I have only met one really rich person. I had lunch with him and his wife at his house on a big estate in the Chilterns. You can see and hear me speaking this Homily on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2rYwoAdl70. His wife told me that he was not a very happy person, indeed he had suffered much from depression; and only two things cheered him up – watching cricket and allowing the RSPB to use his estate to reintroduce Red Kites to southern Britain! It reminds us doesn’t it, that the idea that if I am rich then I will be happy is far from the truth; and that of course is one of the main points of our Gospel today. (Luke 12:13-21) .
But I think we should take a closer look at the alternative that Jesus offers us; for he ends the Gospel by saying that we should aim instead “To be rich in the sight of God.” Now what does that mean? Some people have suggested that it means doing as many good things as possible so that when we die we receive the riches of heaven; but I think that as usual Jesus is not simply talking about what happens after death, much more he is talking about life now. Remember he doesn’t say “Anyone who believes in me will have eternal life” – future tense; he actually says “Anyone who believes in me has eternal life”. In fact, St John records this at least three times in his Gospel – once in Chapter 5 and twice in Chapter 6.
I think we get some good hints at what this means from our wonderful 2nd Reading (Col 3:1-11) where St Paul wants us to realise that we have been called into a much deeper relationship with God than just trying to please him by living a good life. Of course that’s important, as he lists some of the things we should avoid. But notice that he stresses the greatest danger of all, just as Jesus does, and that danger is greed. But by greed he doesn’t means just eating or drinking too much, rather it is about an attitude to life expressed in the more technical word “avarice”, in which life becomes an endless grabbing of as many things as possible that might make us happy. And that may mean searching on and on for the latest new thing that we might buy, or do, or experience, that we think will solve all life’s problems for us. It’s the great temptation isn’t it, that all of us, me included, often fall into, especially when life is hard? One very modern example is the desire of some women to be men and some men to be women. I have great sympathy for those in this position, but whatever they decide to do, they need to know that doing this is unlikely to solve their problems. It is like people who think that if they move house, or go to live in a different town, or even in a different country, then they will find happiness, only to discover that they take many of their problems with them.
As I hinted earlier, it is easy for us Christians to think that “To be rich in the sight of God” means doing lots of good things. But I have known people who expend endless energy doing good things for others, and desperately trying to do more and more, and yet they remain totally dissatisfied with life, and often angry with God. Thinking about this, reminded me of St Therése of Liseiux who, as some of you will know, was someone who spent a lot of time trying to find out what she should do for God. She writes about how she read about all the different gifts in St Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians Chapter 12. She couldn’t find there anything she could do for God. She wasn’t a teacher, or a healer, or a preacher, or someone with wisdom or knowledge. She was just a simple young French woman living as a Nun in a Carmelite Convent; and to add to this she was an invalid who was gradually dying from Tuberculosis. But she found her answer when she moved on to read the next Chapter, the famous one. And she tells us how with great joy she said to Jesus that she had found her vocation. It was not to do anything, but it was, as she writes to be something. She wrote “O Jesus my love, at last I have found my vocation. To be love deep down in the heart of the Church” (O Jésus, mon Amour... enfin je l'ai trouvée, ma vocation, c'est l'amour ...dans le Coeur de l'Eglise… je serai l'Amour..)
In the end it is not what we do, but how we do it that matters to God. And the first thing our Christian faith teaches is that whatever we do, we never do it in our own strength, but always with and in the power and grace of God. There is nothing more awful than people who go on about all that they are doing expecting to be thanked and praised for it. And there is nothing more wonderful than people who quietly do good without expecting anything in return. Remember the end of the prayer of St Ignatius Loyola whose Feast Day is at this time? “To labour and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do thy will.” St Ignatius came from a very rich Spanish family and had followed their idea of doing great deeds in order to achieve more acclaim, more status in the eyes of others. But then he discovered the way of the saints, the way of Jesus, to labour simply in and with God’s love.
In St Paul’s original Greek, he doesn’t write as we have it in our 2nd Reading : “Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ”. No, he writes: “Since you have been co-raised with Christ.” There is only one way to be rich in the sight of God, and that is to do all things in Christ. Jesus is the only offering we can make to God. God has given us himself in Jesus, so that as we become one with Jesus, we can be drawn into union with God. That is why the Mass is so important because it is the supreme way of becoming one with God in and through Jesus. You may hear the priest say some great and precious words after he has consecrated the bread and wine: “Grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ. May he make of us an eternal offering to you, so that we may obtain an inheritance with your elect.” And you will certainly hear him say or sing at the end of that great prayer, “Through him, and with him and in him” Or as St Paul proclaims at the end of our Reading today “There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.” That is how we become rich in the sight of God.
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