Beware---Conversations of One!*

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23

Psalm 49:1-11

Colossians 3:1-11

Luke 12:13-21

I hear trouble in these texts!

Ecclesiastes:

Vanity, chasing after the wind, it is a bit of a rant…and kind of despairing—

The Psalm:

For we see that the wise die also, like the dull and the stupid…they vanish…
…and they leave behind all that STUFF for others to fight over

And Jesus names it straight up in the Gospel

The trouble is GREED

The trouble is Covetousness

There is no warning against
money
wealth
material abundance

OR planning for retirement

Jesus warns against Greed---Covetousness

And it is a passionate warning! 

TAKE CARE (with an exclamation mark)

---BE ON GUARD

It is as if GREED is lying in wait---

ready to pounce when we least expect it---
if we don’t TAKE CARE!

we just might wake up one morning,

seized and possessed, body mind and Spirit…by GREED!

We can have a greedy appetite for a multitude of things:
money

Honor
fame
sex
compliments
power

But the thing that really makes Greed…Greed

is its appetite

its insatiability
it eats and eats

but remains hungry and unsatisfied

“we can never get enough of what we really don’t need”

This Greed

Centers around a false idea of abundance

We get that…We believe that

We believe the moral of today’s parable

We know that TRUE abundance…abundant life

Doesn’t consist in the things

we might be greedy for from time to time

We know False Abundance when we see it.

And we know what Real Abundance looks like

Just these past few Sundays we have heard the Gospel of Luke

Continue to spell it out

Remember the Lawyers Question of a couple weeks ago

What am I to do to gain eternal/abundant life?

Love God

Love Neighbor

Be in relationship with God

Be in relationship with your neighbor

Then the Good Samaritan Story

Tells us who is our neighbor

And how to reach out and love and care and do good

for the neighbor who is a stranger

And then the Martha and Mary story

That answers the first part of the question

How to love God

Well, try sitting at God’s feet

Try letting go of everything you have to do

And listen, rest, be attentive…in God’s presence

And last week was

How to pray

OUR FATHER…not MY Father

GIVE US this day…not GIVE ME

Pray together

Include everyone’s needs

We know this

And we believe this

True abundant life is about

Relationships

And community

And purpose

And meaning

We know

The joy of a great conversation

The satisfaction of doing good for another in need

The wonderful feeling of being accepted into a community

We have experienced

Each in our own way

What Paul describes in the Letter to the Colossians

We have experienced

If just for a short time

The wonder of knowing our lives as

“hidden with Christ in God”

So if we know all this

Then, why is there so much trouble?

I have at least part of an answer…

Could it be because the things that make for FALSE abundance

Are so so tangible and accessible

We can produce them or go to walmart and buy them

And all those things that we know make for TRUE abundance

They are so much harder to lay our hands on

Stuff is tangible

Relationships, community, meaning…

They may be far more powerful

But they are not so easily grasped

They take time and effort

Being seduced by the tangible…

That which is within my immediate grasp

Well…it is such a convincing and tempting short cut

I think this truth is evidenced

in the Rich Farmer’s conversation

That he is having

Not with another human being

Not with his wife, or neighbor, or friend

But with himself

He even has a conversation with himself

within the conversation he’s having with himself

It is really quite funny

Let me do it with a little theatrics:

WHAT…should I do?

For I have no place to store my crops?

Then he said

I will do this:

I WILL pull down MY barns and build larger ones,

And THERE I will store all my grain and my goods.

And I WILL say to my Soul

SOUL!

YOU have ample goods laid up for many years:

Relax

Eat

Drink

Be merry

I can see him…

He is the beginning and the end of his world

He’s all wrapped up…in himself

Now, Hold on to that picture

I went to visit a beautiful 95 year old lady in the hospital Wednesday

I walk in, and went to the far side of the bed where she was facing

I made a brief introduction

And I noticed her hands holding on to two knitting needles

and about 5 inches of…well knitting

we chatted a bit

she told me she knits to keep the muscles in her hands working

after a bit

I leaned in so that she could hear me

And I asked

“What is your secret?”

I didn’t provide the “to what” part…and she didn’t ask

I didn’t really have anything in mind

It just seemed she might have a secret

And she answered...slowly…she was a bit short of breath

Well, I am a child of the depression

But, I remember, we never were hungry

My Daddy was a real good hunter

And fisherman too

Down the road,

there was a family that a few dairy cows…not a farm

Just a few cows

So we had plenty of milk too.

And another family had a large garden

So I guess

It just all worked out.

Since I had this Lukan passage on my mind all week

I heard her answer in relation to this parable

Her telling

Painted a picture in my mind

And it was the complete opposite

of the Farmer and his conversation with himself

He was the beginning and end of his life’s horizon

You can almost see him imploding

But with her story

I could see an unwinding that kept including more and more people

And there was enough

There was real abundance

St Augustine said that

God gave us people to love and things to use

and Sin is when we get the two mixed up

When I catch myself using or manipulating people

and loving things

I am probably

also

Having conversations with myself

I am talking with myself…all excited about my plans

I am buying the myth that I am in control

And I don’t need any other horizon but myself

It happens

Doesn’t it?

It happens

Because covetousness and greed are sneaky

And I am not always on guard

Jesus doesn’t give us any clear instructions in this particular passage

But leading up to today

The Good Samaritan…

Martha and Mary…

The Lord’s Prayer…

I see a stance

A stance of goodness and kindness

A stance of openness and listening

A stance of offering and invitation

Today’s Gospel

Invites us to imagine

And to wonder

How can we help one another to live into

The real abundant life that God calls us to?

How can we keep those less tangible

But far more powerful things front and center?

