Thursday of the Second Week of Lent

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030812.cfm

Then Abraham said,
'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded
if someone should rise from the dead.'"

Nostalgia pines for that lost age when belief in God came easily to everyone. In 16^th century Europe there were certainly criminals and ne’er-do-wells but, if their behavior was reprehensible, they didn’t challenge the very idea of God. And sometimes, when they were shaken by a personal crisis, they knew how to repent and reform their ways. 

In our time repentance does not come so easily. Many of our contemporaries, seeing the futility of their ways, don’t know where to turn. Belief in Jesus does not appear as the first, most obvious option.

But true faith has never come easily. In today’s parable Abraham reminds the damned Dives that he had every opportunity to reform his ways and he refused. There were innumerable rabbis, scribes, priests and elders who could have led him to one of many synagogues where he could repent. The Word of God was often on his lips as he observed the religious customs of his people, though it failed to penetrate his heart. Lazarus and his starving brethren waited on every street corner for his alms. If Dives and his brothers would ignore all these invitations to God, he would certainly pay no attention to someone raised from the dead. Their hearts had hardened beyond redemption. 

The parable is especially pointed because Jesus did rise from the dead and people still ignore the miracle.

Some respected thinkers argue that the Christian faith is based on miracles. If God does not heal the sick and raise the dead we should not believe him. It's a strong argument but today's teaching opposes it. Faith is more than believing in miracles. It is not grounded on enigmas that are "stranger than science." 

Faith is accepting the Word of God at face value. When Jesus tells the woman, "Your daughter will recover!" she believes him and goes home. When he tells the centurion, "Your son will live" the man put his faith in the Word. "Without seeing, they believed." 

It's hard to make that argument in our time because it has no "proof." Skeptics who believe only what they can see and prove by scientific demonstration cannot believe in God. Nor, for that matter, can they believe their spouses are faithful or their children are grateful. Nor can they be sure this bridge is well built and their investments are well placed. They must live in a world where a word means nothing and only proofs are credible. But even the scientific demonstrations of another scientist are not beyond question, and one's own certainties may fade with tomorrow's ambiguities. 

Their rational assault on faith is rather incredible since they must depend on the integrity of words every time they cash a check or climb a flight of stairs. If God's word is not reliable, then neither is anyone's. 

And yet, oddly, Dives did have faith -- in his money. He believed he was impregnable to poverty, that suffering could not approach him, that hard times would come around no more. Dives believed he had no need of Lazarus, except as his slave/boy/servant. 

In the end we see that Dives, for all his wealth, was a fool. And the poor man who waits on God is truly wise.