Text of Terrorism!
"Sloughing Towards Galilee!"
"Christians/Catholic Workers's Gone Bad!
Journal of An Alien Street Priest!
Lazarus and the Rich Man!
"A Text of Terroism!"
Luke 16:19-31 NET
“There was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. But at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus whose body was covered with sores, who longed to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. In addition, the dogs came and licked his sores. “Now the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell, as he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far off with Lazarus at his side. So he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in this fire.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus likewise bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us, so that those who want to cross over from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ So the rich man said, ‘Then I beg you, father – send Lazarus to my father’s house (for I have five brothers) to warn them so that they don’t come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they must respond to them.’ Then the rich man said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He replied to him, ‘If they do not respond to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’
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As we enter the New Year my resolution is found in the words of Fr. Henri Nouwen:
As I grow older, I discover more and more that the greatest gift I have to offer is my own joy of living, inner peace, silence and solitude, and sense of well-being. When I ask myself, “Who helps me the most?” I must answer, “The one who is willing to share his or her life with me.”
A part of my sense of well-being is found in the story of the"Rich Man and Lazarus" and reflecting on my present place in this story as it is lived out in the world.
It is set in the afterlife where the rich man is the model of entitlement and wealth and encounters Abraham, the father of his community.
They have a tense and terse exchange at a distance, Abraham, trying to explain to him two truths about the economic life and the poor he has left behind.
First of all his wealth was based upon a fatal sociological, moral, and theological approach to patriarchal wealth leaving the poor behind and
creating a "mega chasm" high gulf between them. The "chasm of that time between the wealthy and poor was one in ten, today it is one in twenty, continuing to grow.
It separated and insulated him from people who were impoverished and dehumanized by a system that sustained his privilege and separated him from their pain. It has separated him from God.
He continues by saying the only way to eradicate this cruel gulf, the rich man must reread his sacred Scripture to see God's priority for the poor.
This parable speaks to our historical moment when the gap between the rich and the poor is even larger.
On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day people walked past the homeless, the poorest of the poor without any thought, and attended services followed by a large banquet, without any thought to those outside their door.
William Herzog says of Lazarus, "He is so beaten down that he does not even have the statue of a beggar!" And so it is today, our brothers and sisters on the street are harassed, and kicked around, where they can not even panhandle.
In the second half of our story the tables are turned, God comforts Lazarus, providing him with all that he needs, and the rich man encounters pain and deprivatation.
Jesus is very clear in this parable that it is not in resurrection that we are to provide for Lazarus, the homeless, and the migrants of this world but in the here and now.
Our parable is a "Text of Terrorism", but it is also an invitation for us to relearn the economy of grace, sharing, giving, and non-violence! This is an invitation to people of all faiths! Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!
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Today we have lost a theologian of faith and father of theological theology, John Cobb:
John Boswell Cobb Jr. (9 February 1925 – 26 December 2024) was an American theologian, philosopher and environmentalist. He is often regarded as the preeminent scholar in the field of process philosophy and process theology, the school of thought associated with the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.[4] Cobb is the author of more than fifty books.[5] In 2014, Cobb was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[6]
A unifying theme of Cobb's work is his emphasis on ecological interdependence—the idea that every part of the ecosystem is reliant on all the other parts. Cobb has argued that humanity's most urgent task is to preserve the world on which it lives and depends,[7] an idea which his primary influence, Whitehead, described as "world-loyalty.
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Temenos Catholic Worker
P.O. Box 642656
San Francisco, CA 94164
Dr. River Damien Carlos Sims, D.Min, D.S.T.
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“People ask me why do you write about food,
and eating and drinking. Why don’t you write
about the struggle for power and security, and
about love, the way others do? The easiest answer
is to say that, like most other humans I am hungry (M.F. Fisher!”
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"Christians/Catholic Workers Gone Bad!"
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