Thursday of the Second Week of Lent: Luke 16:19-31
I’ve done no wrong!
Sweet Jesus hear my prayer!
Look down, look down,
Sweet Jesus doesn’t care.
– from Work Song, Les Misérables
The musical Les Misérables, like the novel that inspired it, offers us an unfiltered picture of the life of the poor in nineteenth century France. The line “Look down” appears again in Les Miz as the title of a later, similar song sung by the poor of Paris. That line can have different meanings, depending on its context. It provides us with a good way to begin to explore the parable which Jesus tells the Pharisees in today’s Gospel reading.
Like the poor of Les Misérables, Lazarus can only look down in sorrow. He has absolutely nothing, as far as material goods go. His health is failing. Even scraps of food that we would toss in the garbage look good to him. But no one looks down on him with any kind of compassion. If anyone looks down at all, it is with pity (“poor man, to be so down on your luck compared to me”) or contempt (“must be a drunk or druggie or something, to have brought this on himself”). Lazarus has no help or support in this life. He can only look down in prayer and trust that God is somehow with him, in spite of all appearances.
The rich man never seems to notice Lazarus at all. He shows no signs of being able to look down in compassion. If he looks down at all, it’s only to check out the feasts prepared for him and the clothing laid out for him, to insure that they meet his specifications. His world has become self-contained – everything carefully chosen and screened to support and enable his limited ego. He cannot look down – or up – in prayer, because he feels he needs nothing and has nothing to apologize for.
Most people, then and now, who look upon this scene would assume that the rich man is the one to be praised, and that Lazarus only brought his predicament on himself. But then a shocking thing happens. Both die, but discover that their situations are totally reversed. Lazarus finds peace and repose; the rich man finds torment. This is not to say that we should presume that the rich are bad and the poor are good, simply because they are rich or poor. That would be the same bias, in reverse. No, Jesus sets up a parable where two people live at opposite extremes – Lazarus, in extreme poverty, and the rich man, in extreme wealth – to bring home a point. No matter who we are, we all must learn how to look down. Any one of us can look down in contempt of others, or in despair about our own plight. But there are better ways to look down, ways that bring us what we truly need – the grace and love of the Lord.
“Look down” – in repentance for our sins. This is neither beating ourselves up relentlessly over sins nor dismissing them as nothing. It is the sincere admission that we have all failed, in some way or other, to live up to our commitments to the Lord and to follow his teachings and example. It is the admission that we chose this freely – or freely enough – when we could have done better. It is ultimately to approach the Lord in total vulnerability and trust, like Lazarus did out of necessity, and throwing ourselves totally on God’s mercy. In the Lord’s eyes, we are all as poor as Lazarus. We cannot heal our own sins or save ourselves on our own. We all need the Lord’s grace.
“Look down” – in an attitude of prayer and humility. This flows from the last paragraph. Nothing is more basic or more necessary to our lives than our communion with the Triune God. Through prayer, the gift of the Spirit we received at Baptism and Confirmation is renewed and deepened in our hearts. Through prayer, we learn our role in the Body of Christ, the Church, and we turn in praise and thanksgiving to the Father. Through prayer, our own sufferings become joined to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and we then receive the gift of Easter life more fully every day. Through prayer, we empty ourselves of obstacles and distractions, and declare our love for and dependence on God and on one another. We look down in this way, that the Lord can raise us up. We resist the temptation to believe that we can create ourselves. There is one Creator. He is our Master, our Teacher, our Lord and God. None other.
“Look down” – in an attitude of compassion for others. Knowing how the Lord has come to us with such mercy, unworthy though we are, we then realize that we are sent to imitate this great compassion of God. Not by looking down in contempt on others, nor by mere pity (“too bad you’re so much worse than I am”), but by seeing that we and they share a common humanity, a common plight, and a common offer of salvation in Christ. Everyone is our sister and our brother. What the Lord has given us, we, in turn, give. A gift that flows out of the immense gratitude in our hearts for all that the Lord has given us.
Truly, in many, many ways, the Lord has looked down in love and mercy upon us. Let us “look down” on all peoples, and on all of creation, in the same way. Then, we will truly be children of our heavenly Father, living according to the Spirit. Then, when we die, Christ will look down on us with the same compassion we ourselves learned from him.