Today we hear about the rich man and Lazarus. On the one hand, the rich man is unnamed. It is as if he doesn’t have a complete existence. He is simply a rich man, anonymous. In part, this is because he lacks personhood. It is by loving that we fulfill what it is to be human; it’s by emptying ourselves of self-love and loving God and our neighbor, that we become not just individuals, but persons. The fact that he’s spoken of anonymously also makes it clear that we are to see ourselves in him. He stands for each and all, he is a mirror of our fallen selves. When we give in to sinful self-love and become bent in upon ourselves, unable to acknowledge God or our neighbor in any meaningful way, then we are this rich man.

On the other hand, there is a tenderness expressed towards this unnamed rich man. When he cries out to Abraham, calling him “Father” and asking for mercy, Abraham responds by calling him, “Son.” He doesn’t disown him. In fact, he’s calling us to sonship, to true membership in the family of Abraham. By loving with the love inspired by God, we discover our identity as members of the human family. We find ourselves to be sons and daughters. We become true persons, with names. Seeing ourselves as members of that family, and each person we meet as also a member of that family, we receive inspiration to love others as a gift from God.

Unlike the rich man, Lazarus is named. He is a person. He is not just the unnamed “poor.” And really, this is how the poor come to us. This is how God sends them to us. Not as anonymous members of a category - the “poor,” in some abstract since, but rather, as specific people with specific lives and histories and names. Lazarus matters, because he is not abstract, he is a real person. Each person who crosses our path is a real person, whom God wants us to meet. Not just to help and be done with: “here’s a dollar, now leave me alone.” He’s a real person, a fellow member of our human family, potentially a member of the Church, someone with whom we are destined to spend eternity.

St. John of Kronstadt says this: “We are all one, and must love one another as ourselves. The selfish grudging of anything to another, and the vexation at giving, the impulse to grudge, proceed from the Devil. Every attachment to earthly things is an enticement of the Devil and of our own self-love.”

Sometimes we can’t help as we’d like. Other times we just don’t want to help. We need to discern which it is, check our conscience. We pray for God’s guidance in this. Like in anything, as Christians, we don’t reach out and show mercy by our own ability and strength. What is most important is not whether we can solve people’s problems or help them a little or a lot. In fact, our job is not to solve other people’s problems. Our calling is to love.

Sometimes that means reaching for our wallet. Sometimes that means just listening. Sometimes it means just praying for those whom we can’t help in any other way. Prayer should always be a part of what we do. Prayer is almsgiving, when we do it with a desire to show mercy.

We may meet a person in need, buy them a sandwich or simply offer a prayer for them. We may never meet them again in this world. But we will meet them again one day. If we live like the rich man, hardening our hearts, bent in upon ourselves in morbid self-love, we may find ourselves separated from that person, and from all people by a great gulf.

But may God forbid. May He break us out of the shells of our self-absorption and give us a merciful heart, a heart burning with love for other people and all creation - everything that God created good in the beginning, everything that is of Him, everything beautiful and just and noble and true.

We may have material wealth. But we may be spiritually impoverished. We may be poor in emotional resources or psychological stability. We may be fine, and then one day we wake up and we are depressed or somehow confused. We stand in need of alms from someone - someone to listen, someone to care.

And the rich of this world, who have been given material blessings by God - and this is the first and foremost thing to remember, that all is given by God - the rich need the poor because they need the opportunity to be generous. Each time we meet someone in need and we have something we could give - whether it be money, time, our attention, our prayer, or anything else - we face a test. Are we willing to be generous with what we have? Do we remember that it’s not really ours in the first place? That it is on loan to us by God? That we are to be good stewards of whatever He gives? That we are to use whatever He’s given us for the support of the Church, of the orphans and widows and sick and suffering and, in short, for whatever need God presents to us?

And since God has everything, He doesn’t actually need anything from us. The Church doesn’t even need anything from us. The Church doesn’t need us, we need the Church. We need God. But for us to be whom and what we’re meant to be, we must be generous. Not giving grudgingly, and not hardening our hearts towards those around us, but giving cheerfully. God “loves a cheerful giver,” because a cheerful giver is like Him. And He wants us to be like Him, because for this purpose He created us. When we give cheerfully, willingly, joyfully, generously, we give as He gives. This is the kind of heart He wants for us.

So we don’t give because God needs us to give. If we didn’t give, God could provide another way. But we give because giving is what sons and daughters of the heavenly Father do. Because giving is part of what it is to be human, to be in God’s image and likeness. We give because giving opens our hearts to receiving the greatest gift - God’s very life - into ourselves. We give both because we are commanded by God, and because we know that in giving of ourselves we find life in the Giver of Life.

And as we give, innumerable times, in countless ways, throughout our life, God is using that to train our hearts. He is teaching us what it is to love. He is breaking open the shell of selfishness, and opening our heart wide, making it expand and pouring His love into it. He is teaching us that our gift is absolutely nothing compared to His gift to us. And He is giving us a true identity as human beings, as persons in the image and likeness of God, as His sons and daughters, members of not only Abraham’s family, but the Heavenly Father’s family.

To Him be all honor, praise and glory, together with His only-begotten Son and His all-holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.