Posted on 07/30/2016 8:38:17 PM PDT by Salvation
Readings:
Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23
Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11
Luke 12:13-21
Trust in God—as the Rock of our salvation, as the Lord who made us His chosen people, as our shepherd and guide. This should be the mark of our following of Jesus.
Like the Israelites we recall in this week's Psalm, we have made an exodus, passing through the waters of Baptism, freeing us from our bondage to sin. We too are on a pilgrimage to a promised homeland, the Lord in our midst, feeding us heavenly bread, giving us living waters to drink (see 1 Corinthians 10:1-4).
We must take care to guard against the folly that befell the Israelites, that led them to quarrel and test God's goodness at Meribah and Massah.
We can harden our hearts in ways more subtle but no less ruinous. We can put our trust in possessions, squabble over earthly inheritances, kid ourselves that what we have we deserve, store up treasures and think they'll afford us security, rest.
All this is "vanity of vanities," a false and deadly way of living, as this week's First Reading tells us.
This is the greed that Jesus warns against in this week's Gospel. The rich man's anxiety and toil expose his lack of faith in God's care and provision. That's why Paul calls greed "idolatry" in the Epistle this week. Mistaking having for being, possession for existence, we forget that God is the giver of all that we have, we exalt the things we can make or buy over our Maker (see Romans 1:25).
Jesus calls the rich man a "fool"—a word used in the Old Testament for someone who rebels against God or has forgotten Him (see Psalm 14:1).
We should treasure most the new life we have been given in Christ and seek what is above, the promised inheritance of heaven. We have to see all things in the light of eternity, mindful that He who gives us the breath of life could at any moment—this night even—demand it back from us.
Luke 12: 13-21
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.” Then he told them a parable. “There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?’ And he said, ‘This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!” But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.”
Lord Jesus, I believe you want me to have faith in you, faith that hearkens to your words without any second guessing. I hope in your words, not relying solely on my own strength or reasoning. I love you. You continue to astonish me by showing me that your ways are not my ways.
Lord, may I love you with all my heart, mind, soul and strength.
Take care to guard against all greed. Greed arises when our heart loves material things and possessions in selfish and disordered ways. God created things material reality for a purpose: to help us fulfill our mission in this life. Our heart can grow to love these things and to love accumulating wealth for its own sake, not for the sake of using it to fulfill our mission and save our soul.
Jesus has called us to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. But we only have one heart, one soul, one will and one mind. If I love material wealth in a disordered way, then my one heart, one soul, etc. will be divided and pulled in many directions simultaneously. Not only will I not be able to love God with a total, faithful, focused love, I will not be able to love anyone in this way. No matter whom I love, my love will always be weakened and diluted by a divided heart
Late have I loved You, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved You. You were within me, and I looked outside; I sought you, and miserable as I was, I longed for creatures, I was detained by the wonderful works of your hands (St. Augustine, Confessions). What dilutes my love is disordered affection for the things God created. Our heart is capable of loving multiple persons and things (God, parents, children, friends), but only to the degree it is capable of focusing on one of them. Loving God first is like using a magnifying glass: The rays of sunlight, like the affection and love we have for numerous persons and things, are united by the glass and magnified into a more powerful beam. When we love God first, our love for others and the world increases in intensity.
Lord, you created my heart to love. Often I fall in love with the things you created. I can even begin to love them more than you, to forget that you are their Creator and that you have given them to me to lead me to you. Help me to love you above them all, and to thank and bless you in a thousand ways.
Today I will take stock of my loves to make sure they dont compete with my love for God.
July 31, 2016
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/073116.cfm
Does life have any meaning? Usually were too busy to contemplate deep questions like this and because of that, they can haunt the back of our minds, looking for the right moment to come forward and disturb us. This particular needling question pops up when we hit a crisis, a season of depression, a time of change. Since we normally tout the Bible as the Big Answer Book, it might be surprising that the Bible itself asks some of these central questions. This Sundays first reading from Ecclesiastes hits the nail on the head.
