July 31^st 2016. EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

GOSPEL: Luke 12:13-21

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 (Translation of a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio)

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel.

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

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Jesus is interrupted by a man who demands that Jesus intervene in a dispute about inheritance. The Lord responds with a parable about a rich man who rejoices over his bountiful harvest but dies that very night. The fact is that Jesus is not interested in mediating between us over our worldly disputes: he wishes to call us to focus on the true purpose of our lives. If we think about it, all of us “interrupt” Jesus while he tries to speak to us. Our heads are so filled with our own preoccupations on a daily basis that we cannot hear God talking to us. In order to follow the Lord properly, we must detach ourselves from our worldly concerns and anxieties, and focus on the things that are of eternal significance. It is no accident that St Francis of Assisi made poverty his starting point. He was not poor for the sake of being poor but in order to devote himself completely to eternal things. One day, the Lord will call us to account for our lives. This doesn’t have to be at the moment of death. It can be at a moment of crisis, tragedy, or even achievement. At that moment, we can be given a perspective on the true substance of our lives and on the things that really count.

Is Jesus a judge? Is he interested in sorting out our worldly disputes? Or is he more interested in calling us to abandon worldly concerns?

Jesus is preaching to the crowd when a man interrupts him and tells him what he ought to be preaching about. “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me!” This, according to the man, is the kind of catechesis that Jesus should be engaging in. There may well be a time when it is right to talk about these things, but Jesus replies: “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.” The curious thing is that Jesus is our judge, the judge of all things in heaven and earth! He is the mediator between God and man in the fundamental priestly act of the sacrifice on the cross. So he is a judge, but in the sense of establishing the true authority of God, the victory of the things that really matter. The problems that arise in families, the disputes over inheritance, the sadness that envelopes the human situation, are all linked to greed, to our self-indulgence. Jesus is not interested in mediating between us as we dispute over worldly things: he wants us to fix our gaze on heavenly things.

Our preoccupation with ourselves prompts us to interrupt Jesus while he is speaking to us. We cannot hear what Jesus wishes to say to us while our heads are filled with our own fixations

What is greed? Where does it lead? In the first reading from Ecclesiastes we are told: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” In Hebrew the word for “vanity” is “Vapour”. Everything is vapour, a non-entity. Everything for which we work disappears. We become greedy, avaricious, if we lose sight of that which really counts, that which is eternal. We interrupt Jesus while he is trying to speak to us, cajoling him to speak to us of other things that interest us, little things that count for nothing. We can be sure that we are fixated with these little things when we are unable to listen to Jesus because we have our own music playing in our heads.

The right way to judge our lives is not in terms of what we possess but in terms of the eternal significance of who we are and what we do

Jesus tells the parable of a man who has a bountiful harvest and places his trust in his own possessions. Possessions are the wrong parameter by which to measure one’s life. That very night the man dies and all of his possessions are of no use to him. The parable may seem a little macabre, but it sets in relief an important fact. If we wish to evaluate the true importance of things then we must reflect on their eschatological aspect, their ultimate purpose. Jesus is the one who shows us the ultimate purpose of all things. He is the ultimate judge and he lives in order to go to the Father through the passage of death. The Father is the ultimate purpose of life. We tend to make the things we possess today into the ultimate meaning of our lives, but life is only a passage and we will have to answer for it one day. It can be interesting to stop asking questions of life and instead allow one to be interrogated by life. “Will this behaviour of mine permit me to appear before God in a confident and serene way? Or will it make me feel ashamed? What do I care if my brother robs my inheritance! What really counts here is my heart, the way that I am, the way I live!” “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” says Qoheleth. Of all the glory of this world, nothing will remain.

Detachment from things gives us true freedom. We are not poor for the sake of being poor but so we can concentrate on being rich in the eyes of God

To attack the roots of greed is to enter into great freedom. It is no accident that St Francis of Assisi made poverty his starting point. Everything in his spirituality is rooted in poverty. In every epoch of the Church, this has been a key to salvation for many souls. Detachment from things might mean poverty in this world but great riches in heaven. Jesus’ parable ends with these words: “Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.” We are not poor for the sake of being poor, but for being rich in eyes of God. Poor in this world means being detached from things, ready to lose everything in order to be in the presence of God. Possessions lead us away from God with the anxieties and self-fixation they provoke. And what about the wonderful reputations we have in the eyes of others? A simple rumour and it all collapses! All that you earned during your life will soon be forgotten once you go on the pension - and it is probably good that things are like this, otherwise we would become slaves of our personality and reputation and never become an authentic person. We must be ever ready for God to come and ask us for an account of our lives. It doesn’t have to be at the moment of death: our true substance can be measured in moments of crisis or tragedy, or even achievement; we can be seen for who we really are when confronted by the things that really count. This Sunday’s splendid liturgy of the word calls us to be free, to live life from the right perspective. We are heading towards heaven; let us not waste time with things that do not last.