Tuesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

The primary focus of our society is the accumulation of wealth. Virtually everything revolves around the mechanisms for wealth generation and growth. For our society, a flat or declining gross domestic product is cause for fear and alarm and it is simply unacceptable. The state of the economy fills our media and is frequently cited as the primary issue that we consider when we decide to vote. Of course the economy as a whole is merely a reflection of its parts, which is each of us and the decisions that we make. For most in this country, the primary focus of their life is working to accumulate wealth that is far in excess of what is required to fill their basic needs. In a society that tends to value individuals on their ability to produce, people are drawn to dedicating their lives to the acquisition of wealth as a means of validating themselves by the standards that have been set. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus, in no uncertain terms, warns us that the cost of placing material wealth before God is one that we might feel for eternity. Today’s Gospel reading is the second part of a scene in which Jesus discusses the hazard of orienting our lives around the accumulation of wealth. Jesus has just finished a dialogue with a wealthy man who asks him directly what he must do to have eternal life. Jesus responds to the man by informing him that he must not only keep the commandments, but that he must also give up all of his worldly goods and follow Him. Upon hearing this, the young man leaves because he had a great number of possessions. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is discussing what has just occurred with his disciples, and he tells them “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass the eye of a needle than for one which is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” (Mt 19:24). We are then told that the disciples were “greatly astonished.”

An insight into the magnitude of this teaching can be found in the disciple’s astonished reaction. By our current standards, these people were living in an agrarian society in what we would consider abject poverty. Yet, Jesus is telling them that what few possessions that they have are an obstacle to being saved. The luxuries of our current existence would be beyond the wildest imagination of these disciples. If this is the message that Jesus has for those just getting by, what message does he have for those of us for whom high definition television and an X-Box are viewed as a basic necessity? If we find ourselves in that camp or even close to it, Jesus’ words in today’s reading remind us that our priorities have been distorted.

If we recognize that the wealth that we create is derived from the talent that God has given to us, how we treat and dispose of that wealth will change, and it may become a bridge instead of an obstacle to our relationship with God. Instead of our wealth owning us, we own our wealth when we use it in the service of God.

- John Sperino