A Gospel about Greed
The Catholic Church has spent more time and energy warning the faithful against erotic lust than it has against greed. Yet greed seems to be the ‘deadly sin’ that does the most damage. You don’t have to look further than the current worldwide recession.
The scripture readings for this Sunday, especially the gospel, are a timely reminder that greed doesn’t pay. Most Christians believe, in theory, that greed does more harm than good, yet, ironically, our practice doesn’t reflect our belief.
The first reading is from that strange and disturbing book, Ecclesiastes (or Qoheleth). Its views are darker than that of Jean-Paul Sartre or the 20th century philosophers of despair. ‘Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!’ Whether it’s seeking pleasure, friendship, work, wealth, justice or retribution, ultimately all of them lead to despair in the end. What’s the point of life? Hmm!
The person who put the Book of Ecclesiastes together must have had enough power and prestige to have it accepted as part of scripture; somebody who was in a position to have drunk deeply of the delights on offer in ancient Israel – wealth, achievement, popularity, power, sex… It got into the Bible despite the many Jewish rabbis who wanted to have nothing to do with it. Indeed, the early Christian bishops were reluctant to accept it as part of holy writ.
It speaks from human experience and is addressed to the better part of our humanity. Its message is terrific, if gloomily put: nothing life has to offer truly satisfies the human heart. Read the whole book today; you’d finish it in less than half an hour.
Augustine went a step further long ago: ‘You made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ We’re wired for God. Life’s supreme tragedy is to fasten our desire for God onto one of life’s pleasures.
Today’s gospel of the greedy landowner offers a similar message: happiness is not found in the accumulation of things other than God. Luke’s Greek describes the landowner’s desire for bigger barns as lusting for more and more. Not a bad definition of greed.
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you.’ The English doesn’t bring out the original Greek which implies that the landowner’s life (‘psyche’) was on loan to him from God. The life of the loan is up. God is calling in the loan. The landowner thought he was his life’s owner, not its steward.
The ancient world of Aristotle (Politics III, 9) believed that everything – health, wealth, honor – existed in limited supply and had already been distributed. Everyone had been given enough. Anyone who experienced an increase was a thief. That 4th century acerbic and temperamental St. Jerome once wrote, ‘Every rich person is a thief or the heir of a thief,’ (On Jeremiah, II, 5, 2)!! Did old Jerome have ponzi schemers in mind? What should the landowner in the gospel have done? Given his surplus to the poor?
Greed blinds. It skews our spiritual vision, and leads to loss of spiritual sensitivity and human priorities. People who lose everything through home fire, flood, earthquake or tornado talk about how the experience caused them to re-prioritize their values. Loss awakens us to authentic needs and wants, to a newfound freedom from useless wants, and a desire to live more wisely.
Greed builds walls. It separates, isolates. Question: What does greed keep me from? Self-knowledge? Relationships – family, spouse, children? God?
Prayer of an Octogenarian
When I was poor I prayed to be rich, but learned that my true wealth lay in family and friends. When I was sick I prayed to be well, but learned that in sickness I needed others, and that health was a gift. When I grew old I prayed, not for youth again, but for understanding. I prayed for the wisdom to understand that all life is a gift; that it is too short to hold grievances, and too abundant not to look around and enjoy.
PASTOR EMERITUS
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Retirement
A piece on retirement in US NEWS & WORLD REPORT for July 22 caught my attention. Retirement! Celebrated my first day of retirement by sleeping late and not shaving! What’s it like to be on the road from being important to being a nobody? For me, it feels like going from one room to another. But there’s a slight ‘empty nest’ voice coming out of the woodwork. The noise of being pastor of a busy Catholic parish in San Francisco, with its endless round of meetings, is now only an echo in the mind.
Am I lonely for the non-stop phone calls, the relentless round of meetings and appointments? No way! For one thing, I want to catch up with a ton of books I couldn’t reach as a busy pastor. However, without the opportunity to serve others I may not have been spared the toxic absorption with myself. One of my retirement goals is not to fall into that unhealthy condition.
