Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 138

Thus says the LORD the God of hosts:

Woe to the complacent in Zion! 
Lying upon beds of ivory, 
stretched comfortably on their couches, 
they eat lambs taken from the flock, 
and calves from the stall! 

Improvising to the music of the harp, like David, they devise their own accompaniment. They drink wine from bowls and anoint themselves with the best oils; yet they are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph! 

Therefore, now they shall be the first to go into exile, and their wanton revelry shall be done away with.

It's not as if we didn't see what began in the 1980's: the corporate take-overs, the soup kitchens, and the attacks upon labor unions. We saw it but ignored it. The economy was good for a lot of people. Even Hollywood saw what was happening. The movie Wall Street and its anti-hero, Gordon Gekko, announced, "Greed is good." People agreed. What was the harm of greed? 

Since the 1980's, Catholics and many Christians protest against abortion but cannot agree on the bigger picture. We do not dare to renounce the consumer's credo, "If I can afford it, I should be free to buy it." You can buy guns and drugs and pornography You can "shop till you drop."  But you cannot have abortion? As if the consumer would agree to that one limit on her freedom. 

We impose no limits on how much money a person can amass;  and no constraints on what he can buy. The individual -- Gordon Gekko -- can have anything he can take, regardless of the needs, hopes, ambitions or dignity of others. The law becomes only a veneer of respectability for cancerous greed. 

Pictures from the Picnic

The Prophet Amos saw the devastation of greed nine hundred years before Jesus was born. Jesus watched the wealthy drop a pittance into the temple treasury and despised them. 

His story of Lazarus and the rich man is rich with irony. The man who had everything now begs for a drop of water on his tongue. He goes so far as to ask Abraham to send that boy into the fiery abyss to relieve my suffering. He has already forgotten the chasm that he set between the wealthy and the poor, and that he made it impassible. No one can cross from one side to the other. The poor are locked into destitution; the wealthy hoard their privileges. 

Realizing his helplessness he dares to blame God for his plight. "I wasn't warned!" he implies as he begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers. Abraham reminds him, "You had Moses and the prophets, but you would not listen to them. Nor would you listen if someone rises from the dead!" 

David speaks to us in the 49th psalm, of the futility of wealth:

Why should I fear in evil days, with the iniquity of my assailants surrounding me, of those who trust in their wealth and boast of their abundant riches?
No man can ransom even a brother, or pay to God his own ransom.
The redemption of his soul is costly; and he will pass away forever. He is like the beast —they perish.

Wealth is the Great Lie. It promises but cannot deliver. We are doomed to death from the day of our birth. Wealth may lengthen our life but only marginally; we'll be dead a long time longer than we ever lived. 

Wealth promises to make our brief life easier. The psalmist complained, "Their bodies are sound and sleek." but then he remembered God's justice:

You set them, indeed, on a slippery road; you hurl them down to ruin. How suddenly they are devastated; utterly undone by disaster! They are like a dream after waking, Lord, dismissed like shadows when you arise.

Pictures from the Picnic

Our Holy Father Pope Francis has stunned the world by protesting against the worsening plight of the poor. He has done so using one of the oldest methods of all, living simply. We can do the same, and perhaps, by doing so, avoid the curse that must fall on the rich. As the original Francis said, "While we have time, let us do good."