The reading itself is short, giving us just a few key lines from the book. Its a good thing that we get the important lines because this is only reading from Ecclesiastes in the whole 3-year cycle of Sunday liturgical readings. Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth (Eccl 1:2 NAB). This first line of the book contains the message and the mysteries of the book as a whole. Vanity translates the Hebrew hebel, which means vapor, breath. Right at the start, the book shows us how different it is from all of the other books in the Bible. It doesnt teach about meaning, but instead points a finger at the whole world and declares it meaningless! Qoheleth is a transliteration of a Hebrew word of uncertain meaning that in ancient times was interpreted as assembly leader. Since ekklesia in Greek is assembly, we thus get ecclesiastes as assembly leader. (No, Ecclesiastes is not plural for ecclesiaste!) Qoheleth is the main character of Ecclesiastes, the spokesman, whose voice is recorded by the book.
This book comes at the whole problem of the Bible and divine revelation from the opposite direction that were used to. Instead of containing a message, it asks a question. In fact, the Catholic philosopher, Peter Kreeft, says that Ecclesiastes is the question to which the whole Bible responds. He says, It is divine revelation precisely in being the absence of divine revelation. It is like the silhouette of the rest of the Bible (See Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life). The questioning nature of the book makes it incredibly valuable in our era. Since it speaks from the human perspective, instead of the divine, it reads like a book of existentialist philosophy people can relate to. It is true to our experience, so true in fact, that the novelist Herman Melville asserts in Moby Dick that the truest of all book is Ecclesiastes. The book presents the problem of what it means to be human. Alongside Qoheleth, we search high and low for answers to the gnawing fear inside of us that were all alone, that all of life is useless and well just end up six feet under ground and no one will remember us. He takes this fear by the horns and stares it in the face, offering up the most despairing of answersthere is no answer.
Qoheleth sets up the whole book as a kind of experiment, in which he searches for the meaning of life through a series of projectskind of like the contemporary Quantified Self movement. He starts off searching for wisdom, but decides in the end that, in wisdom is much vexation (1:18 RSV). Then he moves on to pleasure and tries to find meaning in life by satisfying all of his base desires, but again all was vanity and a striving after wind (2:11). By the point of our readings key passage, Qoheleth has exhausted two possible routes to happiness, meaning and fulfillment that we often to pursue: knowledge and pleasure. Thats why we go to college! Yet these things alone cannot grant the fulfillment he desires, the real meaning of life. All he finds is a bunch of meaningless toil. That is, pursuing these desires takes a lot of work, but their satisfaction does not result in the kind of happiness he is looking for:
What has a man from all the toil and strain with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of pain, and his work is a vexation; even in the night his mind does not rest. This also is vanity. (Eccl 2:22-23)
The doom-and-gloom conclusion Qoheleth reaches at the end of our reading points in two directions. First, it reminds us of what this Sundays gospel teaches: that you cant take it with you. No matter how much wealth you accumulate in this life, it will die with you. In the end, theres no rich or poor person after death. Second, Qoheleth brings us face to face with the deepest questions that we should be asking, struggling with and seeking answers for. He helps us feel the pain and emptiness that a selfish, sinful life bringsa meaningless existence, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing (Shakespeare, Macbeth). From that low point of desperation, we can turn to God, seeking the answers to our longing for meaning in his Word, in his Son, in his Sacraments. We will find that life is far from the solipsistic meaninglessness Qoheleth finds. Instead, we are made for a beautiful, eternal communion, the ultimate fulfillment of our nature through going out of ourselves in love for Him and being filled by Him in return.
A man wants Jesus to settle a family squabble but finds his problem is much bigger than getting his share of an inheritance.
Its always a little surprising to see someone in a Gospel story tell Jesus what to do (see also Lk 10:40). Here, a man calls out, Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me. Jesus response is cordial: Friend, who appointed Me as your judge and arbitrator? There is a touch of irony here. The man is thinking of Jesus as a wise rabbi, capable of intervening in his disagreement with his brother. We dont know why the brothers were at odds, but we can sense something of the problem from Jesus reluctance to address it. Jesus is, indeed, the One Who will someday come in glory to judge the living and the dead, as we say in the Creed. It is in that role, as Judge of mens souls, that Jesus tells the man a parable.
