Homily: “Do I Worship God or I?”
Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Lk. 12:13-21) “Do I Worship God or I?”
One religious question that people have always tried to answer is what is the original sin? When we look at the story of our first parents it seems so erotic. We have a man and woman living naked in a garden. A snake comes along to tempt them. Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. And they feel guilt and shame. We have a sense that the original sin has something to do with sexuality.
But there is another way to look at it. In paradise, Adam happily received gift after gift from God. First, he received the gift of life. He then became the steward of creation. He lived in a beautiful garden where he had every material need. Adam had the gift of health. He had the gift of eternal life. God gave Adam all these things and more. Adam accepts them all. God continues to give. God gave Adam the gift of intimacy when he is paired with Eve. We sense they knew each other physically, emotionally, spiritually. There was no loneliness in the garden.
What was that sin that got them into to trouble, then? What led to trouble was that they were tempted to take something rather than receive something. We could make an argument that the original sin was that the first parents were overcome with greed. When the ego gets in the way we feel like we are entitled. God gave Adam and Eve everything, but they decided to take something rather than wait for more gifts to come their way. What if they would have waited to receive the knowledge of good and evil rather than taken it? How might salvation history have turned out? We will never know the answer to that question.
The parable about the man who builds bigger barns to store his increasing grain is about greed also. If we listen closely to the parable one pronoun is used repeatedly. The wealthy man says “This is what I shall do. I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. I shall store all my grain and other goods. I shall say to myself, eat, drink and be merry.” The rich man’s ego is the only consideration.
Another story is told of a wealthy man who wanted to own all the land in a valley filled with poor farmers. He began to lend them money so they could plant their crops. Each year the farmers would come back to the rich man for more loans. Every year he would add on interest. When the farmers couldn’t repay the loans, the rich man would then take their land.
One old woman didn’t borrow any money. She just planted what she could. The rich man went to the local government officials to bribe them so that he could have this one last piece of property. When he had the deed, he went to evict the woman. She argued with him saying, “My family had lived on this property for generations. Many of them are buried here. How can you take this land from me?” But he wouldn’t be moved. He wanted the whole valley.
Finally, she said, “Please let me just have one basket of earth to take with me.” The landlord agreed. The woman loaded up her basket. She tried to put it on her head, but she couldn’t get the heavy load off the ground. Nor could she carry it. The rich man became impatient with the woman’s struggle. She finally said, “Sir I wanted to carry just part of my land with me when I left. I could not manage the load. How are you going to carry all the land you have acquired with you when you make your way to God?” He died that night. He left all his land behind.
How might the story of the rich man and the grain bins have a happier ending? What if the man hadn’t built larger grain bins, but what if he had given the excess grain to the poor? What if he had seen that he was only a steward of what he possessed. What if he had asked not what do I need, but what does everyone need?
Presently we battle with inflation, with higher food costs. And this makes our life difficult, but because of the war in Ukraine the world is facing a humanitarian crisis. As many as 50 million people could be at risk of starving. Drought and climate change complicate the problem. We might put ourselves in the parable Jesus tells. Are we the rich man? Is the dominate pronoun in our life, I. Are we feeling greedy as we worry about our inconvenience? Or are the most used pronouns in our vocabulary we, us and ours? We might pray that the first inclination that we have when we receive a gift is a desire to share it.
Reflection Questions:
1. Have I complained about higher gas prices and food prices? What have I forgotten?
2. What do I think the original sin was? Why do I think so?
Dear Parishioners,
Some people might wonder why we have picked out St. Damien the Leper as the patron saint of our building project. St. Damien De Veuster is his proper name. That might give a clue as to why this saint is attractive to our parish. He is from Belgium. He lived in the 19th century and went to Hawaii as a missionary. Disease was rampant in Hawaii because Europeans brought all kinds of new illnesses to the islands. The native population did not have resistance to these sicknesses. Many died.
One of the diseases that the Europeans brought was leprosy. The only way to try to control leprosy was to isolate the lepers from the rest of the population. For that reason, there was a leper colony on Molokai. The conditions on the island were terrible. St. Damien volunteered to go there to minister. He knew he would never leave alive. He helped build a small city for the lepers. There was a church, school, hospital and housing. In the end he caught leprosy himself.
Damien was a very practical shepherd. He knew that he had to provide for the physical needs of his parishioners before the people would be able to pay attention to the spiritual aspects of their lives. We hope that he will continue to pray for the success of our building project.
May our Lady of Peace pray for our violent world today.
Fr. Mark
P.S. I will be going to my 40th class reunion this week in St. Meinrad Indiana. Therefore, I will not be having posts this week. I should be back on Friday.
