Homily

This time around there's one line in the Gospel that sticks out in my mind:

"And there was a certain poor man named Lazarus, who lay at his gate, covered with sores, and longing be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores."

The fact that dogs are bothering him, tells us that very likely he's crippled and unable to get away. Not only is he crippled but he suffers from some kind of disease and perhaps he is in pain. If he's not in physical pain he must certainly be in mental and emotional pain. He's nearing the end of his life and on top of all the rest he is also hungry. Bad enough to be unable to move around, bad enough to be in pain, but to be starving on top of all the rest is horrible to even think about.

He wished he could be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table not so that he could enjoy some gourmet food, but so that he wouldn't starve to death, for as many times in our lives when we might have said "I'm starving!" how many of those times was it ever literally and actually true? Life cannot go on unless it is fed, and life will not be well and healthy unless it is fed well. That's true with our physical life but it is also true with spiritual life; our souls also need to be fed.

How well are we feeding our souls? We might be spiritually dining on either junk food, or we might be eating just enough to keep our spirit alive, or we are seeking out a rich and healthy diet of spiritual foods that not only sustain us but actually help us to grow and flourish. The rich man ate very well every day, but he starved his soul and ended up in hell. Lazarus may not have had a full meal for years, but he must have dined on the richness of faith because he ended up in the bosom of Abraham.

What are we doing to nourish our souls? We live in a time when many people are very much concerned about the food they put into their mouths. No processed foods, read the labels, all-natural, no MSG, low fat, high fiber, grass-fed, all organic, 2%, 1%, soy milk, low cholesterol, rich in Vitamin C, no corn syrup, all natural grains, sugar-free, gluten-free, nitrate-free—that's the way so many are shopping and eating, to one degree or another. If it is true that man does not live by bread alone, then how are we feeding our souls? What care? With what attention?

You who are parents did you not, do you not, feed the souls of your children as they were, as they are growing up, do you not, did you not, feed their spirits now as you are training them for life? You teach them what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, what is important and what is not, how to discipline themselves to keep away from sin and to pursue virtue. You teach them, you taught them, about God and the Christian way of life. Good for you; good for them. But does there come a time and an age when a person no longer needs to nourish their soul? Is there a point where we think we're done and only minimal maintenance is required?

There are different sorts of things we may be spiritually ingesting. Some of them that are the fruit of our sins are harmful to us, and even poisonous for us. Naturally we should be avoiding these thoughts and behaviors with great care, because they tear us down and often make us harmful to others. We may be spiritually dining on junk food. We do things for our souls when we enjoy it, or when we feel like it, or when it's easy to do them. Just as with junk food there is still some nutritional value that can come to us from this way of nourishing but it's not going to produce much growth in our Christian life. If we would allow our children to eat anything they like that they can find in the grocery store, and as much as they want, how long would they live? A balance in diet means not only the foods they love, but also the foods that are good for them. The same is true if we wish to nourish our life in faith. Are we paying attention to what we are putting into our souls and is there a good balance of prayer and practice that maintains and even grows that faith within us?

If we wish to follow Christ more closely, then we will take and make the effort to try and nourish our life in Christ, because we can't expect our souls to flourish if they are not properly fed and maintained. It's true that we can scrape along on a spiritual diet of minimal prayer, minimal worship, minimal repentance, minimal good works, and minimal love for the Lord. We can scrape along with scraps, but we always run the risk of falling away, like the seed that falls among the thorns and is choked by the cares and pleasures of life, because if hungry souls are not well fed, they will take in whatever is available even it is unhealthy or poisonous and toxic. We don't have to look far to see the evidence of how dangerous this can be. There is a great spiritual hunger in our country, but people are not turning to Christ to be fed. Instead, so many rely upon a junk food diet of feeling satisfied and full, as much as possible, and ready to settle for their self-assessment as "good people," without any serious need for God or grace. Today, this way of living is considered to be "normal." But if most of the people of some country are close to death because there is no food, would we say that starvation for that country is just normal, because everybody's not eating?

How much time do we spend thinking about food, preparing food and eating food to maintain and enhance our physical well-being? Now compare that to how much time, thought, effort and expense we go to so that our souls may be fed. One thing I am certain of—we are all spiritually hungry, because we are made by God to live in communion with Him. We can ignore our hunger, we can misidentify it as some other kind of problem, or we can continue to consciously and deliberately seek after a life that is full of grace. We may not have a penny in the bank, or we may win the lottery, but we will never be rich unless we are rich in Christ. We'll never be fully healthy as human beings unless we are truly fed by Him.

Just a few weeks ago, we heard the pagan Canaanite woman beg Jesus to cure her daughter, and Jesus told her that his mission was not to take food from the children and cast it to dogs. She told Him in great faith that even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. So let us try to focus ourselves here for the next 40 minutes or so, because we have come not for crumbs, but we have been invited to sit and be fed at the Master's table, by the Master Himself.