Afflicting the Comfortable

This Sunday’s readings call out the comfortable and complacent for living a life of ease while other people suffer. The prophet Amos rails, “Woe to the complacent in Zion!” In the Gospel, Jesus tells a story about two people who live and die in very different ways — Lazarus, who lives with poverty and misery, and a rich man, who lives with wealth and ease. When both of them die, their circumstances reverse. Lazarus lives in comfort while the rich man lives in a kind of burning torment. Honestly, these readings make me a little uncomfortable. I’m not exactly living high on the hog as a religious sister, but I live comfortably. Although I have a vow of poverty, it’s a chosen poverty, so I’m warm and well-fed and don’t have to worry about money. Also, in Jesus’s story about Lazarus, Abraham seems pretty harsh. Nothing like a little hellfire to teach you how to act, amIright?

Although I’m not a big proponent of using hellfire to teach a lesson, Abraham does make a fair point. When the rich man wants to send Lazarus to warn his brothers, Abraham says, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.” That’s likely true. Neither the rich man nor his brothers helped Lazarus during their lives. Every time he and his brothers passed by him lying next to their house, they could’ve responded with compassion, but they repeatedly chose not to. Why would they respond differently to his ghost? So, hellfire is what they’ll get. Also, wink wink, we know that Jesus himself will rise from the dead, and when he does, most of these same Pharisees will still not believe in him.

I don’t think Jesus gets a kick out of threatening with hellfire. Maybe he just wants to jar these Pharisees from their complacency and hypocrisy into living a more genuine expression of their faith. Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures call people to be attentive to the needs of the poor. We hear this from the prophet Amos, and he’s not unique in his prophetic message. Jesus continues that same message in his own preaching and adds his unique spin by telling his listeners to be poor, or at least poor in spirit, themselves. Christianity, as it has become mainstream, has moved away from this message. It’s easier to make our faith about being nice. I can see why, really. It’s uncomfortable to be reminded about the poor in our midst, particularly if we are living comfortably. However, even though Jesus may have said other wise things, if we forget about the poor, we’re only half listening to his Gospel message.

I was blessed to spend some time in Madagascar this summer, and it was a wonderful experience. A few times people have asked me about the poverty there, and, yes, there is a lot of poverty. Many people live in little huts and sometimes they don’t even have access to clean water, at least not easy access. A few people have responded with, “Yes, well, they’re probably very joyful, though. People who live with very little are grateful for what they have.” I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Not to be judge-y about this response because I may have thought it too at one time or another. Although it maybe be true that some people are grateful in a way that those of us in developed countries are not, that may be more about our ingratitude than it is about the gratitude of the poor. Assuming that poor people are happy or even implying that they’re happy to be poor seems like just a way to make us wealthier people more comfortable. That image of the simple, joyful poor person is problematic. It eases our discomfort with poverty but never alleviates people’s poverty. It makes it seem like poverty is a social good, but the reality is that poverty, unchosen, cyclical poverty, is a blight on the world. And no one is happy to be without water. As Christians we’re called to eradicate poverty and to align ourselves with the people who live in it. We’re even called to seek Christ in people who live in poverty. Jesus tells us very bluntly that when we care for the hungry, thirsty, naked, etcetera, we really care for him. When we fail to care for the poor, we fail to care for Christ.

As someone who lives comfortably, I’ve noticed a certain sense of entitlement to comfort, as if I should be comfortable all the time. It’s kind of like the rich man assuming Lazarus should leave heaven to come to hell to dip water onto his thirsty tongue. Well, I hope I’m not that entitled! But I’ve reflected a lot on comfort versus discomfort since I’ve been home from Madagascar. There were times when I was uncomfortable there. Maybe I was a little hot sleeping under a mosquito net, even as I was glad to have a mosquito net to sleep under. Maybe I stayed once or twice in a convent that didn’t have running water because it was the dry season and water was hard to come by. I was able to wash the dirt off my face in a bucket, but it was uncomfortable. I don’t prefer to eat fish, and maybe I was uncomfortable having fish with a face that could look back at me, but it tasted good and it nourished me. So, I experienced discomfort, but I was never unsafe nor was I ever without what I needed. In fact, the overwhelmingly kind hospitality of my sisters there was such that it was impossible to not feel grateful, and maybe even a little humble, in face of such generosity.

The experience has made me think about how comfortable I am at home and my expectations around that. Why should I expect to be comfortable all the time? Why should I expect to have every preference granted? That’s unrealistic and pretty entitled. Sometimes life brings discomfort, and that’s just how it is. I assume that since I live in the “first world,” I should have every convenience, but most people don’t live like that, and as a follower of Christ, I should be checked and challenged every now and then. A lot of people in the U.S. live with a sense of self-sufficiency. If we don’t have what we need we can just buy it. And yet, as Christians, we’re really called to rely on God. As communal people we’re called to rely on each other, so the call to serve the poor is a mutual one, not an us-and-them situation, but all of us together in community.

Maybe a feeling of discomfort is an appropriate reaction to these readings about poverty. Do you know the saying, “Prophets comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable?” Maybe our prophets are afflicting us so that we shift our expectations around living in comfort. Maybe they’re afflicting us so that we stop telling ourselves that people living in poverty like it or deserve it. I think there’s an invitation here, for me, at least, and maybe for you, to be more reflective about poverty and the people who live in it, to think about our own expectations of comfort and self-sufficiency. Attitude shifts are often uncomfortable for me. So uncomfortable! But that’s okay. A little discomfort never hurt me and, in fact, sometimes it helps me to grow.

For Reflection:

• What about you? How do you respond to these readings?

• How do you respond to feeling uncomfortable? What are your expectations around feeling comfortable?

• Have you ever had experiences with economically poor people? Or, have you had experiences of being poor yourself? What was that like?

• For what are you most grateful? Let’s spend some time reflecting on what’s good in life right now, and maybe we could even share that with God.      

You can listen to this reflection on the Providence Podcast here!

By Sister Leslie Keener, CDP

Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. She directs retreats, meets with people for spiritual direction, and serves as the vocation director for her community. She also serves on the Coordinating Council of Spiritual Directors International. She enjoys music, dancing, and meaningful conversations.