Love for the Poor - Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you. Friends, Pope Benedict memorably told us that the Church does three essential things. I've always found this really clarifying. The Church worships God, the Church evangelizes, and the Church serves the poor. Those three basic things. Everything we do can fit under one of those three headings. And now if you look at the three Popes prior to our present Pope, you can see each one, I think, emphasizing one of those. John Paul II, evangelization. He was the pope of the new evangelization, going around the world announcing the gospel. Pope Benedict himself, I would say, is the worship of God. That was a primary concern of his, the liturgy, the right praise of God. Pope Francis, who would doubt it? I think care for the poor was a paramount concern of his. Now, mind you, all three were interested in all three. That's true, but there was a kind of emphasis we can see in those three popes. Do you remember when Pope Francis was elected, one of his colleagues, Cardinal Hummus of Brazil, came up to him.

1:02 He'd just been elected, and he said, don't forget the poor. And he never did. He said at one point, remember, that he wanted a poor church on behalf of the poor. And that was a leitmotif of a lot of his life and his teaching. You know, and in taking this on, he was standing in a very venerable tradition within Catholicism. Think of, I mean, I could name so many figures, but Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Vincent de Paul, Dorothy Day, Martin de Porres, Peter Claver, Francis of Assisi, John Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan. The list goes on and on, up and down the centuries. Great Christian, great Catholic leaders have taken the concern for the poor to be absolutely basic. Now, it stretches through the tradition, yes, indeed, but all the way back to the Bible itself.

1:59 I mean, Jesus, who doubts his great concern for the poor? But go back even before the Lord himself. Go back to the great Hebrew prophets. Now, I bring this up because we're reading from the prophet Amos. They all are advocates of the poor. I mean, think of Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and the rest of them. But maybe Amos above all. One of the minor prophets just means he wrote a shorter book. Doesn't mean he's less important than the other ones. And Amos is the great prophet, I would say, of social justice and concern for the poor. Notice, please, too, everybody, we sort of take this for granted. Sure, religious people are for the poor, but how revolutionary this was in the ancient world. The poor, people at the low end of the social scale, they were kind of forgotten about, you know, marginalized figures. Focus is on the rich and the powerful and the kings and generals and so on.

2:59 The poor? But the great prophets of the God of Israel, they're advocates of the poor. They bring the poor before the minds of the rich. Listen now to Amos. And as you do, and I'm saying it to myself as I preach these words, let these words sink in. I know people listen to me now from all over the world, but my guess is most of us listening to this sermon are, you know, fairly comfortable, fairly affluent by a worldwide standard. So listen now, all of us. Well, you can see it, can't you? Get that image.

3:58 It's very carefully painted, that image. Rich, self-indulgent people lying comfortably on their couches, playing the harp to entertain themselves. It's an image of self-complacency, an image, if you want, of indifference to those who don't have those same luxuries. Now, Amos goes on, lest we miss the point. Listen. They drink wine from bowls and anoint themselves with the best oils, yet they're not made ill by the collapse of Joseph. Well, the first part of that is just continuing this motif of self-indulgent. Imagine drinking wine from bowls. There's something grossly indulgent, isn't there, about that image. They anoint themselves with the best oils. So, I mean, just caring for themselves, preoccupied with their appearance and their well-being.

4:59 And yet, they're not made ill by the collapse of Joseph. What does that mean? It means they're not bothered by the suffering of those around them. They're not bothered by those whose lives have fallen into catastrophe. Who are we? What are we like? Do we feel a little, I don't know, pang of discomfort when we hear these descriptions?

5:28 How often are we preoccupied with ourselves in a self-indulgent way? How often do we sort of let the sufferings of the world just kind of roll past us? The Hebrew prophets raised their voices clearly unambiguously on behalf of the poor. Well, the first reading from Amos is just meant to set us up for the gospel. And may I say this, everybody, it's the gospel of Lazarus and Dives. The tradition calls them Dives. The gospel doesn't give them a name. Dives just means rich man in Latin, right? So Lazarus and the rich man. I can tell you, I've been hearing this gospel all my life. I remember even as a little kid, I'd hear this terrible story, and it would bother me. And I'd wonder, to what degree am I divies?

6:22 Even when I was a little guy. Can I suggest that's part of the literary and spiritual power of this story. It's meant to bother us. And I don't want for a second as a preacher or interpreter to lessen that effect. No, if anything, I want to heighten it. It seems to me that the gospel is very insistent upon this point. Well, we know the story well enough, right? Dives, the rich man, he's dressed in purple, we hear. That's code for wealthy because only wealthy people could afford a purple dye for their clothes. dining sumptuously every day.

7:06 At his gate is Lazarus. Now, right away, it's interesting. As I mentioned, in the ancient world, especially, poor people, I mean, who cares about them? They weren't mentioned, they were forgotten about. The very fact that we don't know the rich man's name, but we do know Lazarus' name, that's telling. That's showing you where the priorities of the gospel writer ultimately where the priority of the God of Israel is. So Lazarus is named, but he's covered with sores. He would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table.

7:44 The rich man walks over Lazarus, ignores him. Lazarus would have been delighted for just a bit of the food that the rich man is eating, probably wasting and throwing away food that Lazarus would have loved. Lazarus dies and we hear he's carried to the bosom of Abraham that's Jewish code for the place of paradise he's brought to heaven the rich man dies and is buried so again this shocking sort of reversal of expectations you'd expect no the rich and powerful they're the ones that are favored he's buried Lazarus is carried to the bosom of Abraham what do we make of this everybody first let it bother you bothers me even as I read it again even as I preach it for the I don't know how many times I've preached this gospel how many times I've heard it still bothers me can we hear the clear echo of Matthew 25 here what's the difference between the saved and the damned Well, it's not faith or calling on the Lord's name.

8:57 People that say, Lord, Lord, that doesn't matter. What matters? I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. Lonely and you visited me in prison and you came to see me. It's these concrete acts of love on behalf of the poor That's the difference, everyone, between salvation and damnation. And I don't know any softer way to put that. I don't know any other way to interpret Amos and this story.

9:37 You know, a lot of sins mentioned in the Bible, to be sure. The Bible knows all about different forms of human dysfunction. But if I were to put my money on something, I'd say the one that cries out most to God is this, is indifference to the poor. What seems to make the most difference to God is how we treat those who are most in need. How about this now from the end of the story when the rich man is in hell and there's a great chasm separating him from Lazarus. And he says, let me go back. I need to warn my brothers. I warn my family about this. And we get this.

10:21 If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead. Now, here's why I say it's a kind of damning statement, because we say, well, look, Lord, just send somebody. Send someone to tell me about this. Well, whom do we have? We already have the prophets. In other words, we have Amos. We have Ezekiel, we have Isaiah, we have Jeremiah. We have them. We read from them all the time. I just read to you from Amos. We have them. If we don't listen to them, we're not even going to listen to someone who'd come back from the dead.

11:05 That's a tremendous challenge, I think, to all of us. Year after year, we hear this story, don't we? Even those casual reading of the Bible would reveal this truth. That's the one that seems to matter most to God. So I can read the remaining couple minutes. Can I just emphasize something I've emphasized before? You say, okay, Bishop, I get it. I hear that message. But what do you want me to do concretely? Can I suggest, open up your Google or something and look up the corporal works of mercy. There's seven of them. Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned, clothe the naked, bury the dead, and visit the sick. Seven corporal works of mercy.

12:01 Seven concrete things you can do on behalf of the poor and those who suffer. It's one thing to say, oh, I'm all for social justice. Oh, so what? It's an abstraction. I'm for serving the poor. okay, great, but what does that look like? Well, it looks like, and these are derived largely, aren't they, from Matthew 25, from the Lord's own exhortation. Feed the hungry. Are there hungry people around you? Trust me, there are. And I mean people who are really food deprived. Wherever you're listening to me, trust me, there are. Find them. Feed them. Do something. People who are thirsty, yeah, malnourished, absolutely. Find them. Do something. Shelter the homeless. Homelessness is a huge problem in our country. Address it somehow. Find a way. Address it. Clothe the naked. Are there people that just, they don't have enough to wear? They're that poor. Yeah, you bet. You bet. I mean, everybody listening to me right now, even those who think, oh, I'm in a very affluent area. Trust me when I tell you, not far from you are people who are in pretty dire need. What are you doing about it? Visit the imprisoned. Is there a prison near you?

13:19 Go. Visit. Do something. Minister there. Make a contribution to it. Visit the sick. We all know someone who's sick right now, don't we? We all know someone. Write them a note. Give them a phone call. Send them a text. Send them an email. Better go in person and visit. In other words, everybody, let this great lesson of Divees and Lazarus sink deep into your hearts. Let it bother you. And then do something about it. And God bless you.