Real Wealth: Allowing God to Rule Our Life and Our Society

An Exegetical Reflection on the Gospel of the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, Luke 12:32-48, August 11, 2013

WHERE, INDEED, DO true riches lie?  In last Sunday’s Gospel, we saw that although secular culture and media of social communications drive home the point that true life lies in bonds, stocks, and bank deposit, Jesus denies that equation; instead, one must follow him in discipleship (Luke 18:22b) and grow “rich in the sight of God” (Luke 12:21).  This, however, raises the question: if one must grow rich in God’s sight, what is our real wealth, in the first place?  And how is it acquired?

    Far from being found in earthly treasures, our true wealth is the kingdom of God.  “It has pleased the Father to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32b).  Not surprisingly enough, the Matthean Jesus admonishes: “Do not lay up for yourselves an earthly treasure.  Moths and rust corrode; thieves break in and steal.  Make it your practice instead to store up heavenly treasure, which neither moths nor rust corrode nor thieves break in and steal.  Remember, where your treasure is, there your heart is also” (Matt 6:18-21).  The point, of course, is not that one should not have treasures.  After all, we are all earthly beings in need of earthly goods to survive.  Rather, we are admonished not to make material wealth the primary concern in our life.  For when we do, we not only forget all about the supernatural realities, but we also become involved in greed, social injustice, oppression and violence.  There is much truth to the maxim of Honore Balzac that behind a great wealth is a crime.  One can be super-rich only over the broken bones of many.  Moreover, one may be wealthy, and have enough of this world’s luxuries, but that is not a guarantee of a tranquil life.  He may fear bankruptcy, thieves, and the Mafia.  Though he will certainly make it to the society page, he may still be deprived of wholeness in his very own being and in his relationship with others.  Wealth does not guarantee a life of love.  That is why the richest man is not necessarily the happiest, even if his wealth can provide him much pleasure in life.

      Our real wealth is the kingdom of God.  For Jesus, this should be the primary concern of our life.  When we speak of true riches, though, two things are to be remembered.  First, it is God who gives us this wealth: “It has pleased the Father to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32b).  It is not acquired through our own efforts, unlike material wealth, which largely depends on our own toil.  Heaven is not acquired by our own achievement—it is not our achievement.  By contrast, in true wealth, it is God who acts.  We can do nothing without him. Second, all we seek is that God establish his kingship over us: “Seek out instead his kingship over you, and the rest will follow in return” (Luke 12:31).  Our role is passive, but it is exercised in active passivity.  We allow God to rule our lives and our society.  Not what you and I want, but what the Lord wants—this is what prevails in our daily life.        

 And what does the Lord want us from us?  Today’s Gospel gives us two specific instructions.  First, he wants the rich to make a radical renunciation of their wealth, and share it with the less fortunate or the disadvantaged: “Sell what you have and give alms” (Luke 12:33a).  This will show that their heart, far from being a slave of possessions, is devoted to God alone and the kingdom, which is the only real treasure (Luke 12:34).  It is obviously scandalous that billions of dollars are spent on lethal weapons, on star wars, when millions of people starve to death.  It is not morally right that one man has an abundance of almost everything in life, while the man next door is starving.  “I ask you, how can God’s love survive in a man who has enough of this world’s goods, yet closes his heart to his brothers” (1 John 3:17). 

Second, the Lord wants us to allow him to establish fragments of his kingship through our service to others (Luke 12:36). Today’s Gospel, in which Luke introduces Peter who asks about the applicability of Jesus’ exhortation to vigilance (Luke 12:41), makes it clear that this especially pertains to those invested with authority.  Instead of seeking to lord it over others, or dominate them (Luke 12:45), they are to serve the Lord who is of course present in those they serve (Luke 12:43).  Thus Jesus: “Earthly kings lord it over their people… Yet it cannot be that with you.  Let the greater among you be as the junior, the leader as the servant” (Luke 22:25-27).

    In short, we allow God to establish the fragments of his kingdom when we share and serve.  This will prove that his reign is the only treasure our heart hankers after, which is the real wealth (Luke 12:34).  And for Jesus, we are to be faithful to this only treasure, every day in our life until he comes: “The servant is fortunate whom his master finds busy when he returns” (Luke 12:43).  We need to be vigilant lest we fall back to greed and acquisition of earthly riches.  Loving wealth is like riding on a lion: one eventually falls—to the delight of the lion.  We need to be faithful instead to the service of the kingdom every day in our lives. This is especially directed to leaders of communities and nations who have greater opportunities to corruption and accumulation of wealth.  

