Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 138

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.

We may easily suppose that the targets of God's wrath, as we hear them described in the prophecies of Amos, and in the parable of the rich man and Dives, are those fabulously wealthy but incredibly few men and women  who control most of the world's wealth. They are often described as one hundredth of one percent (.01%) of the world's population. 

If these people rarely appear in public for the television and Internet cameras, we can watch their pets -- that is, the entertainers of Hollywood, Broadway, and the major opera houses of the world. We can suppose they also underwrite the insane salaries of CEOs, super-models, and super-athletes. 

Nor do they seem even vaguely aware of the violence and danger which daily confronts the world's poor. As Amos said, "...they are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph!" Although they are obsessed with growing wealthier, and have an army of lawyers, politicians, and influencers to maintain they momentum, they cannot know the anxiety of the middle class who worry daily about falling into poverty. They live far above the bull and bear markets, booms and busts, depressions, recessions, and expansions of our world.  

What is more difficult to imagine is how God might do away with this class of people, and send them into a well-earned "exile (where) their wanton revelry shall be done away with." (As Amos desires.) We cannot imagine a real time closing of the wealth gap that has been widening since long before history was recorded. 

Periodically, people imagine a mythic, golden age and place -- perhaps in Africa (Wakanda), the Himalayas (Lost Horizon), or some mysteriously warm oasis in Antarctica, or in the 25th century (StarTrek) -- but, given the epic struggle to create equality among America's races, religions, and mysteriously increasing genders, these stories of an idyllic, edenic, prehistoric or post-historic age of equality seem laughably implausible. It just never happened, and never will.  

Philosopher Richard Weaver, in his book, Ideas have Consequences, pointed to the myth of equality as one of America's gravest errors. Some people are larger than others; some are smarter; some are more athletic; some are less intelligent; many are born in poverty and neither they nor their children will ever escape it. Many people demonstrate genius in one field or another, but most of us are very good at nothing in particular. Where is this mythical equality that should govern us?

Human beings make decisions through hierarchic systems, ascribing more authority to some than to others. And that's because we must make thousands of decisions daily, and the practice of consensus -- as lovely as it is when it works -- cannot make every major and minor decision. Someone has to decide, and we want someone to do so. 

And -- no surprise -- decision makers often prefer themselves, their families, their friends, and people like them over everyone else. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius tried valiantly to discipline his own ambitions, and has been admired for doing so; but he was only one, rather odd fellow among a host of avaricious, greedy, and demented tyrants who ruled the Roman empire. Should a wealthy man not share his privilege with his wife, children, and grandchildren? Should he not provide them with all the health benefits and education that money can buy? 

Periodically, something happens that corrects the worst of imbalances. It may be a civil war, a foreign invasion, disease, famine, an earthquake or tsunami. It will feel apocalyptic in nature, as if the end of the world has come. Pearl Buck, in her novel The Good Earth, described a mini-revolution in which the poor of a Chinese city invade and destroy a home of fabulous wealth. 

Saint Francis of Assisi renounced his father's hard-earned fortune to espouse poverty, or "Lady Poverty," as his peculiar way to know the Lord Jesus. His example inspired Bernard of Quintavalle to abandon his extravagant wealth. He and Francis opened the Quintavalle palace to anyone who wanted to take anything, and within a few hours the building was stripped of everything. 

Because he wanted to know Jesus, Saint Francis had a passionate love for the suffering of the cross. It was a crucifix that first directed him toward his penitential way of life. When he was asked what kind of habit his friars should wear, he said, “Let us put on the cross of Christ;” and so our habit is a single piece from neck to ankle, with the arms of the cross. Two years before he died, he saw a vision of the Crucified Lord, and then the stigmata of the Lord’s wounds appeared on his hands, feet, and side. He reminded the medieval Church that, if we would love the Lord, we must love his cross; and he taught the Church this now familiar prayer, “We worship you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”

If the nations of the world are ever to close the wealth gap, and end our continual upheavals and wars, which get deadlier every day, we must welcome the cross. Some people complain when we say, “Without the Church there is no salvation.” But we must take it further, “Without the cross there is no salvation.” As the Quaker William Penn said, “No cross, no crown!” 

Jesus has shown us that the cross is more than bearable; it is the golden opportunity that everyone, rich and poor, strong and weak, educated and illiterate, male and female – everyone is given their crosses to carry. No one can blame others for their cross, no one is excused from carrying theirs. For without the love of the cross, the world has no hope. 

To paraphrase Saint Paul, “If I give away everything I own, and if I hand over my body to be burned… but do not love the cross, I gain nothing.” If all the wealthy nations and all the wealthy families stripped themselves of their wealth, nothing would change until they love the cross, and do so in imitation of Jesus Christ. 

Recently, on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in our Liturgy of the Hours, the Church sang,

How radiant is that precious cross which brought us our salvation.  

In the cross we are victorious.  

Through the cross we shall reign.  

By the cross all evil is destroyed.