In recent years, I’ve become fascinated with the use of “extravagance” as an expression of Christian spirituality. While the word has negative connotations of waste or indulgence, Jesus often invokes fiscal extravagance positively: the forgiveness of great debts, the generosity of Zacchaeus, the widow’s mite, Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet with costly oil. In my fascination, I find myself applying the notion of extravagance to many subjects, including the pro-life movement.

The application to pro-choicers seems easy enough to me. People who support abortion adopt a permissive posture with respect to mothers, to whom they ascribe the “right” to choose. Thus far, their libertartian approach seems plausible. But it stumbles when we consider the plight of the child, for whom pro-choice permissiveness means, “Sorry, buddy, you are better off dead.” That kind of extravagance isn’t generous.

Moreover, if we adopt a less libertarian perspective on human life and relationships, we see that a mother’s choice of abortion is most often a choice against her better instincts, forced on her by circumstances. The more generous approach would not be to support the abortion option, but to change the circumstances that make abortion her preferred choice.

I am keenly aware, however, that my Human Life Review audience isn’t pro-choice. So, to be responsive to the many ways in which Jesus challenges me, calling me to an ever-deeper conversion, I feel obliged to wonder how I can share the call to greater extravagance with prolifers.

Many prolifers are already engaged in heroic efforts to help mothers in distress. Some of them provide material support to women in need, offering them shelter both before and after birth. These are prolifers of extravagance par excellence. Close behind are those who provide effective encouragement to mothers considering abortion, supporting them through the process of arranging for adoption, or otherwise helping to secure the lives of their unborn children.

What about the rest of us—what does Christian extravagance look like for us? Likely, we could find local expressions of support for mothers and donate money or volunteer our labor. But even if not, surely, we could model Christian extravagance, treating others with the generosity of spirit with which we hope mothers will regard their unborn children. That means regarding all others, even pro-choicers, with the same extravagant care we expect for ourselves and like-minded others.

In the Roman Lectionary, this past Sunday’s first reading was a brief passage from God’s answer to Job. After nearly forty long chapters of Job protesting his unjust sufferings, God appears in a whirlwind and delivers an almost comically haughty response: “Who shut the doors of the sea . . . who set limits for it?” The sense of God’s rebuke to Job is “You have no idea what you’re caterwauling about.” Job follows up even more unexpectedly, in effect saying, “Never mind, I’ll shut up now”—a sudden and extravagant surrender of his complaints.

St. Jerome, who died in 420 AD, wrote that Job was able to embrace God’s answer so quickly not because of what he heard, but because of what he saw: the Crucified Jesus, speaking to him from within the whirlwind. Maybe it was so; who can say? But I often wish I could give myself over to God’s will as effortlessly as Job did, heedless of my own vindication!

The crucified Jesus invites all of us to follow him—extravagantly, heedlessly, even comically.