Homily for Sunday Ordinary 18 C

When we began a style of production and consumption that would eventually ravage planet Earth, Francis decided to love Mother Earth and live simply and barefoot upon her. 

I have Mass at St. Isidore on Sunday, August 3rd @ 9:30/11:30 am.

frjoedailey@gmail.com

Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. 

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 all who store up treasure for themselves, but are not rich in what matters to God." 

The Gospel of the Lord. 

Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem when a voice from the crowd asks him to mediate in a family inheritance dispute, while Jesus is teaching us how to give our lives away. This man wants to make sure he doesn't lose anything. 

In our time, St. Francis of Assisi preached the Gospel not with words, but by showing us a different path at a pivotal moment in Western civilization. When we began a style of production and consumption that would eventually ravage planet Earth, Francis decided to love Mother Earth and live simply and barefoot upon her. When people started measuring time by clocks instead of church bells, and Christian leaders started counting, Francis stopped counting. He moved from the common economy of merit to the wondrous economy of grace, where God does not do any counting but only gives unreservedly. 

In Francis' view, property, by arousing envy and therefore conflict, was the one thing most destructive to peace in the world. 

The parable of the rich fool is only found in the Gospel of Luke. It's hard to miss the point of the parable. You can't take it with you. But that is a bit of ancient wisdom hardly requiring Christian revelation. It's an obvious human truth already clearly stated in Ecclesiastes. Here is the one who is labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and yet to another who is not labored over it, he must leave his property. 

Although Jesus' mission was among the poor, the spread of the Gospel in the first century was most successful in the cosmopolitan cities of the Roman Empire. So it's likely that Luke's community was located in such an urban setting, and that Luke's audience was a high social economic status. In fact, it has been suggested that Luke's church was the wealthiest community of the Christian Scripture. This possibility explains why Luke speaks so frequently about wealth.

 He is addressing a church with excess income, and he firmly believes that Christian disciples should understand how that excess should be used. His message is simple. Whatever you do not need for yourself should be given to those who have not. What matters to God is that we share the wealth we have with the poor. 

The Gospel today shows us in parable form what the greed that is idolatry looks like. The author of Colossians urges us to put to death this vice as we put on the new self that is Christ. 

About three years ago, Hope College, a Christian liberal arts college in Holland, Michigan, launched an entirely new funding model called Hope Forward. The aim of this program is to provide a tuition-free education. Tuition-free is not the same as free tuition. Instead of charging tuition before receiving a Hope education, this Pay It Forward approach asks students to give to the college after they graduate, providing the same opportunity for future students. And because they will graduate free from the burden of debt, they will be better positioned to pursue lives of impact, not just income to pay the bills. 

A college funding model based on generosity and giving is quite a radical vision. It will shift the relationship of the college with its students from a transactional business model to a lifelong gift relationship. What is surrendered in a commercial transaction is completely and permanently separated from the person who surrendered it. When we pay for everything we receive, we remain independent, disconnected, free from obligation, and free from ties. Because it creates gratitude or obligation, to willingly receive a gift is itself a form of generosity. It says, "I'm willing to owe you one. I'm willing to be in the debt of the community." Extending the principle further, to fully receive the gifts bestowed upon us says, "I'm willing to be in the debt of God and the universe." 

A social worker in poverty-stricken Appalachia paints a picture of what that looks like. The Sheldens were a large family in severe financial distress after a series of misfortunes. The help they received was not adequate, yet they managed their meager income with ingenuity and without complaint. 

One fall day I visited the Sheldens in the ramshackle rented house they lived in at the edge of the woods. Despite a painful physical handicap, Mr. Shelden had shot and butchered a bear which strayed into their yard once too often. The meat had been processed into all the big canning jars they could find or swap for. There would be meat in their diet even during the worst of the winter, when their fuel costs were high. 

Mr. Shelden offered me a jar of bear meat. I hesitated to accept it, but the giver met my unspoken resistance firmly. "Now, you just have to take this. We want you to have it. We don't have much, that's a fact. But we ain't poor." 

I couldn't resist asking. I couldn't resist asking, "What's the difference?" "When you can give something away, even when you don't have much, then you ain't poor. When you don't feel easy giving something away, even if you got more than you need, then you're poor, whether you know it or not."