26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Imagine a scene of a Saturday morning children’s soccer game. There are children of various ages who have come to play soccer against one another. They each have different ideas of what the game is all about. There is the 6-year old boy, who is playing soccer for the first time and is so excited to just be able to kick the ball. He has been put in defence and has been told to kick the ball when it comes to him. He is not really at the age where he realizes the point of the game and doesn’t make any effort to kick the ball to his team mates. Just the mere fact that he touched the ball and kicked it randomly in the field is cause for celebration as his parents cheer him proudly on. Then there is the seven-year old striker is razor-focused on what she sees to be the point of the whole game to score a goal. She will demolish anyone who gets in her way of scoring a goal. Standing in the centre-midfield is an nine-year old boy who surveys the field calmly. He knows where his team-mates are and knows their strengths and weaknesses. In his mind, it is not important if he scores the goal, or even if he covers himself in glory, what is important is that the team wins. He is the playmaker and knows the strategy he must employ to get the best out of each player on his team.

All these children are playing the same game, but some understand the objectives of the game better than others. Fr. George Smiga, who tells this story, uses it to explain the parable we hear in our gospel today of Lazarus and the rich man. The rich man thought he knew what life was about. He feasted with his friends and enjoyed the good things in life. We are not told that the rich man was a particularly bad man, he did not commit any crimes, he did not treat Lazarus badly. It was rather his failure to help Lazarus by sharing some of the good things he enjoyed in his life. His was the sin of omission. He was so self-absorbed that it did not even cross his mind that he may have had a responsibility to come to Lazarus’ aid. He played the game much like the 6 year old boy or the 7 year old girl – missing the point of the game of life. He was so focused on enjoying life and acquiring the latest fashions (his purple attire was an extremely expensive apparel at the time, since purple dye was very rare), that he missed the real point of life. He did not read the field right and lost the game.

Fr. Smiga’s analogy is a great one, but I feel that it does not go far enough. I think it would have been better to include a fourth child, older and more mature than the midfielder, perhaps a centre-back. In his wisdom, this child has managed to realize that the goal of the game is far deeper than simply winning. In order to illustrate what I mean by this, I’d like to draw on another sport that I have come to appreciate for its ability to teach important life lessons. It is a little-known sport called Ultimate frisbee. What is perhaps unique about Ultimate frisbee as a sport is that there is no referee. It is self-officiated by the players themselves. There are a set of rules, which players are expected to read up on by themselves. All these rules are regulated by one central rule called the “Spirit of the Game.” The Spirit of the Game encapsulates what Ultimate Frisbee is all about, placing the responsibility for fair play on the players themselves. The Spirit of the Game emphasizes that the enjoyment of the game is what is key, and should not be sacrificed on the altar of competition. Thus, the enjoyment of the game is far more important than winning at all costs and only comes about if there is mutual respect between players. Many players, when they first come to the game will not go and read the 20 page rule book. Instead, they come to know the rules by being told them by others. This often comes in the form of challenges from members of the opposing team for fouls committed. Seeing that there is no referee to call fouls, fouls are called by members of the opposing team, or indeed, by members of your own team, or even by yourself, if you realize that you have fouled another player. When there is a dispute about whether a foul has actually been committed, it should be resolved quickly and in mutual respect, so that a dispute does not end up delaying the continuation of the game and detracting from the enjoyment of the game. More than teaching us the value of hard work and teamwork that contribute to winning, sport teaches us about the kind of relationships that should prevail amongst us when we interact with one another. It teaches us about fair play and mutual respect. This is the true Spirit of the Game.

It is clear that the rich man did not understand the Spirit of the Game and lived his life for his own selfish pleasure. He was so wrapped up in himself that he completely misses the point that his life should have been about sharing what he had with others. Even in hell, he is totally self-absorbed instead of finally acknowledging Lazarus and talking to him, he continues to ignore Lazarus and addresses himself to Abraham instead, asking Abraham to send Lazarus to dip his finger in some water in order to quench his thirst. The thing about the sin of omission is that it is so easy to commit. This is perhaps the whole point of this parable. Life is much like a game of Ultimate Frisbee, in that there is no referee. Life is self-officiated. Granted that most states will have the police who act like referees in cases of serious misconduct, but for the most part we are left to play the game according to what we understand and interpret to be the rules. Just as in Ultimate frisbee, most people come to know the rules of life by being told about them by others, and being challenged by others for behaviour that they feel is not according to the rules. But gradually as you improve as a player of Ultimate Frisbee, you feel inclined to go and read the rules yourself so that you can become a better player and better contribute to honouring the Spirit of the Game. We might ask ourselves, where are the rules of life to be found? What is the Spirit of the Game of life?

