Homily: Monday, 29th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Eph 2:1-10; Ps 100; Luke 12:13-21

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In today’s Gospel passage Luke describes an encounter between Jesus and a man fretting about his inheritance. The man came to Jesus because these were the kind of disputes a rabbi would often settle, and by calling Jesus “Teacher” he indicates that Our Lord is seen as a kind of rabbi.

But Jesus turns the tables on him, doesn’t he? He treats the man kindly, calling him “Friend,” but then indirectly reprimands him, doesn’t He? You see, Jesus knows what’s in the man heart, the same vice that thrives in so many hearts. Jesus sees greed and materialism.

Now Jesus’s audience that day was probably not the wealthy of 1^st-century Palestine. He’s just speaking to folks, mostly poor folks, struggling to make living. But one doesn’t have to be rich to be greedy. Greed and avarice are among the most common of human failings and aren’t confined to the wealthy. We can all succumb in our struggle to earn our daily bread, or to achieve wealth through other means. The only difference between greedy wealthy and the greedy poor is that the former succeeded in turning greed into wealth.

Jesus, of course, knows what the people need to hear, that one’s life does not consist of possessions. And to make His point, He relates a parable. I’ve always called this one, the “You Can’t Take It With You Parable,” because that’s really what it’s all about.

If you reread the parable, you might notice that perhaps the most common word used by the rich man is “I.” As Sister Francis Jane told our eighth-grade class, “The fact that it’s the shortest word in the English, made with a single stroke of the pen, is probably a good indication of its relative importance." The rich man saw nothing beyond himself, nothing beyond his little self-contained world, apparently assuming it would continue indefinitely.

Has human nature really changed in 2,000 years? Many today, as was for the rich fool of the Gospel, are driven to build the equivalent of better and bigger barns, to gain ever more personal wealth.

Now wealth, in itself, isn’t an evil. But when it’s misused…when it’s seen as an end in itself and not a means to do good…when it’s unjustly accumulated at the expense of others…when greed and envy become the guiding forces in its acquisition…then it always leads to evil.

Throughout my life I’ve encountered more than a few men and women very much like the rich man in the Gospel, focused solely on possessions, yet unaware of the obvious paradox of possession. Those driven by greed to collect riches only prove how poor they really are. For them, no amount of wealth is sufficient, because no amount can ever bring true happiness. How very sad. They devote their lives to adding zeroes to their net worth – so much work for just another zero! 

When the rich man of the Gospel unexpectedly encounters death, his true poverty is exposed. Suddenly, his wealth means nothing, its value eclipsed by the person he had become. Those whom the world sees as successful can be abject failures in the deepest sense because they try to live without God’s sustaining power.

Jesus is warning us against going it alone, trying to hold the future in our own hands, of focusing only on our possessions and life’s comforts, of wasting our time on that which doesn’t last. We need the humility to recognize that our planning may be futile, and the courage to trust that the Good Shepherd continues to lead and guide us along paths we can neither anticipate nor understand.

Self-sufficiency is one of the great myths of our time, a myth preached constantly by the world. Just as “with God, nothing is impossible,” so too without Him, nothing lasting is possible.

There’s a hunger today for more than bread, more than possessions, especially, I think, among younger people. We must help them turn to Jesus Christ as the solution, as the source of true happiness, and do so by our own example.

We were created as spiritual and bodily beings and the only truly satisfying nourishment while we’re here on earth is God’s Presence poured into us in Word and Sacrament. And it’s all a gift. As Paul told the Ephesians, by God’s grace we are saved.

Let’s pray that we strive always to seek God’s will for us: that we will not arrive at the end of our lives having forgotten to live; and that we may live well so we won’t be afraid to die.