Sunday, February 18, 2001

Live in a fairytale land of great proportion. Many there are around the world who still do not have these opportunities. We are the rich.

By FATHER KEVIN PEEK

True, this life still has its stresses and burdens as none of this grows on trees, and often comes at great cost of blood, sweat and tears, leaving us just as concerned at bill time as the destitute, but that is simply because we have chosen to embrace these sometimes very nonessential items as priorities in life; if not absolute necessities.

But an Air Force pilot friend of mine tells of a tour he spent in the Philippines on a base outside of which were people living in tar paper towns. The wealthy had cinder block walls with no mortar. Yes, we are the rich.

2) But before we then pass sentence on ourselves, or worse yet on Jesus, and turn our backs on this gospel or try with semantics and legal wrangling to find a loophole, let's put our situation in the context of sacred Scripture.

Perhaps the most vivid gospel description of the relations between the poor and the rich and the expectations and responsibilities therein lies in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus the beggar sits at the gates of the rich man and yearns for his care and concern, his love. Each day the rich man gives nothing and eventually both die, Lazarus going to heaven and the rich man to hell. Herein lies the occasionally perceived "virtue" of disgruntlement in the Christian world with the "stinking rich,"

But this is a grievously negligent reading of the text and has lead to a great deal of misunderstanding and strife between the poor and the rich, management and the working class. You see, Christ did not call heaven "heaven," but "Abraham's bosom" for various reasons, theological and otherwise. But Abraham, the forefather of the people of God and righteous in the eyes of the Lord, was a rich man too!

Therefore, the kingdom of God is NOT closed to rich persons, but is rather set up in the name of one! Hence it is not necessarily a sin to be rich.

Yet what is the difference between the rich in heaven and the rich in hell? The answer can be found in their attitude toward God, their fellow man and their possessions. The rich in heaven are poor in spirit. They have achieved an understanding that permeated every one of their thoughts, words and actions to the best of their abilities.

As the Navarre Bible notes, "Poverty does not consist in something purely external, in having or not having material goods, but in something that goes far deeper, affecting a person's heart and soul; it consists in having a humble attitude toward God, in being devout, in having total faith. If a Christian has these virtues and also has an abundance of material possessions, he should be detached from his wealth and act charitably toward others and thus be pleasing to God."

What, then, does this mean but that the
wealthy Christian (so long as he has obtained his wealth righteously) has been blessed by God with this talent and gift so that by exercising such virtues of humility, generosity, justice and charity he can further reflect the love and care of God for all his children in a prudent administration and distribution of these resources of the world to those in need.

The same is true of those whose talents lie in any other field: music, art, politics, sports, medicine, etc. For them to keep these talents to themselves is a most subtle form of selfishness and pride.

We can see this most clearly when money is being withheld from us, while those who are "higher up" than us live high off the hog, but how often do we consider those lower down the ladder than ourselves, our brothers and sisters, with greater and more basic needs than our own?

But they don't work for me, we say; they didn't earn this money, it's my right to spend it as I want! While this is true, it is hardly the Christian response. In fact the Christian response is none other than that expressed earlier: these blessings I have received in order to minister in my own special way to the common good, not just in my neighborhood but around the world. Therefore I must be detached from them, and attached to my brother and sister in imitation of the work and love of God himself.

Honestly, the question is, can we really call ourselves Christian if we do not have this virtue? And because a virtue is a
habit, to have it is to practice it!

The Christians in the early Church were living this radical teaching to the fullness of its truth and renouncing their belongings and possessions for the care of the poor and the salvation of souls. Whole monastic traditions began that still exist today because of this.

To the world then, as to the world now, this was totally irrational, but to God it is simply living in union with His son, who resigned all the gifts and glory of the heavenly court to share it all with humanity, which was in great need. To be called Christian is to be one seeking to imitate Christ in every way; for the rich, then, this is the most necessary way to perfection.

1) In answer to our first question, now our third, the financially impoverished, on the other hand, are not an automatic shoo-in into the heavenly court; rather they too must develop this virtue of poverty of heart, mind and soul, a humble attitude before God owning nothing, desiring nothing an attitude of devotion and total faith in Him.

Even the financially poor are called to be detached from what little they have and to use it in assistance of those most in need.

This, then, is the challenge: to love God and others more than ourselves, more than all the possessions and belongings we have, to put it all, including our lives, in the hands of Him who made us and our brothers and sisters with whom He made for us to share this earth.
Blessed are the poor ... so what of the rich?

"Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven ... but woe unto you that are rich, for you have received your consolation."

So says the sixth chapter of Luke, verses 20 and 24. This brings to mind, then, three questions: 1) Does the kingdom of God belong immediately to the financially impoverished? 2) Is the kingdom of God definitively closed to the financially endowed? 3) Where in this schema do the people in this paper's distribution fall? I'd like to answer these in reverse order if I may.

3) It is easy for us to believe that we the average citizens, the less than average citizens, and even the above average citizens of this region are NOT "the rich." After all, no matter how much we bring home in our paycheck, when each of us look at the bottom line each month (or even now as we ready for tax time), we all find that there is not a whole lot left over.

And so each of us, in light of the gospel verses above, lists ourselves quite consolingly with those who are "just getting by" absolving ourselves from the warning like Pilate washing his hands. But the very fact that most of us have options and choices on where to live and go on vacation, what sports or hobbies we will get into, how much we will set aside for retirement choices many of our grandparents never had says that we

Back to News Home Page | Back to the top of the page