I recently finished reading Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, in which Austen explores the sometimes life-altering consequences that can result from allowing oneself to be guided by someone else’s advice. We are constantly persuading and being persuaded in various areas of our lives: perhaps most obviously in our own families, but also with friends, coworkers, and even within our churches and online communities. Careless or misguided persuasion can cause great harm, as nearly happens in Austen’s novel, while persuasion grown out of wisdom can lead to our eternal good.
The unnamed rich man in Luke’s gospel, after being told there is no hope of respite from his own eternal torment, desires to save his brothers from such suffering by sending someone with the message (as I’ve heard Matthew 25 summed up) “feed the hungry, or go to hell.” But in the parable, Abraham says, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’
Today’s readings are challenging, and if I’m honest, a little terrifying. Am I like those in the first reading from Amos 6, who devise their own accompaniment? That is, do I take the parts of Scripture and Church teaching that appeal to me and leave the rest? Do I make Christ’s teaching in my own image and likeness, rather than conforming my life to his call? Do I listen to Scripture and to the Church closely enough and take both seriously enough to honestly say I am not “complacent?”
From my comfortable living room, my own children underfoot, I consider the world around me—children starving in Gaza, families torn apart by deportation, our children threatened by assault weapons in their schools and churches, the very earth that nourishes us figuring as less than Lazarus in so many of our personal and political decisions—and this is only the beginning of the list. As mothers, this convicts us and tears at our hearts. Who are we responsible for? Is it just our own little families? Or can we, should we, extend our motherly arms around the world? In the pondering, I fear that I live somewhere between being complacent and paralyzed by despair.
Psalm 147 tells us that the Lord secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, and generally restores order and goodness to the world. The second reading, from the First Letter of Timothy, urges believers to pursue righteousness, that is, to cooperate with God in bringing about all those goods listed in Psalm 147. My constant discernment must be: Yes, I am feeding the hungry in my own house, and that is good. But honestly, in my heart, is God calling me to more? Maybe a little more, maybe a lot more. Maybe a little now and an increase when my kids are older. In any case, I must make very sure that I am not complacent—that I am not using the hungry who live inside my house as an excuse to ignore Lazarus at my door.
We are in an even more perilous situation than the rich man in today’s Gospel: he had only the Law and the Prophets, but Christ has risen from the dead for us. The question remains: are we willing to be persuaded?
