Who Do We Not See?

“Who Do We Not See?”
Based on Luke 16:19-31
First delivered Sept. 29, 2019
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            For several months, due to road construction…seems like there’s always road construction somewhere, doesn’t it…I had to make a detour to get home. I took a road behind the convention center and then hopped on the onramp to I-670 Eastbound. As the fall turned to winter, and the falling leaves revealed what was hidden among the trees, I noticed that in the grove of trees along the onramp there were several small tents tucked between the onramp and some train tracks. It was a homeless camp. I had driven past that encampment for months and had no idea it was there. Every now and then I see someone walking around out there. If I really wanted to, there is a little parking area just before that grove where I could pull in, get out of the car and walk over to that small encampment. I could introduce myself, strike up some conversation, build some relationships, offer my help. But I never have. And I don’t think I ever will. I just keep on driving. The people who live in that homeless camp might as well be behind a wall. People who drive by might see them but there will be no engagement, no relationship building, no offers for help. The people in the cars go flying by while the people that live in the camp are left behind.

            The story of the rich man and Lazarus, only found in Luke, is a powerful story. Luke making the point earlier that the Pharisees were lovers of money, he places here in his gospel this story Jesus told of an incredibly wealthy man who feasted every day while wearing purple silk robes and an incredibly poor man named Lazarus, which, in Hebrew, means “God helps,” who lies at the rich man’s gate clothed with open sores. All Lazarus wants is some crumbs from the rich man’s table, but he gets nothing. Lazarus dies and is carried up by angels to heaven to sit at the banquet table with Abraham. The rich man dies and is buried. All he wants is a drop of water to cool his tongue as he is tormented by the raging flames in Hades, but gets nothing. The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers, but Abraham says that if his brothers won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen to anyone else even if that person comes back from the dead.

            This story triggers all kinds of questions and can take us down many roads of reflection. It is amazing that the rich man, with all his excess, did not even give a few scraps to Lazarus. Did he not even see him? How else to explain his not giving Lazarus anything? Surely the rich man was not so hard hearted that he couldn’t even have one of his servants occasionally fix a small plate and carry it out to Lazarus. He didn’t even have to invite Lazarus inside. He didn’t even have to physically waddle over to Lazarus. Maybe he didn’t even know Lazarus was there. But that seems hard to believe. Still, maybe the rich man was so much in his little world that he was completely oblivious to a desperately needy person literally lying at his doorstep.

            I just can’t get that gate out of my mind. It was just a hunk of metal taking up a sliver of space. Yet, it may as well have been a twenty foot wall or a wide gaping canyon. It was just a gate that separated Lazarus from just a little bit of food. And that gate was sufficient to keep Lazarus out and to contribute to his dying of starvation.

            Why couldn’t Lazarus just get over the gate on his own? I wonder how tall that gate actually was. You would think if a person gets desperate enough, they would eventually take the initiative to just come in and get the rich man’s attention and beg for some bread. But probably Lazarus laid at the rich man’s gate because he had been dumped there by someone. He was unable to walk or even to crawl. He was stuck there in his misery. Unable to bathe. Unable to get a drink of water. Unable to take shelter from the rain. Unable to go anywhere private to relieve himself. He was abandoned right there. How is it that no one walking by gave him a hand? Couldn’t anyone open the gate for him and help him inside the rich man’s house? Couldn’t anyone have brought Lazarus some food or taken him somewhere to get treated and cared for? Someone could have done something to relieve this man of his suffering. It wasn’t just the rich man with the hard heart oblivious to Lazarus’ need. No one saw him. Everyone neglected him. I wonder if Lazarus sometimes wondered if he was invisible. I have read stories written by homeless people who beg on the streets who watch so many people walk past them without even looking at them, as if they were invisible. Lazarus seemed to be invisible to everyone. No one really saw him.

            I wonder what kinds of gates we have in our community that keep people out; gates that people won’t or can’t open; boundaries that people don’t cross; places that people won’t go.

