Let’s imagine Jesus is physically (not just sacramentally) with us right here. What is that you want to ask him to do for you? What problems or struggles would you ask him to solve? We don’t have to try to come up with something that is not related to our lives. I think the key is truly being honest with ourselves before Jesus. What bothers you? What boggles your mind? What is in your way? It can be something like “Can you tell my colleague at work to have some decency?” or “Why is my brother not acting in his age?” Whatever question or request you have for Jesus, it is where you begin your conversation with Jesus.
In today’s gospel lesson, there’s this man in the crowd who asks Jesus to solve his family problem. We might consider his question not so spiritual or theological. We might think why he would request Jesus such a stupid thing. While his request is not theologically deep, this man is at least honest. Having a brother, probably older, who is not willing to share the family inheritance is his real problem. It doesn’t matter to him whether his request or question is spiritual or not. What matters to him the most at this stage of his life is to take some part of the family inheritance from his older brother. Since Jesus is well known among people as a wise teacher and a righteous prophet, he may be the only one who can convince his greedy brother to share the family inheritance with him. Jesus, however, fails this man’s expectation. Jesus in a way disappoints him. He is not the one who can resolve his family disputes. Jesus then asks the man, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” This question is not really a question. It is Jesus’s answer to the man with the family problem. We can imagine Jesus saying something like “My friend, your family problem is not a real problem.” Jesus knows what real problem this man has. He then tells him the parable of the rich man. As you already heard the story, I won’t go into the details but only two things we can reflect this morning. The first thing focuses on the rich man’s saying and the second on God’s saying. First, notice that the rich man is completely self-focused. He believes everything his land produced to be his. Let’s listen to his own words, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops? 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.” My crops, my barns, my grain, and my goods. Me, me, me, my, my, my, and mine, mine, mine. There’s no room for others in his mind. He’s only concerned with himself. There’s no love of neighbor. Greed is the vice that has no capacity for gratitude and other human beings. Greed is never satisfied and fulfilled. It’s like pouring water into a bucket full of holes. Nothing remains in that greedy person’s soul. Only restlessness and busyness. The rich man whose heart is filled with greed will try to build more barns once he is finished with the first one. His project of storing his crops will never stop. Even if he builds more than 100 barns, his soul will find no rest. His soul will not be so merry. That’s the nature of this vice called greed or avarice. And in this nature, one “turns away from the divine good by cleaving to a temporal good.” (ST II.2.Q118.A5) The second thing I would like us to reflect on this morning is about the finitude of life. God in the parable appears and sounds like scolding the rich man, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” What God says in the parable is painfully realistic. No one can take anything with themselves upon death. All the possessions of the rich man will be someone else’s. Who knows this parable would’ve been the personal story of the man who asks Jesus to solve his problem with his brother? What’s left behind the rich man can be the cause of all the family disputes. The point of Jesus’s parable is that those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God will always end up losing everything when they die. In other words, it means: Be rich toward God. Do not let your eyes be blinded by greed. Greed blinds you from seeing what is most important. Greed only makes you see what’s temporal, not what’s eternal. Therefore, it distances you from loving others as yourself which ends up distancing yourself from God. The one driven by the vice of greed is the one who is clothed with the old self that St Paul talks about in the second lesson. Now, what are we taking away from today’s gospel lesson? I can easily say, “My friends, let’s get rid of greed in our hearts. Instead, let’s be rich toward God. Let’s focus on what’s eternal, not what’s temporal. Let’s us strip off the old self and clothe ourselves with the new self.” But how!? How do we get rid of greed? How do we become rich toward God? How do we focus on what’s eternal in this temporal world? How do we strip off the old self and clothe ourselves with the new self? My friends, I must tell you this is almost an impossible task without first experiencing what’s eternal in ourselves. It’s not just information or knowledge you have to subscribe to so that you can instantly strip off all the bad habits our old selves are disposed to. It is the, not just any, experience that changes us. It is the experience of our new selves in Jesus Christ that grant us virtues to desire what’s eternal, which is God himself. Then where do we experience this new self? Where do we experience what’s eternal? Don’t look outside. It’s not out there. It’s not after death. You can only experience deep within yourself. When Jesus says “The Kingdom of God is within you,” this we must take literally. The Kingdom of God is really within you. This is the same as that which we are all created in the image of God. The image of God which we have in us is the very existence of God’s kingdom. I’ve mentioned a few Sundays ago about the Hindu greeting of namaste. It means “The divine in me honors the divine in you.” This simple practice of greeting is a much deeper practice of our belief that all human beings are created in the image of God as well as Jesus’s saying that the Kingdom of God is within us. So, we can say, “The Kingdom of God in you honors the Kingdom of God in you.” The image of God in me honors the image of God in you. And that image we all share is God’s very own son Jesus Christ. This image of God in us, this presence of God’s kingdom in us is something eternal whereas everything else is all temporal. Since it is eternal, it doesn’t go anywhere. The reason why we don’t sense it is because we don’t pay too much attention to it. Spirituality in our Christian faith is simply living life in the Spirit. In other words, it is to pay attention to the divine in us. All of you have experienced this kingdom of God, the divine in you. You might not remember or have not recognized it or didn’t know what to call it. I can give you some examples. When you feel deeply moved by something such as singing a hymn that touches your heart and brings you a sense of love, hope, joy, and peace, that’s the kingdom of God in you. That’s when you’re connected with your inner self. What about when you’re in nature, looking at a beautiful waterfall or putting your feet in a river that refreshes your body and soul? You’re connected with your inner self in which the kingdom of God is. This doesn’t mean you can only connect with your inner self, the image of God in you when you’re in a good mood. What about when you hear horrible news such as a diagnosis of your illness or death of someone you care about? What about the domestic terrorism in El Paso? We become silent before all these horrible news and tragedies. In a way, you’re in touch with your inner self, your very existence that you know what matters the most in our lives. In our busy lives, we tend to forget this very existence of our own which makes who we really are in Christ. If we completely ignore this image of God in us, we become like the rich man in the parable. We lose sight of what’s eternal which is and has been in us. The sacrament of baptism is the very public entrance into the new self in Christ and our conscious acknowledgement that we confess that we are created in the image of God which is restored and resurrected in Jesus Christ. In doing so, we become God’s children. And as we partake the Body and Blood of Christ, we are sacramentally connected to our inner selves and God’s very own flesh and blood. So, my friends, this morning I ask you to be in touch with your very own existence. When you deeply connect with your inner self, you will realize God is in you and has never left you. God has been in you ever since you came to this world. The more we are aware of God’s kingdom, God’s reign in us, the richer we are toward God, the deeper our new selves grow, the closer we come to Jesus, the more we become loving to our neighbors in suffering, the more we become truly who we are in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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