26th Sunday of Ordinary Time (James 5:1-6) “To Laugh at Our Fears”
Homily: 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time (James 5:1-6) “To Laugh at Our Fears”
In 1st Timothy, 6:10, Paul says, “Money is the root of all evil” which is a strong statement. If we look at the various vices, greed is one lifelong temptation. Religious people seem to feel guilt ridden about the deadly sin of lust, but that temptation usually wains as we go through life. Greed is an appetite from the time we are young until we are old.
B. Traven, a German novelist wrote a book which was turned into a powerful movie called the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” The story is set in northern Mexico in the 1920’s. Three Americans meet in a cheap hotel in Tampico which is an oil boom town. The three men named Dobbs, Curtain and Howard all are experiencing hard luck, begging and working odd jobs.
One night Howard shares the of the legend of the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. According to the story there was a gold mine that belonged to the Aztecs in the area. Howard knows where it is. Dobbs and Curtain are excited and want to go to the mine and find a fortune. Howard, at first, doesn’t want to get involved. He says that gold does strange things to people. People will fight and kill each other over treasure.
Dobbs and Curtain convince Howard that they are different, so they set out to mine the gold. The men are successful, finding thousands of dollars in precious metal. At last, it comes time for the men to leave. A sick boy in a nearby village needs medical attention so Howard agrees to treat the boy. Dobbs and Curtain say they will take the gold to the coast and wait until Howard can join them. As Dobbs and Curtain take their journey with a string of burros carrying the gold back to civilization, Dobbs becomes increasingly paranoid. He is filled with greed. He shoots Curtain leaving him for dead. Dobbs takes the gold. He is eventually robbed and killed by bandits who only want the burros. The bandits believe the gold is just sand so they poor it out on the ground. Howard finds Curtain and nurses him back to health. The two men decide to chase down Dobbs and confront him. Eventually, they find the burros as well as the thieves. Howard and Curtain are led to where the gold was dumped on the ground. But the Gold has been washed away. As they pick up the empty sacks, Howard begins to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Curtain is shocked, but after a few seconds he joins in the laughter. The story ends with the two men laughing. The fortune is lost, but they don’t care. The gold isn’t worth the misery.
The Letter of James chastises wealthy Christians for being too caught up in their wealth. Wealth in New Testament times either consisted of grain, fine clothes or precious metal. James feels it is a scandal that Christians can be more concerned with owning things than sharing things.
He points out how grain eventually rots. Clothes are eaten by moths. Metal eventually rusts away. The things that last forever are integrity, goodness, honesty, and righteousness.
Avarice is a sin that strikes us all. Recently 20,000 Haitian refuges were huddled under a bridge in Del Rio Texas. The migrants had fled Haiti where there have been hurricanes, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrible poverty. Some of the migrants were deported to other countries. Some have been allowed into the United States. Others have simply fled. All of them are gone.
How do we feel about this situation? We might say, “We can’t let everyone into our country who needs help. Another response might be to worry about our standard of living. Will we lose some of what we have if we try to take care of the world. We all probably have mixed feelings. It is a hard thing to wrestle with, isn’t it? We want to be Christian, but when confronted with putting our faith into practice we are afraid of the implications of it all.
In the future we will see more refugees on our borders. How will we react? Now is the time to pray about this. “Do we give a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus or not?” Do we live with less so that others can have the necessities of life? Do we ask the hard question, “What would Jesus do?” We probably know the answer, but can we be like him. That is the question we must always ask. And it humbles us every time we ask it.
Reflection Questions:
- Have I seen wealth change people? How do I feel about what I own?
- Do the Haitian refugees make me feel uncomfortable? What might I do about that discomfort?
Dear Parishioners,
Eucharist is central to the Roman Catholic Christian life. We have been struggling as a Christian Community to come to Mass lately. This has been a difficult time for all churches to maintain the vibrancy of the liturgy. Every time it seems like we are going to be able to move forward past the pandemic we seem to have setbacks. We try to stay safe in a virtual word at a distance from one another. Unfortunately, Christianity is not a virtual religion. Sacraments depend on the senses of sound, taste, touch, smell and sight. We use our senses when we are in person praying together.
I thought that fall would be a good time to try to have some spiritual renewal in our parish. By the fall I thought surely things would have settled. We could then chart a course into the future. At least that is the way it seemed in the early summer. But here we are with deaths from COVID and hospitalizations growing. I have been called to anoint three people in recent weeks who were on ventilators with COVID. Today I had a funeral for one who died of this disease. The ages of people who die get younger. Dawn was 53.
We truly need some spiritual uplift. I asked Fr. Britto Berchmans to come and preach a mission on the Eucharist this summer and he agreed to do so. Fr. Britto is a dynamic and engaging presenter. We are going ahead with the Mission. We will ask people to be careful as we gather in church. The dates of our mission will be October 17th through 19th. We will try to livestream the event so people have options.
I ask you to block out these evenings either so you can come in person, or you can watch from home. Perhaps we can have some time of joy and uplift and we can remember what a great gift it is to be part of a Roman Catholic Christian community.
May Our Lady and all the Angels and Saints watch over you.
Fr. Mark