     This invites us to think: suppose, for example, instead of building weapons of mass destruction, the rich take care of the poor, the homeless and the disadvantaged; suppose the United States and other first world countries seek the lifting of the poorer nations from misery by, for example, writing off their debts—will not the result be a world order that is entirely new, as the poor partake of the goods of this world?  After all, these countries have much share of the world’s goods, and like leaders, much is certainly expected of them, for “much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded for the person entrusted with more” (Luke 12:48).  If we are faithful to this, there is no doubt that we will be allowed to sit in the banquet of the kingdom (cf Luke 12:37) where we will find true life.

Choosing to Be Poor and Being Happy with Poverty

An Exegetical Reflection on the Gospel of the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, Luke 12:13-21, August 4, 2013

HOW IS A MAN’S WORTH determined?  What makes a person important?  In a secular society like ours, the popular gauge by which we measure a person’s worth is usually in terms of stocks, bond, bank deposits, flashy cars and flats in skyscrapers, that is to say, in terms of what we have.  As long as a person has something, we tend to treat him with respect.  And we do not even ask where his wealth comes from.  It is even ironic that if one steals a few pesos, most of us would call him a thief and ask the police to put him behind bars; but if he steals and even launders billions of dollars—well, he is not a thief, and many would even treat him as though he were respectable and famous, and he may even walk on the corridors of the Executive Department.  More so, if he is a scion of a rich family; everything is forgiven and forgotten about his shady deals.  If last Sunday’s Gospel was about the poor, today’s Gospel is about the rich—and their wealth.  By any standard, the man in the parable (Luke 12:13-21) is obviously rich.  In the agrarian society to which Jesus was born, this wealthy man was certainly an object of envy, since he was so wealthy that he lacked barns to store his goods, just as not a few would envy someone who is known to have fat accounts in different banks, enormous stocks, own Ferrari and a flat in Makati—an example of a truly, it would seem, successful man.  No wonder, even in the country, wealth has become the idol of many: they have tried to acquire fortune whose origins cannot be traced to the sweat of their brow and therefore that cannot be explained—except probably in a court of law or in the parliament of the streets

            Although people weigh a person’s worth and importance in terms of riches, the punch line of today’s Gospel denies that equation: “Beware of all covetousness, for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possession” (Luke 12:15).  For Jesus, man’s life is never defined in terms of assets.  Of course, true life, in the New Testament, is not simply identified with earthly life; for when this life is destroyed, one receives a new life, a new home, which is eternal (2 Cor 5:1).  Like material possessions, earthly life, which is visible, is transitory; what is unseen, life with God in the here and now and in the hereafter, is eternal (cf 2 Cor 4:4.18).  True life, which survives even when the earthly tent is destroyed, consists in the Kingdom of God.  And as we saw in last Sunday’s Gospel, one experiences this life by embracing discipleship—one listens to the word of God and acts upon it (Luke 11:28), and enters into the family of God where there is unity and love and freedom from evil.  For this reason, Jesus refused to connect real life with the abundance of possessions, even if these were inherited.  Contrary to what our culture and the media of social communications glorify, what counts is the person we become in the process of living, not what we have.  And in the New Testament, to live authentic life is to live the life of Jesus in discipleship (Col 2:6).  Life with Jesus is eternal life, the life that abides.  Hence, the 2^nd Reading says: “Since you have been raised in company with Christ, set your heart on what pertains to higher realms where Christ is seated in God’s right hand.  Be intent on things above rather than on things below (Col 3:12).

            Since this is authentic life, anyone who equates life with material possessions is thus a fool.  Like the rich man in the parable.  He exists, but he never lives a true life.  And nations can be fools, too.  For many years, countries have made money an idol and they idolized it through a system called liberal capitalism.  And as a reaction, others tried and instituted Marxist collectivism.  But neither of them is really after the true life of man, for both of them have a common root—the worship of wealth.  And the consequences of these two systems are staggering: the environment is polluted, natural resources are depleted, a consumerist mentality is cultivated, and people are sacrificed to the idol of money.  No wonder John Paul II called these systems “institutionalized injustice”.  To trust, to labor in order to acquire material wealth is therefore foolish, because it cannot guarantee authentic life even in the here and now.   Which calls to mind the 1^st Reading: “For here is a man who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and to another, who has not labored over it, he must leave his property.  This also is vanity and a great misfortune.  For what profit comes to a man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun?  All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation; even at night his mind is not at rest.  This is also vanity” (Ecc 2:21-23).

