“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me!”
Sound familiar? Many of us have either experienced such a “family problem” or know someone who has. The stories are always sad ones. Our scripture readings this Sunday address one of the elements of our human condition: our search for security and happiness—and the wisdom needed to achieve true joy.
We do have needs—and wants. It is part our human nature to seek security, but we can be overtaken by what our wisdom reading from Ecclesiastes calls vanity of vanities, the foolishness of greed: “Even at night my mind is not at rest.”
When someone in the crowd confronts Jesus with the question about the dispute over an inheritance, He refuses to intervene and instead tells a parable about someone who is filled with greed and is lost in his desire for gaining more and more possessions. The unthinking man (this is the gospel word in Greek for “fool”) is going to surrender it all when he departs this world. The words of Jesus ring out: “Become rich in what matters to God.”
Gratitude replaces greed, and our readings this week offer us an opportunity to ponder what it means to be “rich in the sight of God.” (We can imagine Simeon in the Temple as he gratefully holds the baby Jesus in his arms: “I have enough—I have you, Lord.” )
Our celebration of the feast of St. Ignatius this week might be a good reminder that our goal is to find God in every thing—and everyone.
“Give me only your love and your grace, this is enough for me!”
Len Kraus, S.J.