I’m not a TV addict. Except for the golf majors, I rarely watch. Since retirement a month ago, I have been taking more notice of politics, and have been wondering if a small handful of the rich will decide, with their money, who will run, who will win, and how they will govern. It’s scary when I think how easily the electorate swallows what it sees and hears in the expensive political ads put out by these people. I think it all must come down to the question of what American democracy is all about, a reality about which I suspect there is little agreement.
There’s a growing plethora of books, magazine articles and electronic media offerings on the do’s and don’ts of retirement. What does retirement mean in an over-sexed, consumer-obsessed, gadget-distracted and superficial society? That US NEWS & WORLD REPORT item on retirement of July 22nd offered seven secrets of a ‘happy retirement.’ It said that ‘having friends is far more important to retirement bliss than having kids.’ Hmm! Good news for any new retiree who, without a family to turn to, may be feeling a bit unnerved.
What about those passing aches and pains I’ve had for the past couple of years? Will they become worse, permanent? A survival manual with some nannyish advice on how to muddle through a time of aches and pains would help - and preferably written by someone who could run the universe quite adequately, if asked to in a polite tone of voice.
Am I lonely for the non-stop phone calls, the relentless round of meetings and appointments? No way! For one thing, I want to catch up with a ton of books I couldn’t reach as a busy pastor. However, without the opportunity to serve others I may not have been spared the toxic absorption with myself. One of my retirement goals is not to fall into that unhealthy condition.
I’m not a TV addict. Except for the golf majors, I rarely watch. Since retirement a month ago, I have been taking more notice of politics, and have been wondering if a small handful of the rich will decide, with their money, who will run, who will win, and how they will govern. It’s scary when I think how easily the electorate swallows what it sees and hears in the expensive political ads put out by these people. I think it all must come down to the question of what American democracy is all about, a reality about which I suspect there is little agreement.
There’s a growing plethora of books, magazine articles and electronic media offerings on the do’s and don’ts of retirement. What does retirement mean in an over-sexed, consumer-obsessed, gadget-distracted and superficial society? That US NEWS & WORLD REPORT item on retirement of July 22nd offered seven secrets of a ‘happy retirement.’ It said that ‘having friends is far more important to retirement bliss than having kids.’ Hmm! Good news for any new retiree who, without a family to turn to, may be feeling a bit unnerved.
What about those passing aches and pains I’ve had for the past couple of years? Will they become worse, permanent? A survival manual with some nannyish advice on how to muddle through a time of aches and pains would help - and preferably written by someone who could run the universe quite adequately, if asked to in a polite tone of voice.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Prayer - July 25th 2010
Good Friends,
Last week's Reflection failed to download on some of your computers. This week's Reflection on prayer, the subject of Sunday's readings, is 'open' and not on attachment. I hope to have a blog up and running later this week, when I return to town from the Mendocino coast.
In his poem, 'Adveniat Regnum Tuum' (Thy Kingdom Come), that great Catholic apologist of the 20th century, G.K. Chesterton, has the following line: 'Deep in the heart of everyman, where'ere his life be spent, / There is a holy weariness, a holy discontent.'
We do not live lives of contentment which are interrupted by moments of discontent. Our lives are basically restless, but interrupted by short periods of rest and relief. Much of our prayer arises from the 'holy discontent' that nags us day in and day out. We are pray-ers, people who cannot help asking God for assistance.
I learned as a schoolboy long ago one of the oldest definitions of prayer: 'prayer is a lifting up of our minds and hearts to God.' It has taken me a lifetime to figure out what that means. I've spend a large part of my life trying to lift mind and heart to God, only to have it destroyed by 'distraction' - tiredness, boredom, anger, frustration etc. My mistake was in trying to put these things aside (as if they didn't exist!) and lift what was left of 'heart and mind' to God.
The English Benedictine, John Chapman, in his marvellous 'Letters on Prayer,' points out that we can only pray out of who we are and where we are at, and not out of who we are not and where we are not at. When our minds and hearts are tired, angry, bored, distracted or frustrated, we lift it all to God. That, I suggest, is the great lesson of the Psalms, and the first condition of prayer.
