Rich before God

Gospel

Lk 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
But 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.”

St Saviour Sermon

“Rich in the sight of God”

What does it mean to be “rich in the sight of God”? It certainly calls to mind that other word of Jesus “lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven”.

Only the other day I was reading about Tom Monaghan, who founded Domino Pizza, one of the most successful companies in America. In 1998 he sold it for a billion dollars and has since dedicated his life to serving God and the Church. He got rid of his Sikorsky helicopter and his corporate jet, his Rolls Royce and Bentley Turbo, as well as his 190ft yacht and his prized and rare collection of artefacts that had belonged to the great American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. His love of the world and its wealth were replaced by his desire for the beauty and treasure of Christ.

Throughout history men and women have been inspired to renounce everything for Christ and the gospel. They have wanted to be free of this world’s attractions in order to follow an inner impulse to penetrate more deeply into the riches of the mystery which is Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Take St Francis of Assisi. My ordaining bishop, John Moorman of Ripon, was a world renowned scholar on St Francis and he wrote a number of books about him. His title for one of them, taking from a phrase in the First Life of St Francis by Thomas of Celano, was ‘Richest of Poor Men’. Francis was brought up in a wealthy home; but gradually step by step, he was led to give up everything and adopt a life of such extreme poverty that he literally owned nothing. Struck by our Lord’s words in the gospel reading whilst attending mass in a little church just outside the walls of Assisi that “whoever does not renounce all cannot be my disciple” he gradually proceeded to get rid of everything that he possessed in a process that ended up with him giving back to his father not only his money but also his clothes, so that, for a moment, he stood naked and totally destitute until the Bishop of Assisi wrapped him in his cloak. The Franciscan poet, Jacopone of Todi, wrote in later years: “Poverty is to have nothing, And to desire nothing; And yet to possess everything, In the spirit of liberty.”

Yesterday, was the feast day of St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits or Society of Jesus. Following his recovery from war wounds, when he left the military world to become a soldier of Christ, partly as a result of reading a life of Christ and a life of St Francis, he set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. First, he tells us in ‘His Own Story’, that he stopped off at the Spanish monastery of the Black Madonna at Montserrat (near to Barcelona) to make his confession and consecrate his future to the Lord. He had brought with him a garment made of rough prickly sacking and a pilgrim’s staff. He gave away his mule, his garments to a poor man, and left his sword and dagger hung on the altar of our Lady in the church. He disposed of his income and thereafter begged for food and alms. He was detached from this world’s goods and attached to the wealth of Christ. When he came to write his Spiritual Exercises he made certain that converts to his consecrated style of Christian living also learned to embrace Lady Poverty, in the spirit of Francis and our Lord himself, as the first step to sanctity and service in the crusade for Christ.

If we always persue wealth, and constantly cling to worldy possessions, we may become deluded that we can cushion and control our own destiny. We are in danger of demoting God and neighbour in the priorities of our lives. We may ultimately be in denial about the inevitability of death. On the other hand, being rich in the sight of God, takes us to the truth of our existence and its meaning. We are dependent upon God , the source of all good, for everything. Our real salvation, and security, is to be found in him. We learn to trust our selves into his hands both for the here and the hereafter and along the way afford to be generous in time and love towards those around us whatever their needs. This is to be rich in the sight of God.