There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. So far, so good. All of us have a desire to prosper in the work to which we set our hands. Those who must provide for a family are especially pleased to succeed in earning what their families need. However, this mans success led to a superabundant harvest. It was so large that he had no place to store it. What might he have done with such excess? Certainly there were poor people in his family or community. Could he have shared his good fortune with them? Instead, he decided to destroy perfectly good barns and build larger ones. What prompted this decision? He wanted an easy, secure life: I shall say to myself, You have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry! Whats wrong with that?
Jesus tells us right away: But God said to him, You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong? The man is a fool because he has set his whole vision on his possessions. He sees his secure future in them, but the reality is he has forgotten death, over which he has no control and which his things cannot prevent. When death comes, in the twinkling of an eye, all that meant life to this rich, successful man will evaporate. What will be left to him in death? In the end, all that is left is God. Jesus, using the example of the parable, tells the man bothered about his inheritance: Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God. The foolish man in the parable planned to spend his excess on himself. Had he remembered the simple summary of the Law God gave His people, known to every Jew, to love God with all that we are and our neighbors as ourselves, he could have wanted to make himself rich in the right way. Jesus seeks to remind the man who addressed him that only a fool allows his possessions to so captivate him that he is willing to feud with his own brother over them. If death arrived for him that night, would he be rich in what matters to God?
Would we?
Possible response: Lord Jesus, help me in my daily battle to be rich in what matters to God. The treasures of this life always beckon.
Ecclesiastes is one of the books of wisdom literature in the Old Testament. It is written in a didactic first person voice as it reflects on the uselessness of trying to figure out the meaning of life by looking only at lifes various activities. True human happiness cannot be reached solely through human efforts; to seek happiness that way leads eventually to vanity (self-love or self-regard). All human activity is ultimately a puzzle without the revelation of Gods meaning and purpose in His Creation. Because this is true, the author of Ecclesiastes concludes his book with a simple admonition: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for that is the whole duty of a man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil (see Eccl 12:13-14).
In todays passage, the author addresses the futility of looking for ultimate meaning in work and prosperity. Even in success, the rich man must leave his property to another who didnt lift a finger to earn it. To be consumed with work and success leads to sorrow and grief. There is no rest for that weary soul, even at night.
When Jesus told the man in our Gospel to take care to guard against all greed ones life does not consist of possessions, He was drawing on this ancient Jewish wisdom. Jesus came to be the revelation of the truth that true happiness is found only in seeking first the kingdom of God (see Mt 6:33). All else is empty vanity.
Possible response: Heavenly Father, help me remember that I cant find lifes meaning by looking only at life itself. Help me keep my eyes fixed on You.
This psalm takes up the Gospel theme of the transitory nature of our lives on earth: You turn man back to dust, saying, Return, O children of men. Thus, the psalmist asks God to Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart. A person who understands the fragility of life will want to make the most of each day. He will join the psalmist in singing, If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.
We wonder if the man in the Gospel story heard Gods voice when Jesus taught him that parable. Was he able to put all his financial issues in Gods care and say, May the gracious care of the Lord our God be ours; prosper the work of our hands for us?
Possible response: This psalm is, itself, a response to our other readings. Read it again prayerfully to make it your own.
St. Paul now interprets for us what Jesus meant in the Gospel when He told us to be rich in what matters to God. When we were baptized, we were raised with Christ, so we should now seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Why should we do this? St. Paul tells us that we have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
If we believe this, as mysterious as it is, we will realize how foolish and unfruitful it is for us to live as if we were earthbound. That is why St. Paul says to put to death the parts of you that are earthly. What are those parts? He lists some for us: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry. We all have these parts in us, because of our fallen human nature. True happiness requires us to take off the old self with its practices. They will definitely keep us earthbound and will eventually short-circuit our peace and happiness. That is why Jesus warned the man in our Gospel story. Knowing mens hearts, He could read deeply the meaning of the mans request to settle the inheritance dispute. He saw the danger of greed this man faced. He wanted something better for him and for us, too. That is why St. Paul encourages us to think of what is above, not of what is on earth. The outcome of this way of life is sure: When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with Him in glory.
Isnt this much better than building bigger barns?
Possible response: Lord Jesus, I know I am only passing through this earthly life. Please strengthen me to avoid becoming earthbound.
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