18th Sunday OT, year ’C’
"A man in the crowd said to him : ’Maser, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.’
Jesus said to him ’My friend, who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?"
If we have to respect what we need to have for our human life, so do we have to do so even more in order to honour our spiritual dimension.
The way we live on this earth sheds light upon the aim we wish to give to our very existence : we either consider that everything is finished with our earthly life, or else this life is a stepping stone towards eternal life.
We need to be coherent about what we live and about what we believe. Our present life is the beginning of eternal Life, a preparation for the ultimate encounter with God who is Love.
We see in the Gospel how Jesus usually acts in a conflictual situation, he looks up to the person talking to him, opens him up to look to true values, leading him to move ahead.
What brings meaning and value to our life is the capacity to love and to be loved- all the rest is an illusion.
In man’s heart there are fears that push him to seek material goods. In seeking to possess goods we are looking for a security which will pacify our fear of the future, or else the satisfaction of our desire for power and glory.
"Then Jesus said to them ’Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for life does not consist in possessions, even when someone has more than he needs.’
Then he told them a parable, ’There was once a rich man, who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself’ What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops’. Then he said This is what I ill do : I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my goods and my grain in them."
Jesus reminds us how accumulating material goods will add nothing to our earthly happiness. One day we shall have to leave this life for the life that God is preparing for us. Right now we lean towards spiritual realities which are the only ones which will pass through death.
God, who is Love, has placed within us a capacity to love and to be loved so as to welcome Love itself. From now on our life is hidden in God and we are risen with Christ ; we seek realities from above. During our earthly life we have to work at increasing our capacity to love for this will get us to pass though death. The way we make use of material goods is the criteria of genuine love, one with which our life can be judged upon.
"Then I will say to my soul, ’My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come ; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time.’ But God said to him, ’Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul ; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be , then? So it is when someone stores up treasure for himself instead of becoming rich in the sight of God
The world is hungry for goods and believes it will find its security in its goods. Full of itself, it is in a state of disillusion. God alone is master of life and death! Man is only the depositary of goods so as to have the genuine love of the Kingdom come to this earth. The aim of our passage on earth is share and give to the smallest one in the Kingdom This is how we share treasure for Heaven. To become rich for God with Jesus the Saviour of our life, means to enter into a dynamic of detachment concerning material goods so as to be in communion with the whole of Love.
We must understand that love that is shared and received is the place were we bring about our true human success. And so we shall leave our fears and our desires of power so as to find in God and into the Love that is shared our security and our happiness. Sharing , the welcome of the other person ad especially the little one and the poor is a treasure in itself and a wealth for God. Everything comes fromd God, everything is given for sharing, this is how the Kingdom of Heaven is built upon earth.