Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Fr. Guiliano)

The Parable of the Rich Fool (Rembrandt)

When I was about 20 years old, I began doing a dangerous thing. I started attending Mass. I was not an Episcopalian then. I was a student at a Pentecostal university, but wasn’t sure how to identify my faith. I found myself visiting a wide range of churches on Sundays, as I tried to figure out my life and discern what God was calling me to be and do. Those Sunday morning visits to churches were often disappointing and weird. But Saturday night Mass at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Agnes the Martyr in Springfield, MO, was good. It was consistent.  It was challenging. 

The first time I attended St. Agnes, the psalm was number 49, which we’ve just recited together, and the antiphon was the one we’ve just sung, a verse that hits hard, while it set to a charming snippet of traditional American folk: We can never ransom ourselves, or deliver to God the price of our life.

Singing that over and over again is a distinct experience: such a gentle tune, such a hard lesson. It slaps; it slaps like an iron fist hiding inside a velvet glove, looking so soft, but full of weight and power. We can never ransom ourselves, or deliver to God the price of our life. I remember sitting in the pew at St. Agnes, and looking around in amazement at how we were all singing together this mind-blowing phrase.

It reminded me that the Bible has some harsh things to say about money and about those who have it and how they use it. At times, it has dismal things to say about work. For example, our first reading:, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity…” Everything  is emptiness and “a chasing after wind.” Because everything we work for, everything we pile up, everything we’d like to pass on, can disappear in an instant. It only takes one tornado, one illness, one financial crisis. Of course, if somehow we do live long, and manage to keep most of our goods all the way to the end of our lives, who knows what will come of them? As Ecclesiastes suggests, we might pass them on to a fool or a layabout. The author speaks with frustration:

Sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 

[I feel like the author of this text had a high view of themselves but didn’t like their kids. Who knows?]

What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? 

Nothing, the question implies. “For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest.”  

Some of us acquire goods by care and hard work with much anxiety and many sleepless nights; some of us come into wealth – maybe we inherit it and happily waste away the diligent labors of another; of course, some of us don’t acquire much at all. We may live in the wealthiest country on earth, but most Americans have minimal savings and no plan.

Whatever our individual levels of prosperity, let me suggest that all need to be careful with our attitude toward money. Life requires wisdom, no matter our means. As the Psalm says:

Hear this, all you peoples: hearken all you who dwell in the world, you of high degree and low, rich and poor together. 

My heart shall speak of wisdom, and my heart shall meditate on understanding.

I will incline mine ear to a proverb, and set for my riddle upon the harp. (49:1-3)  

It would be too easy to tune out during this sermon, and say to your soul: “I’m not wealthy, so I’m spared. I don’t have any ‘rich lands producing abundantly’. I’m not like the man in the parable, pulling down my barns and building larger ones. I’m barely hanging on here!”

There is something to that; the wealthy and the powerful have distinct temptations, and the Bible admonishes the wealthy in particular: consistently and directly, saying don’t store up your treasures here on earth when they might do good for others. Don’t be rich toward yourselves and miserly toward others and toward God. It is only by generosity that you can store up treasure in heaven.

But let’s not let ourselves off the hook if we feel poor. Examine your inner attitude, and consider that little sentence in Colossians chapter 3: “Put to death whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).”

In Greek, the word for greed is philargyria (“Love of silver” or “love of money”). It’s not just the desire for more money, though that’s part of it; it’s not just loving what money can do, which is a lot, let’s admit. The problem is thinking money can give us what God alone can give; and the problem is loving money the way we ought to love God and our neighbor. 

We often think money will satisfy our desires: we think of all that we could buy, all that we could do, all that we could make others do for us. We think money will bring us happiness or security, remembrance or even immortality. 

These are really things only God can grant. Traditionally, in the Christian faith, we would say that there is no complete satisfaction of our desires in this world; we await that promise in the life of the world to come; at God’s right hand “there are pleasures forevermore” and they surpass all the base desires and satisfactions we have in this time. 

And we would say that no one should have the power to do anything they want; no one should be able to compel others to do anything they want simply by having of money. That is a fantasy of omnipotence, of being in the place of God. 

Meanwhile, total happiness, security, stability, lasting memory, and eternal life: these are not things naturally within our grasp as mortal creatures. We live in a world of constant change, ups and downs, risks, dangers. There is no hiding from these things; money is a flimsy shield against them. And we cannot ensure we are remembered; we cannot make ourselves immortal. “The ransom of our life is so great,” says the Psalm, “that we should never have enough to pay it, in order to live for ever and ever and never see the grave.” 

We can never ransom ourselves, or deliver to God the price of our lives. Immortality is the gift of God. Eternal bliss, happiness without end, is the gift of God. Security, stability, lasting memory: these are the gifts of God in Christ. 

Do not let a golden idol reign in your heart, where the love of Christ should be. Follow his more excellent way. Be rich toward your neighbor, be rich toward God. As Jesus says, “Be on guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 

Put to death whatever in you is earthly, and turn your sight to things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.