Thursday of the Second Week of Lent - March 8, 2012
Luke 16:19 - 21
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores."
These are the set-up lines of a story Jesus told in Luke 16:19 - 31.
This week we've explored some great themes related to the spiritual life: mercy, humility, prayer. Today the passage points us toward compassion.
The rich man in Jesus' story had a beggar named Lazarus at his gate every day. As the story goes on, he didn't even recognize Lazarus during life. Only when both entered the afterlife did the rich man recognize Lazarus, and then only because he wanted to maintain a master-servant relationship with the beggar.
I hear an invitation in the passage to bring to mind the people who are at my "gate." I pass by scores of them every day. Some I notice, some I ignore, and some I blissfully miss. Because I rarely take time to stop to engage my "gate-people," I'm not sure if they are hungry, voiceless, or dispossessed. Maybe so, maybe not.
In this lifetime, we are charged with making a difference. We are invited to spend who we are in the now.
Like mercy and humility, extending compassion demonstrates in the external world the shape of our inner world of soul. It is the outward expression of an inner reality.
For today . . . remind yourself through the day to notice those who are "at your gate." Who do you see or hear? Is there an opportunity to engage any of those at your gate? . . . a lawn worker, a waitress, a person in a parking lot, a neighbor walking down the street, a door-to-door salesperson.
Maybe a goal for you today would be to learn the name of someone at your gate . . . or perhaps to engage another person in at least a short conversation. I wonder if there might come a point where this person becomes more than "the one at my gate" . . . that you might engage them not as a category (grocery clerk) or a description (gate person), but as a human with a name?
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores."
These are the set-up lines of a story Jesus told in Luke 16:19 - 31.
This week we've explored some great themes related to the spiritual life: mercy, humility, prayer. Today the passage points us toward compassion.
The rich man in Jesus' story had a beggar named Lazarus at his gate every day. As the story goes on, he didn't even recognize Lazarus during life. Only when both entered the afterlife did the rich man recognize Lazarus, and then only because he wanted to maintain a master-servant relationship with the beggar.
I hear an invitation in the passage to bring to mind the people who are at my "gate." I pass by scores of them every day. Some I notice, some I ignore, and some I blissfully miss. Because I rarely take time to stop to engage my "gate-people," I'm not sure if they are hungry, voiceless, or dispossessed. Maybe so, maybe not.
In this lifetime, we are charged with making a difference. We are invited to spend who we are in the now.
Like mercy and humility, extending compassion demonstrates in the external world the shape of our inner world of soul. It is the outward expression of an inner reality.
For today . . . remind yourself through the day to notice those who are "at your gate." Who do you see or hear? Is there an opportunity to engage any of those at your gate? . . . a lawn worker, a waitress, a person in a parking lot, a neighbor walking down the street, a door-to-door salesperson.
Maybe a goal for you today would be to learn the name of someone at your gate . . . or perhaps to engage another person in at least a short conversation. I wonder if there might come a point where this person becomes more than "the one at my gate" . . . that you might engage them not as a category (grocery clerk) or a description (gate person), but as a human with a name?
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