Homily for the Week of August 4, 2013

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2013 Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23 Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17 Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11 Luke 12:13-21 I once saw a sign outside a church that said: “Don’t wait for the hearse to take you to church.” Our Bible readings for this weekend point out that it is moe important to grow rich spiritually than getting rich with material possessions. Nowhere in our Bible is having riches called sinful. Rather it is what one does with money that determines virtue or vice. No passage is concerned with whether possessing wealth is good or evil. In our first reading we have a person who had pleasure, lots of money, and power but he was not happy. He was told to enjoy each day as it comes and not become too attached to anything this world has to offer. But Jesus has more to offer. Jesus tells us the story about a rich man. Though called a fool, the rich man is called neither good nor evil. The rich man has a very good harvest so he wants to tear down his old barns and build bigger ones. But he is shown to be isolated, oblivious of both God and his fellow human beings. He is self-centered. He is please with his accumulated wealth that he now can eat,drink and be merry. He was wealthy in worldly goods. But Jesus calls him a fool. Jesus tells him This night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? The rich man’s self-centered plan for stockpiling and spending for his own enjoyment is interrupted by a startling apparition by God. “You fool!” comes the accusation, with the notice that this very night his life will be demanded. We must remember that our passages were written in what were, for the most part, non-monetary societies. Unlike today wealth was not thought of in terms of money. Wealth was thought of in terms of two things: how many things did you possess (so that you could barter), or how much social standing did you possess? So, what the Bible ask us is our attitude toward possessions. Another way to ask the question of the Scriptures today is, “What is the purpose of our possessions?” Jesus is critical of the rich fool’s attitudes toward his possessions. God gave him all that he had, not that he might own them, but that he might be generous with his possessions. His wealth was his possession of vast amounts of grain — grain that would rot and spoil before he could ever use it. He thought only in terms of what his possessions could do for him. This is what God thinks of as being “rich.” Jesus is really talking about one of the more serious sins which is called greed. Greed is an intense desire for something -- usually money. Greed makes things more important than persons and relationships. Greed turns hunger into gluttony, honor into pride Greed gives rise to cheating, stealing, lying, quarreling, fighting and even war. The greedy person never has enough. The farmer in the Bible story did not make his money by any of these things. It seems that he got wealthy by good weather and good old fashion hard work. Jesus is not saying it is sinful to get rich and successful. He is saying that getting wealthy is bad if that is the only focus of your life and we forget where our blessings come from. The farmer forgot that he was not in control but that God was in control.Hiss priorities were wrong. What we have has been given to us by God in the first place. It is true that we earned it. But we must also realize that is God who helped us to get the talent, the energy and the opportunities to earn it. We must provide for ourself, our families,and must save for the proverbial rainy day, but we must not be totally selfish either. We have to keep things in balance. And loving God and loving our neighbor is part of the balance. The greedy person also does not trust God.The argument for the greedy person is this: I doubt that God will take care ofme,so I try to gather as much as possible now in case no more is left later. Generosity is the best weapon against greed. Freely giving some of our possessions away, especially to those less fortunate, is considered the perfect remedy to greed. Generosity promotes detachment from material things that come and go. How do we know when we are truly wealthy? When we are free enough to be generous, when the happiness of others is more important than our wealth. Putting God first is not about devaluing money and things. We are to see them as tools in our lives, not the point of our lives. Greed keeps us from being generous, and to be a Christian is to be generous. When we are greedy, we are choosing ourselves over God, and that is not a good choice. Jesus says: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.