The answer to these questions should be clear: the rules of the game are to be found in the Scriptures, and the Spirit of the Game is embodied in the life of Jesus. When we come to a certain sense of maturity in life, like any maturing player in Ultimate Frisbee, we should want to read the rules of the game. It is clear that the rich man had not read the rules of the game. While he is in hell, he finally starts to think about others and his first thought is for his brothers, who he realizes are just as selfish as he was and are probably going to end up in the same torment as he is. He asks Abraham to send Lazarus to go and warn his brothers about their impending doom if they do not change their ways. Abraham points the rich man to the fact that his brothers already have the rules of the game in Moses and the Prophets. In today’s first reading, we are given an example of the rules of the game being enunciated by the Prophet Amos. Amos denounces the excesses of the affluent of Samaria who lie on beds ivory imbibing wine and feasting on delicate meats. It is not so much the luxurious banquets that are being condemned by Amos, but rather the fact that this feasting illustrates a singular indifference to the “collapse of Joseph” (v.7). It is not entirely clear what Amos is alluding to here. The mention of Joseph calls to mind the tribes of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, which neighbour Samaria and are being attacked by the Assyrians at the time (733 B.C.). It is likely that Amos is condemning the Samarian’s cold-hearted indifference to the sufferings of their fellow Israelites as they endure oppression by the Assyrians. In this passage, as in many others, the Prophets call the rich to repentance and to a commitment of solidarity with those who are less well off than they are.

But the rich man is not convinced that reading the Prophets and Moses will be able to save his brothers. He perhaps realizes how self-absorbed he was, and he is still trying to process how it was that he so missed the point of life. He knows that his brothers, like him, would need more of a wake-up call to jolt them out of them comfortable lives they are leading. He is perhaps not wrong to conclude that a simple reading of the Scriptures will not bring them around. But Abraham refutes the idea that the only way that his brothers will repent is if they have a miraculous encounter with someone risen from the dead. Granted, there are people who go through life-changing events, a full 180-degree turn-around in their lives. But this is the exception and not the norm. What the rich man is effectively asking for is for a referee to come and blow a whistle and tell his brothers that they are offside. Abraham is telling the rich man, this is simply not the way that life works – there are no referees in life, because life is a self-officiated game. Each person has responsibility for figuring out what the rules and the Spirit of the Game are. We do this by meditating on the Word of God in the Scriptures. For most of us, our conversion is a slow and on-going process. Given how easy it is to miss the point though of the Scriptures, it is important that we also surround ourselves with the right people, the right type of friends who can challenge us. One of the most important classes of people who can challenge us to leave our comfort zones are the poor.

If Lazarus is the only person in the entirety of Jesus’ parables to get a name, I think the message that Jesus is driving home to us is that we have to be on a first-name basis with the poor. This is the only way that the poor will cease to be a concept to us and begin to acquire a human face. We have to be friends with the poor. If the poor become our friends, their very existence and presence is a challenge to us to rethink our take on the rules that we presume to be right. This was no more clearly illustrated for me than in a podcast I listened to a number of years ago from an American radio station WBUR. The podcast concerned an ICE raid that had taken place in small town in the Mid-West during the first term of President Trump. The raid had been made on a meat-packaging firm. Most of the inhabitants of this small town that were interviewed were in support of the harsh anti-immigration policies of the Trump administration. However, when the arrests had been made and the dust was now settling, the inhabitants of this small town had a wake-up call, because now suddenly their children came home from school the next day and told them that their best friends were not in school because their parents had been arrested, and they were hiding at home for fear of being arrested too, suddenly the lady who came to do the weekly cleaning in the house could not come because her husband had been one of those arrested. Suddenly “undocumented immigrant” was no longer a concept, but it was a person – with a family, whose arrest and imminent deportation was going to upend the life of your daughter’s best friend at school. The community was galvanized into action, and one of the local evangelical churches raised an astonishing amount of $5000 in 24 hours as a fund that could be used to post bail for those who had been arrested, so that they could go back to their families while they waited to appear before a judge. When we are confronted directly by human suffering, we cannot but help respond. Perhaps where the rich man’s real sin lay was that he did not put himself in a position where he was truly confronted by Lazarus’ suffering. May we this day find the grace to put ourselves in situations where the suffering of the poor confronts us in such a way as to elicit a response of compassion and companionship.

Questions for reflection

1. How well do I know the rules of the game and the Spirit of the Game of life? Do I take time to mediate on the Scriptures and the life of Jesus in order to become more acquainted with the Spirit of the Game?
2. How many poor people do I know by name?
3. What would be the opportunities for me to draw closer to the poor in companionship and solidarity?