Are you rich in what
matters to God?
Our readings this Sunday all challenge us to think carefully
about the choices we make, about the priorities we set, and the way we live our
lives according to those priorities. In
the Gospel from Luke, Jesus is confronted by a man who is more concerned
about worldly goods than about his relationship with his brother; he wants his
inheritance now. But one’s
life does not consist of possessions, Jesus tells the speaker. To focus on material wealth is to focus on
the tangible, and thus perishable; to focus on relationship is to acknowledge
that which is eternal, a bond grounded in love.
As with the man in the parable Jesus tells to illustrate this story, we
must strive to be rich in what matters to
God.
So much of life is transitory, ephemeral. Vanity
of vanities, Qoheleth tells us in the first reading from Ecclesiastes, All things are vanity! Do we locate value in what we produce, or
rather, in the simple joy of working every day and taking pleasure in ability
to do so? The latter bespeaks attention
to God’s presence in our lives, a presence manifested in joy. If, in life, nothing is
constant and change is inevitable, then only God is eternally faithful, with us
at every moment, and we are called to embrace that intangible presence daily,
minute by minute. Thus, the psalmist
asks, Teach us to number our days aright,
that we might gain wisdom of heart… And, Fill us at daybreak with your kindness (Psalm 90). Imagine waking each day actively open to being filled with God’s loving kindness. How much more joyful might our days then be,
and how much more easily might we be able to put on a new self in Christ, as Paul suggests to the Colossians, a self undistracted by that which is earthly, a self focused on the
intangible and mysterious action of God’s love in our lives, a self renewed in the image of its Creator? A self, that is, rich in what matters to God!
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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