Saint John Chrysostom: “Not to share one’s goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life. It is not our goods that we possess, but theirs” (Homily on Lazarus).
It seems to me that there are two distinct ways to hear these words of Chrysostom, as either a statement of fact or an appeal to imagination. In other words, he is either telling me that in his understanding I am in possession of what, in fact, others own, or he’s encouraging me to imagine what I have in terms other than the dictates of personal property.
Consider the familiar teaching that I ought to love my neighbor as myself. My neighbor is not, in fact, me. However, a whole new world of relating to others opens up when I begin to imagine that I am my neighbor, and my neighbor is me.
Similar instruction is found in Ephesians 6:5-7 when slaves are instructed to serve their masters as if they were serving Christ. What a call for imagination! In no literal way would those slaves believe this to be true, but they are living within the poetic and metaphorically rich reign of God, where there is a deeper reality than how things appear.
I hear Chrysostom’s words within this tradition of holy imagination. Shouldn’t I be encourgaed to “see” realities beyond what is tangible right now, imagine them, and lean into them?
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.
Leave a Reply