            This is not to say, of course, that material wealth is useless.  Earthly beings that we are, we need material things to survive.  Starvation, homelessness and destitution are evils which society must eradicate.  Jesus, after all, was never happy that people went hungry—that is why, his heart moved with pity for the crowd who have been following him for three days and who had nothing to eat, he multiplied the five loaves and two fish to feed them (Mark 12:1-9).  Starvation is not a virtue.  But the point is that, one must set priorities.  Wealth has a relative value; it is valuable to the extent that it serves to make us persons who are more loving, more caring for others, or to the extent that it promotes higher values.  But when it becomes the be-all and end-all of one’s existence, then greed, one can assume, has undoubtedly captured the heart.  In this connection, the remark of Timothy is very instructive: “We brought nothing into the world, nor have we the power to take anything out.  If we have food and clothing, we have all we need.  Those who want to be rich are falling into temptation and a trap.  They are letting themselves be captured by foolish and harmful desires which drag men down to ruin and destruction.  The love of money is the root of all evil.  Some men in their passion for it have strayed from the faith, and have come to grief amid great pain” (1 Tim 6:7-9).

            The lesson is clear: wealth does not make a person happy and valuable; to be truly happy, one must follow Jesus in poverty for the sake of the Kingdom of God. In the Diocese of Borongan (Eastern Samar, Philippines), there is a very small community called Oikos Ptochos Theou (The Poor Household of God).  The members live on the promise and actuality that the Father cares for them; they are so poor that they live with much insecurity.  They are not even assured of where to get their sustenance the following day or week.  They live only on what people give them.  But they are happy with serving the Lord who is present in the abandoned children, battered women, and abused children they tenderly care for.  They see in them the face of Christ, whom they follow in discipleship.  Their life is a witness in the Diocese that what makes a person happy is not wealth, and that one’s dignity and worth are not measured in terms of riches.   And the late Mother Teresa, whose life was spent in following Jesus by caring for those who had no one to care for them, may have the last word as a commentary: “We have chosen to be poor.  That does not mean we cannot have material goods.  In and of itself, it isn’t bad to have things, but we have chosen not to have them.  For once the sisters abound with material goods, we still not have time to tenderly care for the poorest of the poor.  We will then be too busy caring for things instead of people.  So we must continue to have as little as possible.”

The Deep Longings of the Poor in the Light of the Petition, "Hallowed Be Thy Name"

An Exegetical Reflection on the Gospel of the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, Luke 11:1-13, July 28, 2013

 SOMETIME IN FEBRUARY 2001, a large number of poor people—the shirtless and the shoeless, the urban poor, the riffraff, the pro-Estradas among the masses—gathered at EDSA (Epifanio de los Santos Ave.), and after a few nights, eventually marched toward the Malacañang apparently with the end in view of restoring the unlamented former President Joseph Estrada to power.  One might easily dismiss the ESDA III, which is what many call that political gathering at EDSA in protest against the Arroyo dispensation—a product of political agitation, propaganda and manipulation, greed and opportunism, but what one cannot deny is that it was, if misdirected, a disturbing manifestation of social discontent.  It was an attempt to articulate what the poor expected the government to give them—alleviation from misery.  They dreamed of a better deal from the government and they thought, rightly or wrongly however, only their idol Estrada could give it to them. 

      In the Philippines, such a dream, of course, is nothing new, as the history of rebellion and revolution in the country shows.  Rebels, the deluded, demagogues and politicians envision a society in which they are liberated from their historical pain and suffering.  At the close of the Spanish regime, for example, Felipe Salvador, otherwise known as Apo Ipe, who founded the Santa Iglesia movement in Central Luzon, warned that soon there would be rain of gold and jewels for his followers after the “second flood,” in which all unbelievers would be destroyed.  The Dios-Dios movement in Samar island in the 1880s promised not only freedom from taxes but more significantly, a mountain of gold for those who joined their rebellion against the Spaniards.  In recent memory, Marcos had his Bagoing Lipunan (The New Society), Ramos his Philippines 2000, Estrada his Erap para sa Mahirap, (Erap for the Proletariat),  Arroyo her Strong Republic, and Aquino his Matuwid na Daan (Straight Path)—all of them promising a new world for the poor. But looking at all these as a whole, one might ask whether they went beyond being mere promises.

          Today’s Gospel is about Jesus’ vision for the poor.  Of course, in its context, this Sunday’s 3^rd Reading is about prayer, and although we are not told where or when Jesus prayed on this particular occasion, Luke probably inserted this in a series of episodes that transpired while Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51) to bring home the point that this is about discipleship—a disciple of Jesus must a man of prayer.  And that is probably the intention of this selection in the liturgy.  But for our purpose, we can look at the Gospel not as a lesson on prayer, but an introduction to what Jesus wanted for the poor by examining the meaning of its some parts.  In this prayer which Jesus taught his disciples, we are given a general idea of his dream for the poor—it is the vision of the Kingdom of God.  Earlier in the Gospel, Jesus announced a macarism for them: “Blessed are you poor, the Kingdom of God is yours” (Luke 6:20).  Those who were oppressed, taken advantage of, economically deprived and had nothing to lean on except God, he called blessed, because their misery would come to an end.  The kingdom of God would answer their dreams and their longing would be satisfied.

