On January 2nd 2024, a Japan Airlines jet collided with a coast guard dash 8 aircraft resulting in 5 fatalities. 1 (from the dash 8) survived and everyone else 379 people survived, partly because the passengers listened to crew instructions, resulting in a smooth, efficient emergency evacuation before the whole aircraft was engulfed with flames. I learned something: They did not retrieve their belongings. I would have gone for the overhead bin to retrieve some stuff! It would have wasted precious seconds to let everyone out. This story connected with today’s Gospel for me: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” We love our stuff a lot! So much that we think we are doomed without them. It’s a lesson for all of us that true life and worth are not found in material wealth no matter how our culture insists, but it’s in spiritual values and one’s relationship with God. This leads to seeking a life of purpose: Let your life be about simplicity, contentment, and right ordered priorities. We observe many OT warnings where Israel’s love for idols put them in direct conflict with God. What if we are also in direct conflict with God when we turn our wealth into an idol? Jesus refused the role of settling an inheritance dispute because of this. He used a parable to pinpoint where the real problem is: our heart. The man in the parable was already rich and expecting a bumper crop as the crucial event in his life. Briefly: Any focus of our lives without Christ, is doomed. We need God in our lives!
Ecclesiastes warns us first: “
What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun?” Think about it, you’ve worked so hard all your life, and others get to enjoy the fruits of your labor? What would we have gained in the end? A life of significance wouldn’t care about that. The issue is where our heart is as we go through life. We were made to have God in our hearts. If we remove God, the vacuum is filled with all kinds of things we desire. Psalm 49 calls it wicked: “
The wickedness of those who put their trust in their goods and boast of their great riches” This attitude puts us at odds with God because we are effectively choosing to trust in the created instead of the creator. Paul put a finger on it when he said: “Put to death whatever in you is earthly: like greed, which is idolatry!” You see, a heart that is fully engaged in idolatry is reprehensible to God. Our hearts belong to God not to idols.
Let’s be honest! Maybe I should examine myself more: How greedy have I been? I mean I love my lifestyle and I am grateful for it. But what if I am so attached to my possessions way more than I love God my creator? Especially when obsessed with acquisition of wealth. What do we become? That’s why Jesus warned us to watch out and be on our guard against all kinds of greed. He knew greed would be a powerful temptation for us, to think of material possessions as capable of solving our most fundamental problems. Yet, unfortunately we observe lots of wealthy celebrities who lost their lives because of problems that cash couldn’t solve. We fall into the same problem that Adam and Eve fell into: They chose to live in their own wisdom instead of God’s wisdom which was readily available to them.
We must recognize the spiritual dimension of greed. Money is appetizing, and tantalizing and once we get it, our uncontrolled behaviors begin to expose our true untransformed character just like a person winning the lottery. Our thinking becomes dysfunctional and we begin to see things differently. We see this in Jesus’ parable when the rich man was having an interior monologue (I am paraphrasing): [
Wow what should I do with this abundant crop of mine?] He was anticipating enjoying this whole bounty over many years, no concern for others at all. He used the well-known formula for hedonistic living: [Let us eat and drink, be merry for tomorrow we die.] Sadly, he was informed that his life would be demanded of him that very night. His heart emitted a desire for more barns to store his surplus crop instead of emitting a desire for more of God! It sounds like the lesson here, is not to be rich for ourselves alone but to be rich towards God.
Without Christ to transform us from the inside, we remain vulnerable to earthly tendencies that don’t glorify God, vulnerable to our proclivities towards these evil desires, that’s why Greed is one difficult vice to be uprooted.
Lord Have Mercy!
Amen.
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