HIV/AIDS: Faith reflection

And at the rich man's gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores. (Luke 16:20)

The love of Christ extends to the "good and evil alike" (Matthew 5:43-48). We especially reflect the love of God in Christ when we express active compassion in the midst of the most troubling and desperate areas of human struggle. It is important, too, for Christians to know that prevention efforts in many countries increasingly emphasize chastity and marital fidelity, not simply "safe" sex.

Jesus' story of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) can be applied to the United States as a nation, as well as to individuals. Compared to so many of the world's peoples, we are the rich man, finely clothed and lavishly fed (vs. 19). In today's shrinking world, AIDS sufferers, hungry and covered with sores, are close by, right at our gate (vs. 20). We can easily reach them with the help they need. The appropriate U.S. share for an effective global AIDS prevention and treatment campaign is little more than $2 billion a year. This is a mere trifle for our country, the cost of one B-1 bomber, a few cents in taxes, crumbs from our table (vs. 21).

In Jesus' story both people die (vs. 22). In the afterlife the very short distance that separated them in life has become a "great chasm" that no one can cross (vs. 26). It is too late for the rich man in torment to receive even a drop of water from Lazarus in paradise. The rich man had the opportunity to close that gap during life, but failed to act. Now he must endure it for eternity.

This is a hard story for us in the United States, where our affluence contrasts so starkly with destitute AIDS sufferers and other desperately impoverished people throughout the world. Yet the God who calls us to transformation also provides us with the grace to respond, step by step. The goodness of God invites us to participate with confidence in God's own work of active compassion in a divided and hurting world (2 Corinthians 8-9).