Jesus Sees What We Ignore
Homily by Fr. Matthew Brown. October 26, 2025 St. Mary Magdalen Orthodox Church (OCA), New York City
Seeing the People We Ignore
One of the things that repeats over and over again in the Gospel is that so many of the stories are encounters with Jesus. Someone meets Him, runs into Him, or calls out to Him, and they walk away transformed.
What stands out in all these encounters is that Jesus sees people. He notices what others overlook.
In today’s parable, the poor man Lazarus lies at the gate of a rich man, but the rich man never notices him, not even once.
This is something we recognize immediately. In a city like New York, we pass homeless people, confused people, or people acting out on the subway, and our instinct is to pretend we do not see them. We avoid conflict, avoid awkwardness, avoid discomfort. Yet something about that is deeply disturbing.
Most people would rather be hated than ignored. To be treated as invisible is profoundly dehumanizing.
But Jesus sees Zacchaeus in the tree.
He sees the woman at the well.
He sees the rich young ruler.
He sees people as they truly are.
And this ability to see and attend to the other is one of the marks of spiritual maturity.
This ability frees you and allows you to connect with people in a human and intimate way. It makes you more capable of real and profound relationships.
⸻
Attention as a Spiritual Power
The ability to notice others brings us to the challenge of our age, which is attention.
We live in a world where the online economy is built on capturing our attention. We purchase things not only with money but with focus. Attention has become a form of currency.
Your attention is one of the most precious things you possess.
This is why worship can be understood as attention to the most important thing, which is God, the divine, the spiritual life.
Anyone who has tried to pray knows the struggle of holding attention steady. Distraction is constant. Even during a single liturgy our mind wanders again and again.
Prayer and worship train the attention. Prayer, the liturgy, and what we are doing today are forms of spiritual athleticism. They strengthen our ability to focus, discern, and avoid being blinded by distraction.
To notice Lazarus at the gate requires an expanded and disciplined attention. And to attend to God or to a suffering person, we must first conquer our ego and our self obsession. So much of our attention loops back onto ourselves through insecurity or pride.
Freedom from this inward spiral allows us to see others and connect with them in a meaningful way.
⸻
The Inner Life Revealed in the Next Life
In the parable, Lazarus dies and the rich man dies. Their positions reverse. This is what Jesus means when He says the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
The afterlife in this parable is not arbitrary judgment. It is the revelation of the inner world each person cultivated.
You are already shaping your heaven or your hell now. You are already living in it.
What matters is the inner content of our hearts.
The great chasm in the afterlife is the lack of love and relationship between the rich man and Lazarus. That separation existed long before they died.
One of the greatest acts of kindness you can give someone is your attention and your time. Sometimes that alone pulls someone back from despair.
This parable reminds us that the inner life matters most.
⸻
Stewardship of Money, Time, and Attention
This story leads naturally into the Christian understanding of stewardship. Stewardship is not just about money. It is also about time, presence, and attention.
Stewardship might mean limiting screen time, attending to your family, checking on your mother, or giving your children the attention they need. It is the honest examination of where your focus actually goes.
Jesus repeatedly calls us to attend to the vulnerable, the weak, and the unseen. At the heart of almsgiving is attention.
The rich man failed long before he failed to give materially. He failed because he never noticed Lazarus at all.
To practice any spiritual discipline well, we must first direct our attention rightly. We must see the people God has placed near us.
This requires thinking less about ourselves. Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less.
Negative self talk is not humility. It is still self obsession. True humility is disappearing from yourself so you can attend to your neighbor.
Real success is not about achievements or wealth. Real success is the ability to love and to step out of your own way to do it.
To be a Christian steward is to recognize that everything we have, even what we worked hard for, is not truly our own. Christians reject the idea that we possess things solely for ourselves. Everything we have is for others.
Our attention is also a possession, and it is not for ourselves. To focus only on ourselves is a kind of hell.
To use our money, time, and talents rightly is to increase our capacity to love.
So to be a good steward, we must first see the poor man at the gate.
Throughout your day there is always someone near you who is your neighbor, someone you have not seen yet.
The warning of this parable is the danger of an undisciplined attention. Learning to see others is what closes the chasm, what saves us from the hell to come, and what frees us from the hell we create within ourselves.
⸻
Final Thought
To follow Christ is to learn how to see.
To notice.
To attend.
To love.
Glory to Jesus Christ. Bless you.
Watch this homily on YouTube and share with friends exploring the faith: