26th Sunday Year C - Homily 6

Homily 6 - 2022

Today’s Gospel is a great one to help us reflect on the topic of Migrants and Refugees as the whole Church observes today, with the enthusiastic encouragement of Pope Francis, the annual recurrence of Migrant and Refugee Sunday.

What was the problem of the rich man in today’s cautionary tale? It was nothing that he did. It was rather what he didn't do. He had Lazarus at his door in incredible need; but he either didn’t notice him or didn’t see that he had any responsibility to help him. It is hard to know which was worse. Yet he was not a totally heartless man. When he was no longer able to help himself, he was concerned about helping his brothers. His concern, however, had no leverage as far as Father Abraham was concerned.

Let us put things in context. Jesus had introduced his public life by calling people to repent [or convert] because the Kingdom of God was, as he insisted, close at hand. As you know, that call was a call to see differently before it was a call to act differently. The whole of the Sermon on the Mount, when you think about it, was an invitation firstly to see life differently. Things were changing… God’s Kingdom was dawning… The traditional cultural responses were no longer adequate, their meanings forgotten. Many of them missed the point altogether.

Jesus’ familiar story about the last judgment also involved a question of seeing: “When did we see you hungry … or sick, and did nothing?” “As long as you did not do it to the least of [these brothers of mine — the hungry one, the thirsty one, the naked one, the stranger, the sick one or the prisoner], you did not do it to me.” A question yet again of seeing, of seeing the needy as nothing less than embodiments of Jesus, as our brothers and sisters. The rich man’s ability to see who really were his brothers and sisters was far, far, too narrow. It was totally inadequate for the Kingdom experience.

Today, there are 36 million refugees around the world who have fled to another country. That is a staggeringly high number of people in need of protection — desperate enough, courageous enough, to leave the one country where they felt at home, sometimes pregnant, sometimes leaving their family, sometimes needing to leave everything they owned and to bring their helpless children with them… You have seen the same TV footage that I have.

Sadly, with some wonderful exceptions, some of the poorer countries are the most welcoming of those in need. Pope Francis agonises over the Western world’s heartlessness regarding refugees.

What is Australia’s problem with refugees, with asylum seekers, and especially with the most unpopular of them, those who arrive by boat? How come we are so concerned about people smugglers, and not at all about the desperate and often traumatised people in their boats?

It seems that, like the rich man in Jesus’ story, we just don’t see them. Certainly, like him, we do not see them as fellow sons and daughters of “Father Abraham” — as our brothers and sisters in Christ. We rarely give them time even to listen to their stories, before we say, “You are not welcome! Supporting you may even be a financial liability on us for a short while.”

It is not just a problem with the politicians. The politicians were elected by us after careful scrutiny of the opinion polls conducted in their electorates. It is also our problem. The politicians know where people stand on these issues. We can’t blame it all on others. Our role as Church, as disciples of Jesus, is to bring Jesus’ values into public and political life. Yet, too often, it is the culture and the popular media that blind and desensitise us, rather than we who enlighten and enthuse our culture. Not enough of us stand out as different — and attractively different at that.

How true! As Jesus lamented in his story today: “They will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead!”