            But what precisely is this vision for the poor?  This vision is described in Luke’s Gospel in various ways, but if we limit ourselves to the Lord’s Prayer, we can already see some characteristics of that vision, the fulfillment of which his public ministry was directed.  In the Lord’s Prayer, all the petitions describe various aspects of that vision which Jesus expected to be realized in the future for the poor.  That is why, in New Testament studies, the Our Father is often called an eschatological prayer, because it is a prayer that speaks of something that will happen in the final times.  For the nonce, however, it suffices to focus on the first petition: “Father, hallowed be your name” (Luke 11:2b).  In invoking God as Father, Jesus made it clear that the fulfillment of the hope of the poor does not consist in the abundance of land, livestock, money or material satisfaction—that would be too ephemeral—but can be found in the ultimate community in which all acknowledge God as their Father who loves and cares for them and their needs, and in their being his sons and daughters (cf Deut 1:31; Hos 11:1; Is 49:15).

 This implies, of course, that all women and men recognize their status as brothers and sisters in the family of God.  In Luke’s theology, this is begun here on earth when people hear and act on the word of God in Jesus (Luke 8:21), and eventually form one family under the Fatherhood of God. (Extra-Lucan reflection would teach that this is made possible by the Holy Spirit through whom the disciples of Jesus become adopted sons and daughters [Gal 4:5-7; Rom 8:14-17].  These disciples share the life which God himself communicated to Jesus [2 Pet 1:4]).  In this family which is being realized here on earth, each member, like the Samaritan, treats his brother with love and care, without discrimination and greed; and his action, like Mary’s, springs from listening to Jesus.  In that family, there is no longer any place of agitation, propaganda, disinformation, and manipulation to which the poor are very often subjected; on the contrary, they will receive the freedom of the sons and daughters of God.

            It is a family in which God’s name is held holy.  To be sure, many people often take “hallowed be your name” to mean that we are to praise, magnify and glorify the name of God.  Since the Charismatic Communities praise the name of the Lord in their prayer meetings, it is sometimes claimed that they are the ones who really understand the meaning of the petition.  That might be true, but the thought that in this petition the disciples are to honor the name of God by praising and glorifying it is obviously of secondary significance.  The meaning of the passage, rather, has to do with the action of God.  It is not we who sanctify, but God himself who makes holy his name.  The community of disciples prays that God bring about a situation in which all peoples and individuals recognize his name.  This particular text harks back to the vision of Ezekiel (Ezek 36:22-26) in which God rehearses the wickedness of Israel, and out of his zeal to sanctify his name, gathers all Israel from their exile and leads them back to their land.  He reorders the people and creates a harmonious society, freed from impurities and idols, and liberated from foreign oppression, the people given a new heart and new spirit.  Thus, in praying for the hallowing of God’s name, Jesus envisioned that God would vindicate his name by gathering those who believe in him into a family of disciples.  In that family, there would be an end to all evils which desecrated his name: exploitation of the weak by the powerful, cheating and manipulation of the poor by the rich and the clever, discrimination in social relationship on the basis of sex, creed, color, work, etc.  The poor would certainly be vindicated in that form of community.

          That is the picture of the hoped-for society that Jesus prayed for, and that is the alternative vision of society that we hope God will give us whenever we pray, “Father, hallowed be thy name.”  That is the kind of community that is in store for us in the final times.  And precisely because the Lord’s Prayer is the only prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, it is a prayer which only we Christians can, and must pray.  It is our identity.  That is what we wish to be: a community of life and love, shared with God and our fellowmen.  It is a community freed from all forms of evil, and for service and love for one another.  It is also our mission.  We have to engage in the realization of this hoped-for community.  At the same time, if we believe that God is our Father, then we must behave as brothers and sisters to one another.  If we believe in the holiness of his name, then we ought to work for the gathering of all Christians—no matter their color, social status or nationality (cf Gal 3:26-28)—so a Christian world will become the evidence for the sanctity of his name.  By so doing, we share in the task of establishing God’s reign on earth.  That reign more than satisfies the longings of the poor, but not necessarily in the manner poor people might think.  But they have to learn the ways of God in fulfilling their hope and satisfying their needs.  That is why they need to become “poor in spirit” (Matt 5:3).