When is a Christian Successful?

Today's epistle reading (Acts 17:22-34) reminded me of a teaching I once heard. I don't remember who gave it, or whether the person was Catholic or Protestant. But today this teaching struck me as being completely off-base. The gist of it was that Paul had made a grave error in appealing to the Athenians through their philosophy, pagan religion and culture in his attempt to present the gospel to them. This error was supposedly obvious from the fact that his preaching was a complete failure. People scoffed and blew him off, and all of three converts (out of how many hundreds of hearers?) followed him.

Perhaps whoever gave this teaching had an ax to grind against inculturation. But of course it makes every bit of sense for Paul to draw on what people already knew in order to present new information to them. With Jews or those familiar with the synagogue, speaking about the Hebrew Scriptures makes sense. But what sense would it make when speaking to pagans?

And what is great preaching success, anyway? Fr. Michael Scanlon, in his homily today, pointed out that humbling is often exactly what a preacher needs to receive as the fruits of his efforts. One can have all truth and still fail completely to reach others with it, he said. Whether others are reached or not just is not our concern.

It can be so hard for me sometimes to accept a completely indifferent response to something over which I have intense enthusiasm. And then again, sometimes I have an experience like yesterday's.

I happened to read a pregnancy announcement on the Catholic Fertility list. Towards the end of it, the woman mentioned that she'd read my pregnancy success story in the group archives, and since our health outlooks were so similar, she decided to incorporate everything I had discovered in my journey into "alternative" medicine. And a couple of months later, here she is, 7 weeks pregnant. It surprised me, especially because I only happened to read that particular message (I don't regularly read all the posts there any longer). Once I had become detached from whether I could persuade anyone that my ideas had merit, I find someone crediting me as her inspiration towards this mighty joy in her life.

So, the lesson learned is that if I really want to do people good, an across the board stepping out of the path of self-aggrandizement is in order. We offer what we can, how we can, with our eyes firmly fixed on, transfixed by, the Lord, pouring out all we can to the person, the need in front of us. And forget about how it all turns out.