Rich toward God

Luke 12: 13 - 21

Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.

The issues of money and possessions is one of the most sensitive topics we could deal with. We often even get ourselves caught up in discussing it hypothetically because that actually keeps it at a distance. The man in Jesus' parable is looking ahead to a good life, after years of hard work developing his crops. There is nothing wrong with looking forward to a comfortable life after retirement, or is there? Another person may ask: should we indulge ourselves in a few luxuries now and then? For each one the luxury would be different. Some would enjoy fine dining, others perhaps clothes or shoes or cars.....the world has many things on offer for the 'good life'. Well, should we enjoy luxuries when at least half the world is living in poverty? We could go on and on with these hypothetical thoughts. We could also argue that God has given us life as a gift and our enjoyment of life must surely please him.

Putting the questions aside for a moment, I read the passage again carefully. And I am struck by the self talk of the man. He uses 'I' several times. In fact his point of reference is always himself.....what 'I' have, what 'I' will do and what 'I' will enjoy. Totally self centered. No place for anyone else and surely not God. There are no easy answers to the questions posed about luxuries. However if we just focus on such questions we may miss the point Jesus is trying to make. I think he asks us to consider what our lives are all about. He is not only talking about wealth but anything else we treasure that leads us to focus on ourselves (I, me and my).

Here I recall the Principle and Foundation given by St Ignatius in his book of Spiritual Exercises. This is a beautiful summary of what our lives are all about.

A modern day paraphrase reads:

God who loves us creates us and wants us to share life with him forever. Our love response takes shape in our praise and honor and service of the God of our life. All the things in this world are also created because of God's love and they become a context of gifts, presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily.

As result, we show reverence for all the gifts of creation and collaborate with God in using them so that by being good stewards we develop as loving persons in our care for God's world and its development. But if we abuse any of these gifts of creation or, on the contrary, take them as the center of our lives, we break our relationship with God and hinder our growth as loving persons.

In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance before all created gifts in so far as we have a choice and are not bound by some responsibility. We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one. For everything has the potential of calling forth in us a more loving response to our life forever with God.

Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God's deepening life in me.

Jesus will ask us: Have you been rich toward God? Have you made your lives center around the praise, honor and service of God?