How can we keep focused on

The joy of a good conversation

The sense of purpose that comes from helping another

The warmth of a long, loving and steadfast relationship

The feeling of community that comes when we gather

How can we be on guard

So that we are not seduced by false abundance?

For one thing

We keep the conversation going

We name it when we see it

Both the real and the false

Especially the REAL

those real things

Maybe a list

A three minutes list at the beginning of each day

Just a few minutes to get the day started

with people and things in the proper perspective

·      My family

·      That one friend that stayed late to clean the dishes with me

·      The gift of faith

·      God’s beautiful creation right outside these doors

·      My sweet dog

·      Coffee

·      My sense of smell and taste

·      The opportunity to breathe deeply

·      Laughter

Etc….

And how about that stance

That big stretch

That physical stance that reminds us that real abundance cannot be grasped

It flows

It flows over us and through us

To the world and back again

True abundance

God’s abundance

We can count on that

Thanks be to God!



Sources
-Diane Bergant, Preaching the New Lectionary Year C, pages 316-321
-David Lose, "What Money Can and Can't Do", https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2668
-Sara Pagina, Luke, pages 197-202
-John Shea,  The Relentless Widow, Luke Year C, pages 215-219

Mea Culpa Martha

I can't help it!  But isn't it funny how the following "About Today" feature on the Feast of St Martha is all about Lazarus!

Martha was the sister of Mary of Bethany and Lazarus. In the West, her feast day comes a week after that of St Mary Magdalene because of the old and probably erroneous tradition that Mary Magdalene was the same person as Martha’s sister.
But at least Martha and Mary both get celebrated somehow. What about poor Lazarus? He deserves our sympathy for being brought back to life by Jesus so as, later, to have to die all over again. What he thought of being brought back to Earth is not recorded. The presence of the incarnate Lord must have made up for the postponement of Heaven, but – where less dramatic circumstances are concerned – we should think of Lazarus when we prepare to make spectacular acts of charity on behalf of people who may not necessarily appreciate our interventions.
    (From universalis.com)

On behalf of the Church, Martha, I'm sorry.

I for one have a special devotion to you and am inspired by your statement of faith:

Yes Lord I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, the one who is to come into the world!

And, frankly, I'm not at all curious about how Lazarus felt about his second chance!

St. Martha, pray for us...really...we need it;)

Je Suis Jaques Hamel

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. 

Where there is hatred, let me sow love; 

where there is injury, pardon; 

where there is doubt, faith; 

where there is despair, hope; 

where there is darkness, light; 

where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, 

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled 

as to console; 

to be understood as to understand; 

to be loved as to love; 

For it is in giving that we receive; 

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; 

it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

Help my unbelief...

Who Doesn't Want to be First?

Feast of St. James

Matthew 20:20-28

“whoever wishes to be great among you 

shall be your servant”

Am I laughing at our Gospel reading today?

The first funny thing to note is that Matthew ‘cleans up’ Mark’s telling a bit.  Having such dimwitted disciples  made him a bit uncomfortable. He does this by having the mother of Zebedee’s sons make that audacious request:

“Command that these two sons of mine to sit,

one at your right and the other at your left”

Do I hear ‘helicopter Mom”?

…They spoke for themselves in the Markan version. 

And then Jesus seeks to help them understand.  You must drink the cup.  No, it is NOT the cup of the Heavenly Banquet (he knows what they are thinking).  It is the cup of suffering.  This drinking is the culmination of the life of a servant.  There is no first.  There is no ‘best seat in the house.’  At least that is how I read it. 

I think we are genetically pre-disposed to pecking-order thinking.  Even the most humble words meant to undo that mindset (like diakonos) we turn into honor-laden titles.

I am remembering a funny quip:

Early one morning

The Prior walks by the Abbot at prayer

He watches and witnesses as the Abbot beats his breast saying:

I am nothing, I am nothing

Later that day

The woman from the village who helps in the kitchen

Walks by the Prior at prayer

She watches and witnesses as the Prior beats his breast saying:

I am nothing, I am nothing

The next morning

The Abbot and the Prior walk by the woman at prayer

They watch and witness as the woman beats her breast saying:

I am nothing, I am nothing

The Prior says to the Abbot:

Look who thinks she’s nothing;)

It is funny because I can relate.  I can make anything (even prayer and piety;) into a competition…

But the Gospel calls me to leave that behind.

And instead to try making a habit of

  Drinking the cup

  Of being last

  Of being a servant

That’s the recipe the Gospel gives

For reforming the cultural DNA that keeps telling me that life is a competition

Transition Times

Saturday of Week 16 in Ordinary Time

Saint Bridget of Sweden

There is something about St. Bridget's story that confronts me today.  She married a nobleman, had eight children and lived "at court" as a lady-in-waiting to the queen.  Her story tells of how she attempted to tame the excesses of courtly life but with little success.  

How did she do that?  It had to have been more than the subtle witness of her life...right?  I wonder what she said and did to express her discomfort with her surroundings and the crazy imbalance of the royal-peasant paradigm?

Eventually, her discomfort grew so heightened that she and her husband made pilgrimage to St. James at Compostela in Spain.  And that did it.  That exercise (long and arduous no doubt) in bodily prayer was enough to re-orient the rest of their lives...which for them meant living what remained of their lives in service to the people of God.  They did this through embracing the monastic way of life---and founding a few communities as they went.

At 55 I see another transition looming.  Almost an empty nest.  Children living energizing lives far away and on their own.  What seemed so essential 20 years ago carries far less weight.  And yet, I have to ask, what has taken its place?  

I remember this quote (source unknown even after googling---but it isn't me):

If I met my 20 year old self today I'd recognize her but she wouldn't recognize me.

I want to be able to say that about my

40, 50 and 60 year old selves

I want to go through transitions

without the fear of changing

I want and I hope

St. Bridget, pray for me