true ‘God moment.’
Though his clothes were torn and a bit frowsy, he was a young man with the kind of neatly tended short beard many young men sport today, and he had a deeply sad but gentle face. He reminded me of Jesus. He looked like Jesus. My heart sank when I read his sign as we passed. He hadn’t written the usual things homeless people write on their cardboard. His said simply,
ANYBODY CARE?
I knew it WAS Jesus, calling out to each person passing by, ‘Don’t forget that some people, many people don’t measure the value of a gift, but rather the love behind it, the care that motivates the heart of the giver.’ He was telling me, ‘Don’t forget to notice the invisible people—the woman who cleans the restroom in the airport, and the man who stands at the end of the supermarket line concentrating earnestly on slowly, deliberately bagging the groceries for you. Neither of them are asking for money, but they long to be noticed, to be lifted from their anonymity, to be thanked, honored for their beautiful personhood by a smile, a word (You are very good at what you do!), recognized as one whom I, Jesus, walked the length and width of Palestine to reverence as sons and daughters of the King.”
We can’t feed every hungry person, or give money to every homeless couple.
But we can care.
We can each be an Anybody who, yes, Cares.
Jesus said,
You did it for Me.
and then