Why does nothing happen to perfectly good prayers? Why do our prayers appear to go unanswered? The readings this Sunday assure us that God hears our prayers and will give us what we ask! How square today's teaching with our everyday experience? Our fourth century friend, St. Augustine, says we are usually not ready to receive what we ask because, in the large picture of things, we don't understand what we pray for. God's designs are deeper than our own; the gifts for which we pray are not always worthy of who we are. God waits until we are ready to receive Himself, the substance of all our asking. That is why we must keep asking over and over again. The second condition of prayer, clear from today's readings, is persistence and perseverance in prayer, believing that God hears and will answer.
'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.' A third condition of prayer is a sincere desire to forgive the person who has hurt, injured us, or done us an injustice. We need to ask God for the courage to forgive, keeping in mind that the person who has wronged us is greater than the action he or she performed in hurting us. Genuine Christian prayer should be accompanied by forgiveness, respecting the great commandment to love our neighbor.
Finally, all Christian prayer is directed to God the Father, through Jesus Christ. In praying to the Father through Christ, we identify with the prayer and attitude of Jesus Christ to his Father. Fathers dealt sternly with their sons in biblical times; they were tough and distant disciplinarians. Sons did not play with their fathers like today. In using the term 'Abba' - Dad - Jesus related to a Father who was warm, accessible and loving, much like modern Dads are with their kids. This is how it is between Jesus and his Father. This is the God to whom we pray in Jesus' name.
Pastor Emeritus
Last week's Reflection failed to download on some of your computers. This week's Reflection on prayer, the subject of Sunday's readings, is 'open' and not on attachment. I hope to have a blog up and running later this week, when I return to town from the Mendocino coast.
In his poem, 'Adveniat Regnum Tuum' (Thy Kingdom Come), that great Catholic apologist of the 20th century, G.K. Chesterton, has the following line: 'Deep in the heart of everyman, where'ere his life be spent, / There is a holy weariness, a holy discontent.'
We do not live lives of contentment which are interrupted by moments of discontent. Our lives are basically restless, but interrupted by short periods of rest and relief. Much of our prayer arises from the 'holy discontent' that nags us day in and day out. We are pray-ers, people who cannot help asking God for assistance.
I learned as a schoolboy long ago one of the oldest definitions of prayer: 'prayer is a lifting up of our minds and hearts to God.' It has taken me a lifetime to figure out what that means. I've spend a large part of my life trying to lift mind and heart to God, only to have it destroyed by 'distraction' - tiredness, boredom, anger, frustration etc. My mistake was in trying to put these things aside (as if they didn't exist!) and lift what was left of 'heart and mind' to God.
The English Benedictine, John Chapman, in his marvellous 'Letters on Prayer,' points out that we can only pray out of who we are and where we are at, and not out of who we are not and where we are not at. When our minds and hearts are tired, angry, bored, distracted or frustrated, we lift it all to God. That, I suggest, is the great lesson of the Psalms, and the first condition of prayer.
Why does nothing happen to perfectly good prayers? Why do our prayers appear to go unanswered? The readings this Sunday assure us that God hears our prayers and will give us what we ask! How square today's teaching with our everyday experience? Our fourth century friend, St. Augustine, says we are usually not ready to receive what we ask because, in the large picture of things, we don't understand what we pray for. God's designs are deeper than our own; the gifts for which we pray are not always worthy of who we are. God waits until we are ready to receive Himself, the substance of all our asking. That is why we must keep asking over and over again. The second condition of prayer, clear from today's readings, is persistence and perseverance in prayer, believing that God hears and will answer.
'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.' A third condition of prayer is a sincere desire to forgive the person who has hurt, injured us, or done us an injustice. We need to ask God for the courage to forgive, keeping in mind that the person who has wronged us is greater than the action he or she performed in hurting us. Genuine Christian prayer should be accompanied by forgiveness, respecting the great commandment to love our neighbor.
Finally, all Christian prayer is directed to God the Father, through Jesus Christ. In praying to the Father through Christ, we identify with the prayer and attitude of Jesus Christ to his Father. Fathers dealt sternly with their sons in biblical times; they were tough and distant disciplinarians. Sons did not play with their fathers like today. In using the term 'Abba' - Dad - Jesus related to a Father who was warm, accessible and loving, much like modern Dads are with their kids. This is how it is between Jesus and his Father. This is the God to whom we pray in Jesus' name.
Pastor Emeritus
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