PHOTO: Mary van Balen (Originally published in the Catholic Times, March 11, 2012 © 2012 Mary van Balen)
The gospel reading about the rich man and Lazarus is familiar to most of us. Lazarus is a poor man who lies at the door of the rich man, hoping in vain for a scrap from his table. After a life of leisure and abundance, the rich man dies and finds himself tormented in the netherworld. Lazarus also dies, but he is taken to heaven and cradled in the bosom of Abraham. I often think of this reading as a reminder of the importance of caring for the needy among us, not only those struggling to survive materially, but also those impoverished of spirit. Today, however, I am struck by another message.
Once resigned to his fate, the rich man asks that someone be sent to his brothers who still live, that they might be warned and change their ways. Abraham says that cannot be done. He reminds the rich man that his brothers have Moses and the prophets to warn them. The rich man persists, saying that if Lazarus could go to his brothers, they would surely listen to someone come back from the dead. Again, Abraham says no. Even if someone were to rise from the dead, they would not listen.
I pondered this section of the gospel and thought about where the rich mans brothers looked for wisdom. Or did they?Did they assume they knew what was best? Was immediate reward what drove them? What about me? Where do I look for wisdom? Where do people in the modern world find it? We are bombarded with information, analysis, and advice from TV pundits to celebrities, from Internet to radio.
Recently, I watched motherly wisdom handed down from one generation to the next. A young woman, overwhelmed with the demands of her newborn child and unsure how to meet them, turned to her mother who had done a good job with three. Sometimes wisdom is obtained from those we trust and love.
Where we look and whom we ask depends on what kind of wisdom we are searching for. The rich mans brothers probably thought they had a good handle on how to live life. Their goals may have been simply wealth and comfort. Turns out they were as short sighted as the brother who had died first. Where we look for wisdom depends on our goals.
Lent is a time that reminds us to consider our goal. Whatever discipline or practices we are using to observe this season are meant to help us focus on what is most important in our lives: our relationship with the Holy One. That is not something apart from the rest of our lives, but rather integral to everything we do. How we interact with people at our workplace, what we do to recreate body and spirit, how we respond to needs of others, how we live with our families and friends.
The rich man and his brothers likely did not read Moses or the Prophets to find out how to pursue their goals. We have the advantage of many sources of wisdom to help us in our search for deepening our relationship with God and the changes that makes in how we live our lives. We have Moses and the Prophets. We have the New Testament and examples of holy women and men who have gone before us and who live in the world today. Most importantly, we have Jesus Christ who did rise from the dead and who sent the Spirit to live within each of us.
The Wisdom we seek dwells within, a gift of the Incarnation. These weeks are good times to reflect on using Scripture and other writing that feeds our spirits. It is a time to reflect on how our relationship with God influences our interaction with the world.
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