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Gospel: Luke 12: 13-21
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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The Romans had a popular saying: “Money is like saltwater. The more you drink, the thirstier you become.”
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We see this thirst for money unfolding in today’s Gospel as two brothers are arguing over a family inheritance.
The fact that there is money to inherit implies they already have enough. If their family were poor, then there’d be nothing to argue about!
But what these boys want is more. That thirst inspires Jesus to tell them a parable about a rich man who thought he had everything, but died that night with nothing.
The heart of the matter is not how much money a person possesses; rather, how much a person is possessed by it.
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The opposite of greed is not poverty, but contentment.
Contentment has been defined as, “a state of happiness and satisfaction.” It’s something most human beings can feel – unless, of course, they’re living in a state of danger.
Anyone, even the poor, can learn to be content with what they have. Ironically enough, it’s often the poor who seem more content than the wealthy because they must learn how to be satisfied with less.
“Money is like saltwater. The more you drink, the thirstier you become.”
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Am I content with what I have? Or do I find myself wanting more – more money, more power, more attention, more of anything?
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Saint Paul reminds us in his Letter to Timothy:
“Faith with contentment is a great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it. If we have food and clothing, we should be content with that.”
Perhaps anything more could make us thirsty.
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Image credits: (1) Freepik (2) Adobe Stock (3) ChildLight Yoga