The Parallel Universe

There is a story Jesus tells in the Gospel of Luke about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. The rich man feasts sumptuously every day. Lazarus lies at his gate, covered with sores, hungry. They live, you might say, in parallel universes — separated not by miles, but by indifference.

What is striking about the story is that the rich man is not a villain. He is not cruel. He simply doesn't see Lazarus as someone who matters. And that habit of not seeing — quiet, gradual, unremarkable — is what finally separates them for eternity.

I think about a man I know. In the wake of George Floyd, when a lot of us were feeling the weight of the racial divide and didn't quite know what to do with it, he decided he wanted to do something. But not in the way you might expect. He didn't want to organize a drive or write a check. He wanted to work alongside people on the other side of that divide. Build relationships. Have conversations that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Show up. That's all.

He didn't solve anything. He just stopped looking away. And it changed him.

The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy that those who are rich are to be "generous and ready to share — thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life."

The life that really is life. As if to say — there is the life we are living, and then there is the real life, the full life, the life we were made for. And the path toward it runs straight through generosity. Through seeing. Through refusing to look away.

I learned a prayer from Steve Hayner, the late president of Columbia Theological Seminary, that has stayed with me:

Lord, give me eyes to see the world as you see it. Give me a heart to break at the things that break your heart. And then, Lord, help me not to duck.

Is there a parallel universe near you — just a few miles away — that you have never quite seen? Is there someone at your gate whose name you do not yet know?

As we have been blessed, may we be a blessing.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us for the times we have looked without seeing. For those who are invisible to most of the world and yet known by name to you — we pray. Give us eyes to see the world as you see it. Give us hearts that break at the things that break yours. And then, Lord, help us not to duck. Help us to take hold of the life that really is life — the generous life, the feeding-one-another life, the reaching-across-the-table life. Amen.

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