            Since I started this new appointment, I decided to take the bus during the week when I’m coming in to Westgate or Parkview. I do that partly to save gas and wear and tear on my car. Don’t have to deal with traffic either. I can check my emails and get some reading done while someone else is doing the driving. And it’s one less car on the road, one small effort to reduce pollution. When you take the bus, you see parts of the city you miss when you usually drive around on the interstates. Most of the time the bus isn’t on the interstate but sticks to surface streets. Instead of I-270 and I-670 and I-70 you are on Cleveland, High, and Broad. It’s on the surface streets, at a much slower speed, that you can see people and you see the businesses they go to and the houses and apartments they live in. You often see people that struggle every day to get through the day. You see people walking down the sidewalk who probably don’t own cars or for whatever reason are unable to secure a driver’s license or auto insurance. You don’t see these people, where they shop and where they live, when you are flying down the interstate. It’s almost as if those interstates that weave their way through the city are like gates that block drivers from seeing the people that live in poverty all around us. We just drive over and around those areas as we hurry from one place to another…unless we are stuck in traffic. Then all we get to look at are the cars and trucks that are surrounding us. We won’t be able to see the people that live just a short way from the interstate.

            Through the summer, the last Saturday of the month, Grandview hosts the Grandview Hop. In the evening, Grandview Avenue is shut down so people can walk down the street visiting food trucks and booths, hang out with friends and just do some people watching. And dog watching. But as I think about the people I saw walking up and down Grandview during the Grandview Hop, you would be hard pressed to see some of the people that walk up and down Broad Street. And it’s not like folks who live along Broad Street couldn’t get to Grandview. The 31 and the 5 will take you there. But for whatever reason, there are some folks you won’t see at the Grandview Hop; people who are living in poverty, struggling day by day to make ends meet. There’s no gate that keeps folks like that away. You just don’t see them at the Hop. Why?

            George Buttrick, a well-known preacher, commented on the story of the rich man and Lazarus, saying that the rich man’s biggest sin was his failure to be a good neighbor.  Neighbors have a responsibility to look out for one another and to lend a hand. Good neighbors know each other. They recognize who belongs and when things don’t look right. Neighbors take care of each other. Lazarus was the rich man’s neighbor. Not only does he fail to care for Lazarus, we wonder if the rich man even noticed he was there. The rich man was the worst neighbor possible. You can’t be a good neighbor if you don’t even see your neighbor.

            We don’t know anyone who fits the role of the rich man. I am pretty sure none of us have ever seen anyone who wears fine linen clothes and has a huge dinner party at their house every single night of the week, year in and year out. Heck, even kings and queens don’t have dinner parties every night of the week, day by day, all year long. We don’t know anyone as poor and diseased as Lazarus. We see some pretty poor people from time to time, but no one who is crippled, covered with open sores, and left to rot in front of the gate of a rich man’s house. Trust me, in our society no one will be allowed to just lay down in front of a mansion in an upscale neighborhood for long. Someone will jog by or cruise by in their BMW and call in the cops to check it out. Poor and sick people spending the night in front of a rich person’s house just doesn’t happen. I’ve never seen it.

            We haven’t seen rich people like this rich man, and we haven’t seen poor people like Lazarus. The question this story leaves us is, who else do we not see? That’s a hard question to answer. How do we know if there are people we don’t see? Just like driving past a homeless camp tucked away in a grove of trees along a busy highway, people may be there, but you can’t see them when they are tucked among trees while you are flying down the road at 70 miles per hour. We may see people on Broad Street that appear to be struggling to make ends meet, but we don’t see homebound folks who live down Burgess or Yale. What are the gates, the fences, the barriers that block us from seeing certain people? Who knows, maybe there are people who are Lazarus-like right around us and, for whatever reason, we don’t even see them. Because there is a gate, a fence, a barrier, a highway, that keeps us apart from each other. I wonder what barriers there are around us that need removed, or barriers that we need to cross over, so we can better see our neighbors, so we can have the opportunity to be good neighbors.