Beware of Greed
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.” Luke 12:13-21
18th SUNDAY Ordinary Time Cycle C
There was a dog who stole away meat from the butcher he was not looking. Running away, it soon came to a bridge and saw its own reflection in the water below. It thought that the other dog had a bigger and tastier meat. Even with the meat in its mouth, it still wanted to get the other dog’s meat. Greed came over it and it soon opened its mouth in an attempt to steal from its reflection. In doing so it dropped the meat into the river below.
In the gospel Jesus tells the story of the rich fool who planned to build a bigger barn to hoard his bigger harvest instead of sharing the surplus to his needy neighbors. But God foiled his scheme. That same night he died. So in the end his neighbors got all the same what he had refused them.
Ecclesiastes aptly described the rich man’s foolish plan in saying “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity! Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill,
and yet to another who has not labored over it, he must leave property.” Ecc 1:2; 2:21-23
St. Paul thus advised the people of Collosas “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and the greed that is idolatry.” Col 3:1-5, 9-11
Riches make fools of everyone – including the best of us. Officials forget their beautiful election promises once bribed with bags of money. Judas Iscariot who was handpicked by the Lord to be an apostle fell down hard with thirty pieces of silver.
It is common that siblings quarrel over family inheritance even at wake of their deceased parents. That was the situation of the man who approached Jesus in today’s gospel.
But Jesus avoided the man’s quandary. It was a clear invitation for him to seek rather the things that value more like peace, fraternity, solidarity, welcome, justice. The Rich fool in his plan to construct a bigger barn, steered away from God’s plan to live honestly and to share generously. He had denied God a role in his sorry life.
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