Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL’S THOUGHT ON BIBLICAL IMAGERY

(Fr. Michael Boakye Yeboah, Vice Rector: St Gregory Seminary, Kumasi-Ghana)

WEALTH

         The Church on the 18th Sunday in Ordinary time presents to us the biblical image of WEALTH for our reflections.

         The Oxford Learners Dictionary defines wealth as a ‘large amount of money, property, etc. or ‘the state of being rich’ (Oxford Learners Dictionary, 1995, p. 138). The Old Testament has examples of people who were quite enterprising to the point that they accumulated some wealth. Job was a wealthy man. Abraham and Lot were quite wealthy. The joy of it is that they did not allow their wealth to go to their heads. I would like to make these clarifications because at times some Christians erroneously link wealth with damnation.

         In the Gospel (Luke 12:13-21) Jesus distinguishes between having and being. Being is man’s life and existence; assets are the larger or smaller assemblage of possessions [having] that permit him to continue living. The simple warning is given here so that man does not confuse means with purpose, nor equate the meaning of his being with the size of his accumulated assets. The absurdity of such an equation leaps out at us if we reflect not only on man’s death, but on the fact that he must account to God for his life. Even if the Old Testament parallel has not yet come into focus for us, even though Jesus asks the question: “To whom will all this that you have assembled belong [if you die]?”, this is not the central question for him. His point is “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, … but store up treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:19-20). We know that in the sight of God it is not the quantity of our assets but the quality of our being that is in question (cf. 1 Cor 3:11-15). This is apparent especially in the tiny word “self”. He who wishes to have things, collects treasures “for himself”; he who has a rich being renounces this “self” and thinks about his being in God. God is the treasure. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be” (Matt. 6:21). If God is our treasure, then we must be dominated by the thought that God’s endless wealth is found in his self-giving and self-emptying, that is, in the very opposite of the wish to have everything.

          In the first reading (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23) Qoheleth brings home to us the absurdity of the fact that the goods one has assembled artfully and industriously can be inherited after one’s death by a lazy ne’er-do-well. Thus, a contradiction that is renewed with each new generation. It thereby clearly reveals the vanity of all earthly desire to possess things.

         The second reading (Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11) draws the comprehensive conclusion: “set your heart on what pertains to higher realms… rather than on things of earth.” But “heavenly things” are not the treasures, merits, and rewards we have piled up in heaven, rather, they are simply “Christ”. He is “our life”, the truth of our existence, for we owe to him everything that we are, in God and for God – we are this precisely in him “in whom all treasures are hidden” (Col. 2:3). “Build yourselves on him”, the Apostle counsels us (Col. 2:7), even if that means that the essential meaning of our life is thereby hidden from earthly view. All forms of the desire to have, which Paul proceeds to list (vv. 5ff) and which are merely various degenerative forms of yearning, must now be “put to death” for the sake of being in Christ. The putting to death is in truth a birth: the “becoming of a new person”. In the course of this putting to death, all divisions that delimit the being of man (“slave” or “free”) fall away, while everything valuable about our specific being (Paul calls this the “charisma” [the giftedness]) contributes to the ultimate fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:11-16).

         It is the worth of being that should be the Christian’s driving aim. In his lyrics on “Crown” of the Christian singer Hillsong, this idea is graphically highlighted. He wrote: “…my wealth is in the cross…there’s nothing more I want than just to know His love…my heart is set on Christ and I will count all else as loss…the greatest of my crowns means nothing to me now…for I counted up the cost and all my wealth is in the cross. I will not boast in riches…I have no pride in gold but I will boast in Jesus and in His Name alone…” These beautiful words of Hillsong may have been influenced by the testimony of St Paul in Philippians 3:8-10: “… I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death…”

         This wealth of being far surpasses the wealth in gold and possessions in Christian perspectives but the latter seem to dominate the minds of some people in our world to the extent that the former seem not to matter. The acquisition of material wealth has come with its gains and challenges in our world today. Some parts of the world have not been at the receiving end of the gains of the acquisition of material wealth.

         Come to Africa and other parts of the world and see for yourself how man’s acquisition of wealth has led to the destruction of human life and vegetation. In my country Ghana, citizens and foreigners in their quest for gold are destroying human life and vegetation. Years by, many villagers drunk directly from rivers and streams but today, almost all our river bodies are polluted. Go to DR Congo, which is arguably the richest land (in natural resources) on the planet, but the selfishness of a few citizens and foreigners have made their wealth turned to be likened to a curse. In Nigeria, some citizens see the discovery of oil and gas as a curse than a blessing because the standard of living of the average Nigerian is not better than those Nigerians who lived before the discovery of oil in that country. This is not only an African issue but a global one. Some years back, there were chains of demonstrations in Europe on why the one percent (1%) is enjoying the wealth of Europe at the detriment of the ninety-nine percent (99%).

         Some people do not care even if human life will be lost for one to get wealthy; even Jesus’ own life was exchanged for thirty pieces of silver: are we safe? It was due to lack of sharing that in today’s Gospel someone petitioned Jesus. The petitioner said: “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” Jesus refused to help the petitioner because he came to make us spiritually wealthy and not materially wealthy. We need financial wealth for a better livelihood on earth but its acquisition should not let us lose sight of the most important wealth: that is the quality of being.

         A story is told of a wealthy man who was so obsessed with his wealth to the extent that he had no regard for anybody or thing. To him money is the “Rule” whose possession gives one the power to dominate and rule. He got sick at a matured age and when he knew he will die told his wife and relations that they should make sure to bring with him his wealth when he dies. When he finally died, he was laid in state in a funeral home but when the time for caretakers to close his casket for burial his sister found out that the man’s wife had not fulfilled the wishes of her departed brother. So, she asked the wife: ‘…but my brother told you of his wishes, but I see no money in the casket…’ the wife responded: ‘Oh! Check his pocket, I have signed a check for him and he is free to cash it when he gets where he is going…”