Memorial of Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs
We've had a lot of new things this past year. The two biggest additions to our life are little Eli (two weeks old) and our new home. We have come to love our new home and have put a lot of time, energy, and money into it. Yet, like all homes it comes with a never ending list of things we could do to improve it or things we need to do to maintain it. While we've been able to relish our new home and have done so with greater appreciation after brining Eli home to it, we are served well by taking Jesus' parable to heart.
Jesus' parable opens with this warning in today's lectionary, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.” A different rendering of this passage as found in the Revised Standard Version reads this way, "Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." I like taking these two translations in tandem.
For one, I like "take care" because my wife is always saying "Tengas cuidado" to the kids (and sometimes me). I also really like the command to "guard against." I think of basketball players boxing each other out under the hoop as a shot goes up. It is active, alert and speaks of the danger at hand.
On the other hand I like the language of "all covetousness" better than greed. Surely we know greed from the seven deadly sins, but we know coveting from the Ten Commandments. One of those seems more imminent and a likely threat. Maybe this is just my own problem, but I find it easier to think of others as greedy, but I can't deny my own temptations toward covetousness.
Finally, I like the admission that someone can have wealth with a certain Christian indifference to it, a disposition that finds joy in abundance or in want because our joy is in Christ, just like St. Paul talked about the weekend before last.
All of this is fresh in my mind as we recently spoke with my sister-in-law about how we sometimes let coveting take root in our hearts without realizing it. We had been talking to her about our living room and how it currently serves as our gymnasium/dance floor because of its lack of furniture. We need to intentionally relish this season when the kids have this abundant space for indoor play because he have lived in places with smaller space and one day we'll have furniture in there that might make the space complete but won't make us complete. It won't make our family complete. It will transform the space into a new place to form memories, but memories that are no more or no less valuable than the ones we are forming right now.
Moreover, the parable has the implied lesson that our abundance is not to be selfishly hoarded. This seems to be a good way of guarding against covetousness and greed as well. When we look upon our abundance as something to be shared, we are slower to assign our happiness to our "possession" of things. For ultimately, nothing really belongs to us.
- Spencer Hargadon