July 31, 2022: 18th Sunday C
Once on the bus, Nicholas made a short prayer, “God, if you are real, now is the time to show it.” The first place Nicholas sought after arriving in Akron was the local homeless shelter. As he searched for his assigned bed inside a massive dormitory, he prayed, “Jesus, I trust in You!” As he let down his backpack on his bed, he heard a voice from the dark corner of a room, “Hey. you need to pay me Twenty bucks for protection.” Nicholas froze in panic. The two men on the bunks below and next to his bed burst into laughter. “Clearly, you don’t come here often… What are you doing here?” Kevin, one of the homeless residents asked. After Nicholas explained to Kevin about the pilgrimage he was embarking on, Kevin handed him his bus passes. Nicholas was amazed at the generosity, for Kevin gave from his need.
How many of us could use more trust in God’s providence in our lives? The man in the gospel who desires to build bigger storage barns is not foreign to us. We too rent more storage space for things we own. We save for the rainy day in our 401K’s and retirement accounts. We become anxious about what happens to the price of gasoline and to the stock market. It’s in human nature to worry and be anxious about the future. We have this capacity to seek the things of the world without paying attention to the transcendent meaning of life. Our hearts tend to become attached to worldly goods as the one and only goal in life, forgetting what is really important.
To put things into perspective, I am going to share with you some of what I have learned about life in the Philippines from my discussions with Fr. Bob, our new associate pastor. Many of us in the US will regularly spend $5 for a cup of coffee without any thought of the price, yet Fr. Bob said that in his town in the Philippines, the daily minimum wage is $7 a day and many earn far below that minimum wage! Can you imagine just earning $7 a day? The other day, I gave him an insulated drink cup with a $40 price tag still stuck to the bottom. Fr. Bob said that for $40, a family of five can purchase a bag of rice that will last a whole month! Think about how often we spend $40 on things here in the States without much thought while a family in the Philippines feels secure when they have $40. Many families eat only one meal a day consisting of plain rice seasoned with soy sauce, Fr. Bob said. And yet, without some of the basic necessities of life, people are joyful and happy. What a paradox! Here in the States, we have a notion that having more money and possessions lead to happiness. The reality is that we are in an addictive cycle of acquiring more and more and feeling empty and anxious about life.
Jesus said to his listeners, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions… [for God may say to us] ‘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 all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.” Jesus’ caution raises some important questions. Even I have to ask myself, “What am I living for, and what am I working for?” Are we storing up treasures for ourselves that will vanish like smoke upon our death or are we storing up what matters to God? The author of Ecclesiastes reminds us that our life on earth is like a fleeting wind, come and gone. Even after amassing fortune through pain and toil, upon death it will be left to others. That is why St. Paul reminds us to concern ourselves with heavenly things and not on the temporary things that are on earth.
How do we gain heavenly perspective? The Baltimore Catechism question comes to mind. “Why did God make you?” The answer: “God made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next.” Jesus answered the question even more briefly: “I came so that [you] might have life and have it more abundantly”
St. Ignatius of Loyola offered this wisdom which he called the ‘First Principle and Foundation’: “The goal of our life is to live with God forever. God, who loves us, gave us life. Our own response of love allows God’s life to flow into us without limit. All the things in this world are gifts of God, presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily. As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God insofar as they help us develop as loving persons. But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives, they displace God and so hinder our growth toward our goal.”
We are not tourists in this earthly life whose goal is to live on likes and dislikes, to just acquire things and experiences. To live on this level of senses is to become hostage of our own bodily and emotional needs. Rather we are pilgrims who must embark on this journey willing to regard things of this world in balance and to offer ourselves in humble service to God and others. Our focus is to learn more about our Heavenly Father, who is giving joy to my life, who believes in me, and who makes me alive. When our earthly life is spent giving praises, petitions, and thanksgiving to the Father, then we return home to the Father transformed, renewed, and restored by the abundant blessings of Our Father in Heaven.
