Homily: 18th Sunday in OT 2016 - "...rich in what matters to God"

A few years ago, I was able to make pilgrimage to Italy. We prayed in the Basilicas and catacombs of Rome, viewed the sacred art of Florence, visited the majestic cathedral of Milan. I was deeply impressed when we visited the city of Pompeii, about 90 miles south of Rome. In the year 79, nearly 2000 years ago, the nearby volcano, Mount Vesuvius erupted, and in a matter of minutes buried Pompeii in lava. The lava covered and encased the entire city, preserving a snapshot of life, as if freezing a moment from the past.

Archaeologists have now uncovered a lot of the ancient city. Now, you are able to walk down its streets, past shops and villas. It is quite amazing, that there are 2000-year-old pizza ovens, just like the kind my grandfather used. Fast food restaurants where Pompeii’s citizens would stop for a quick bite to eat. You can get a sense of the Italian genius which built magnificent structures and operated within a complex social, political and commercial system.

When archaeologists uncovered the lava-encased city, in addition to the architectural structures they found, persevered for 2000 years in hardened lava, the bodies of the Pompeii’s inhabitants. They found entire families gathered around a meal - buried in lava before they even knew the volcano had erupted; beasts of burden standing in their stables; they also found some people who had seen or heard the eruption and were trying, in vain, to run away when the lava flow caught up with them.

The very first human remains that the archaeologists found were the skeletons of a man and a woman. And they found the skeletons' bony fingers clutching handfuls of gold coins. As they died, their last thought was not family or faith, but money.

Many of the ancient cultures buried their dead with money, believing that riches would follow them into the afterlife. For the Christian, however, we believe that “we can’t take it with us”—in fact, a life bent on the pursuit of riches is a vain one.

We don't know much about the man in today’s Gospel who came asking Christ to settle a financial dispute between him and his brother. Maybe he was sincerely interested in justice. Maybe his heart was full of greed, and wanted every last penny his brother owed him.

In either case, Jesus makes the most of the encounter to teach one of the most basic (though not the most popular) Christian lessons: the meaning of life does not consist in getting rich; the treasure that matters to God has nothing to do with anything you can put in a bank.

Of course, we need money and possessions to engage in commerce, to obtain food, shelter, and the like. When we are using our money and possessions rightly, it is not a sin to enjoy them.  Jesus knows how easily we are tempted by money and possessions - they seem to promise so much! How often have we thought, “when we get a bigger house, then we’ll be happy, when we get the new apple device then I’ll be happy, if we just take that vacation to Disney, then we’ll be happy” We know the common adage: “money can’t buy happiness” but so many think to ourselves, “maybe it will work for me”. 

Sometimes the money and material goods can lead us to neglect a healthy relationship with God. Our possessions, then, begin to possess us, like a demon, and lead us to skip prayer, skip church, skip healthy human relationships.  They can lead to our souls becoming very sick, even devoid of life and grace.

This soul sickness permeates our culture. Think of how our culture idolizes the rich and the famous. They may be total losers on the moral level, corrupt, perverted, manipulating, but if they are on the cover of Sports Illustrated or People magazine we idolize them, we watch stories about them, we fantasize about meeting them, being brought into their circle of friends, if money can line their pockets, maybe we’ll get rich too.

If we put a sign up on the front lawn saying Bill Gates would be here next week, and he’ll be handing out 50,000 dollars to everyone who came to church, there would be standing room only. Even if it was the hottest day of the summer and he was going to give a 45 minute sermon, this place would be packed. And yet, when we come to Church, doesn’t God give us more valuable than silver and gold? He gives us the gift of eternal life, he gives us his very self, in the Eucharist, he gives us treasure that does not pass away: wisdom, charity, patience, moral direction.

I have a lot of conversation with couples who are preparing for marriage in the Church, and many of them are not coming to Mass. And they try to justify it, saying they don’t come to Mass because they have to work, they need money. We all need money, but not more than we need God.

Why do we justify so easily breaking the third commandment, to keep Holy the Sabbath? If you needed money, would you break the fifth commandment, would you kill someone? No, of course not. If you needed money, would you break the sixth commandment, would you prostitute yourself? I hope not. If you needed money, would you break the seventh commandment, would you steal it or rob a bank? God forbid. Then why, when we need money, or go on a vacation, or want do sleep in, do we break the third commandment so easily?

I get it, too. I wasn’t raised in a family where faith came first always. But there comes a time when we really need to consider, “What am I living for? What am I working for? Do I really trust the commandments are the path of life? What in my life is vanity? What is granting me life and what is taking it from me? How much of my life is consumed with obtaining earthly treasures instead of heavenly ones?”

Jesus knows how easily we are tempted by money and possessions - they seem to promise so much! But, Jesus exposes that living for money is, what our first reading, called “a vanity of vanities” the Hebrew way of saying, “a complete waste of time”. Deadly even, when they take the place of God.

St. Paul even called greed a form of idolatry, a type of false worship. Greed, sexual impurity, immorality, evil desires, keep us from the true joy Jesus died to bring us.

And “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world at the cost of his soul?”

Rather when Christ is the center of our lives, our families, work, meals, vacations, civic life, decisions, problems, accomplishments and losses, the whole of our lives become charged and changed by God’s presence. All that we do, we should begin with prayer, and end by thanking God. And if we can’t do that, maybe we need to rethink some things.

We certainly ask the Holy Spirit today to help us be rid of all idolatry and vanity, to help all those who have left the faith for the pursuit of false gods, to return to God before it is too late, that all of us may seek the true treasures of heaven in lives of faith, hope, and love, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.