Thursday of the Second Week of Lent

Lectionary: 233

More tortuous than all else is the human heart,
beyond remedy; who can understand it?
I, the LORD, alone probe the mind
and test the heart,
To reward everyone according to his ways,
according to the merit of his deeds.

 I have often reflected upon Jeremiah's complaint about the tortuous human heart, and have only recently looked up the actual definition of the word and its usage: "full of twists and turns;" as in "the route is remote and tortuous:" and, 

"James Bond drove up a mountain road that was tortuous in its twists and turns. He had to stop the evil madman's plan for world domination, a plan so tortuous that even 007 himself could not understand it." 

In medical language, it can mean twisted or complicated, and can refer to blood vessels, the colon, or other passageways. And so Jeremiah's remark -- "More tortuous than all else is the human heart" -- finds an echo in today's medical language! Who knew? But while the medics are talking about the veins and arteries of the heart, the Prophet alludes to the mysterious ways that humans make their decisions.

Very often, perhaps more often than anyone will ever admit, we do not know why we think as we do, or decide and act as we do. When we think we are fully in charge and acting both wisely and responsibly, we are probably following a very predictable path that has been laid out by another, or others, or by the Supreme Other who...

alone probes the mind

and tests the heart,

To reward everyone according to his ways,

according to the merit of his deeds.

If Rene Descartes was quite sure of the self he discovered and gave the world that same self-assurance, Sigmund Freud raised serious doubts about everything we think we know about ourselves and the world around us. Our thoughts and decisions are more tortuous than we can imagine. 

And so we look at the Lord's parable of Lazarus and Dives. We would surely think the rich man is unfortunate for finding himself in an overheated place of torment; but Father Abraham thinks otherwise. He is only suffering the consequences of the lifestyle he chose. Perhaps he didn't so much choose it as accept it; but in a million ways he embraced a life style of the rich and famous. Repeatedly, over the course of many years, he enhanced this fabulous mode despite the plain sight presence of Lazarus, his dogs, and his many companions. 

Perhaps Dives should have expected his torment but, if the thought ever occurred to him, he did not give it a second thought. He could not be bothered. He could not afford to be bothered. 

There is nothing in the parable to indicate he made himself rich; he simply accepted it as the way things are, and the suffering of the poor as the way things are. 

He saw the chasm between himself and Lazarus but would not cross it when he could have. Perhaps he conned himself by thinking that Lazarus was responsible for his own poverty, or that he deserved it, or that God willed it. He did not think it could be changed, nor did he suppose he had any responsibility for the ever-widening gap and its impassability.

In the end, he thought about it in his own tortuous way. He thought he'd been given a raw deal. He thought God should have warned him. And failing that, he thought a dead man should warn his brothers who are living with precisely the same careless abandon. Again, Abraham is unmoved. "They have Moses and the prophets [just as you did.] Let them listen to them."  

The Lord's parable reminds us that we also feel stuck with the world and the life that's been given to us. We are also disinclined to change anything. He reminds us that the chasm is still there, and there is time to change something. It will be too late too soon.