In the gospel reading of, Luke 12:13-21, Luke addresses an activity all too familiar in our culture: chasing after wealth, positions of power and acquisition of material goods. I am not saying that we should not save up for retirement or our children’s education, or for a bigger home when a growing family justifies the need. There are common sense reasons for working hard and putting some of the fruits of our labor aside. But what Luke is stressing here is the right use of wealth. He is condemning greed.

Yes, setting our minds on what is above, and what is treasure in the Kingdom of God is counter- cultural. Have you heard the phrase, “whoever dies with the most toys wins”? Adding a personal note, I am just as guilty of having a basement and garage full of “stuff”. I call this transcendental acquisition, a symptom of a nationwide disease called “affluenza” (affluence permeated by the feeling that one must get more). Consumerism has become one of the most insidious evils of today. One must keep buying and buying things in order to feel happy. This is a lie. This is also vanity!

And how often do we chase after a position of power or senior management level in our jobs? In my architecture career, as you came to the end of a project, you were typically laid off. I had this happen more often than I imagined at first. You need the exact set of skills and desires or the right chemistry to get to a senior management or principal position in an architecture firm. Perhaps it was my Christian views and tendency to holding more lightly to the things of this world and not chase after an Associate position that hurt or limited my professional development. I began to believe that climbing the corporate ladder was unrealistic, or vanity. When you are laid off, as far as I was concerned, I was underneath the corporate ladder, looking up at it.

For a time, I took my career setbacks very seriously as perhaps an indication that God was telling me I did not belong in the business world. I began to consider the priesthood and investigated that possibility. I cut back on my material needs and did some serious soul-searching. Eventually, I realized that was not the path God was calling me to. To become a priest because it meant job security should not be the main reason one aspires to it. Later, my career path changed for the better, after “hanging in there”.

It was great to eventually get married and continue to pursue my career. I did enter the Diaconate program in the Diocese of Colorado Springs and feel now I have the best of both worlds. My most recent job at RTD lasted 15 years, a good tenure, and am thankful I had perks and benefits I never would have had otherwise. God knew my needs, and He was good to me.

This reinforced the truth that God takes care of us. I recall the passage in Matthew which says “consider the birds of the air. They do not toil or spin, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life span? God takes account for every sparrow that falls, God counts every hair on your head. Do not worry about what you are to eat or to drink or to wear. Your heavenly father already knows that you need them all.” We are to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these things will be given otherwise. It is a matter of trust.

There is one other important aspect of life that these Scripture readings address, and that is our desire to control many aspects of our lives. Two years ago, a terrible pandemic uprooted our way of life, and forced us to stay home. Uncontrollable events like these are part and parcel of living. A natural disaster such as a fire, flood or hurricane destroys a community. In times like these we learn to surrender our control and give it all to God. Not a popular choice, but sometimes we have to do such a thing because there is no other choice! Imagine a terrorist attack that knocks out our electrical grid and forces us to live without electricity for weeks, even months! What will be our reaction or response?

An attitude of gratitude is what Luke is stressing in today’s Gospel. To be thankful defuses the wanton desire and greed for more material goods. Jesus says to the woman at the well, “whoever drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst, this water that wells up to eternal life.”

It is not an easy task for a parent to instruct their children to be satisfied with what they have in our consumer society. Perhaps we need to take a look at the world’s poor. I call them OUR poor. Of the 8 billion people on this planet, 2.2 billion live on less than $400 per year. Is it right to stereotype these people as being lazy, warmongering or irreligious? These images may justify not sharing more of the excess we have, but it does not remove the moral obligations Jesus demands of us today.

When faced with the enormity of the world’s poverty, the bad spirit can convince us that it is so large there is nothing we can do about it. Not true. Every moment of consciousness and each act of goodness toward anyone anywhere is a victory for God’s kingdom, and is God’s will being done “on earth as it is in Heaven.”

No one can pretend, however, that throwing money around will solve the world’s problems. Everyone who works on the front line says that dignity is the biggest obstacle in confronting the world’s poverty. And dignity, as Jesus reminds us today, has very little to do with money and possessions. Each time we make a claim for our own dignity and we give dignity to people who do not even claim it for themselves, we contribute to the generous and just world that Jesus wants. And sometimes that can be as easy as turning off the I-pad, TV or media device.

Pope Francis, wrote in his 2016 apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate that “Our defense of the innocent unborn needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life”. He continues, “Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, the destitute, the abandoned, and the underprivileged…”

Let’s pray that we feel the sharp edge of the gospel and we accept its power to convert our hearts and minds. Will we meet the challenges in regard to bestowing dignity upon our poor and sharing our possessions with those who have a just claim on them? Whatever we keep for ourselves and not use, is actually taking away from the dignity of others less fortunate, who can use these things (clothing, old electronics, furniture, or housewares, even old cars).

This is a value the world desperately needs to learn. This is a concept we desperately need to teach our children. And this is a value we desperately need to live out and set an example for others.

Here is a novel concept. We can only learn to grow from socially, emotionally, and spiritually immature children into adults who live together in a healthy way by seeing healthy behavior modeled and unhealthy behavior corrected.

Scripture passages affirm that mentoring in righteousness require demonstration, as much or more than just explanation. Jesus repeatedly told his followers to “do as He did”. When he washed his disciples’ feet he offered it as an object lesson. “I give you an example that you should do as I did to you”. Paul told believers in Corinth and Ephesus to be “imitators of him, just as he was an imitator of Christ”.

We need the bracing insistence of Ecclesiastes that all our anxious toil is vanity. And we need the perspective we gain from listening to Jesus’ admonition. We have been entrusted with the material goods and talents God gave us. Everything we have belongs to God first (surprise!).

We must be prepared to live with the knowledge that our hold on life is tenuous, and that God will one day call us to leave it all behind. But God promises a life beyond this one that far exceeds our expectations.