26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Num 11: 25-29, Jas 5: 1-6, Mk 9: 38-43, 45, 47-48
Dear sisters and brothers,
One of the astonishing signs of the times today is the popularity of what has come to be known as the prosperity gospel. This is the gospel that you hear in most mega churches and ministries on the television, a gospel that promises the true believer instant prosperity. Material wealth, good health and enviable relationships are dangled like a carrot before prospective believers as God’s unfailing blessings to all who believe. One reason why prosperity gospel has become so popular today is that traditional Christianity has for a long time embraced and preached an anti-prosperity gospel. That too is wrong. God is not anti-prosperity. Today’s second reading from the Letter of James is one of the Scripture passages that, if not properly understood, could lead one to conclude that the Christian gospel is opposed to wealth.
Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. 2 Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. (James 5:1-3)
This sounds like a direct denunciation of wealth, a condemnation of the rich. The rich are told to weep for the misery that is in store for them. The image of rust eating the flesh of the rich like fire is frightening. This is enough to make the committed Christian believe that there is something seriously wrong with being rich. Many of our Christians would be better off today financially were it not for such a deep-seated belief that money is evil and that to be very wealthy is to be very evil. Yet this belief that money is essentially evil is found neither in the Letter of James nor in the rest of the Bible.
Doesn’t the Bible say that money is the root of all evil? Not at all. The Bible does not say that money is the root of all evil. What the Bible says is (now listen carefully):
The love of money is the root of all evils and there are some who, pursuing it, have wandered away from the faith and so given their souls any number of fatal wounds. (1 Timothy 6:10)
Money is not the root of all evil, it is people’s love and craving for money that is the root of all evil. The problem is not with the money, the problem is in a person’s inordinate desire for wealth.
There is a Latin adage that says, “Abusus non tollit usum,” meaning “The abuse of something does not take away its rightful use.” This wise saying applies in the area of faith and money matters. The Bible roundly condemns the abuse of wealth. Abuse of wealth can take three forms: a) how one acquires it, b) how one uses it, and c) how one invests one’s heart in it.
The first form of abuse is seen in those who exploit the poor to get rich. Apparently, the rich who are condemned by James belong to this class. As the passage goes on to make clear:
Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. … 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you. (James 5:4-6)
Wealth is good when one does a clean and honest hard work to earn it. When one gets it through dishonesty and fraud, then the wealth has been abused. This is what James is condemning (Fr. Ezeogu)
The second form of abuse is found in those who may have gotten their wealth by honest means but who use the wealth just to indulge themselves. Jesus gives us an example of this form of abuse in the Parable of the Rich Fool who laid up his wealth and said to his soul,
“Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” 20 But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:19-20)
Wealth, like every other blessing of God, is given to us in trust so that we may serve God with it. God does not give us His blessings for our self-gratification. And this includes wealth. To use wealth simply for self-indulgence is an abuse of wealth.
Finally, there are those who see wealth as the most important thing in life. They trust in wealth for security rather that in God. For such people wealth has become another god. It is of such people that Jesus gave the teaching that “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Luke 16:13). Materialism and the Christian faith cannot go together, it is either the one or the other.
Today, James warns us against the abuse of wealth. He does not warn us against wealth but against its abuse. Let us ask God to give us a balanced Christian attitude to wealth: in the way we acquire it, in the way we use it, and in the way we invest our hearts in it.
Peace and all good!
Fr. Valery Burusu
Parochial Administrator