July 31, 2022 (Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)
/by Fr. Xavier Lavagetto, O.P.
[This is the text composed by the homilist prior to delivering the homily.]
My grandmother was in her late 90’s and failing. It is wonderful when relatives step up to the plate to help her. … But when someone shows up, whom you’ve never met, whom my mother did not recognize and my grandmother did not know, then question! … Word had gotten out: Nonna Poggi was failing. The scent of inheritance, the smell of money too often awakens the beast in people! Too many families have seen the wars of inheritance. … Any one of you’ve seen that?
Now you can understand the setting for today’s Gospel. … Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”
In the ancient world, envy was the capital vice because it often resulted in conflict, sometimes violence, and occasionally even killing.
We’ve heard the beatitude, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. … We hear and think of advocacy but in the ancient world, they heard it and thought of family. In such times, an arbitrator restored peace. He was the peacemaker! … It was usually a distant family member who no vested interest.
Jesus is not rejecting the man or the role, but according to the social custom, he feigns humility. “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” … It was a noble and praised role, and today it’s a teaching moment.
The American myth of the “self-made man” is great for the energy it releases, and dangerous for the credit it claims. … Behind every truly successful person are his efforts or her cleverness, but there were also a thousand fortuitous moments, helpful people, the impact of a good education, and lots of chance circumstances. Yet this successful man in the Gospel assumes that it is all his own doing. ‘What should I do, … I will pull down my barns and build larger ones… Rest, eat, drink, be merry.”
The Gospel suggests that success is never one man’s soledoing .. As our text pointed out, “The land of a rich man produced abundantly.”
Where one might have expected gratitude, he is only selfish self-concern. His success was not his own; it was the land! .... And for a Jew, it was the land God gave him.
As a member of God’s covenant community on God’s land, his task was to image God in his actions. In being gifted, he was to become a gift. …It is this thinking that makes the Jewish community generous beyond all others!
Amassing to merely amass in early Christian thought was theft. Or so St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom and more teach. We owe each other because we belong to each other.
It is enshrined in Catholic Social Teaching on the universal destination of goods. God is given this world to all humanity, not to a part of it. Private property might be a right, but it is not an absolute one. As Vatican II taught: “man should regard the external things that he legitimately possesses not only as his own but also as common in the sense that they should be able to benefit not only him but also others.” GS 69.1
Or more simply put: private property cannot be used to deprive others of the necessities of life.
Now, the economic reality of the ancient world was a zero-sum game. If one had, another had not. Creating wealth is a modern invention. … But it is so easy become complacent. Do we create wealth that all may be lifted up?
Sadly, our Gospel ended too quickly. Read a couple verses further, and hear: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. One would hope that our hearts’ treasure is our God and each other. … Only in that land does happiness begin.
In the musical, Hello Dolly, Dolly asserts that money should be spread around like manure to make things grow. But to the tight-fisted Horace Vandergilder, she sang: on those cold winter nights, Horace, you can snuggle up to your cash register. It’s a bit lumpy but it rings.
So what’s your heart’s treasure? … Sadly, in the adrenalin rush of life, our hearts can grow cold. … Don’t assume that once successful, happiness simply begins. ... Happiness is only in now when decide to be a gift to people.
Learn the lesson of table and wine! What do you expect from an Italian? The shared table is the shared life! Learn the lesson of wine if you want to keep your relationships to God and others vital.
Having a great glass of wine begins with a contemplative moment; you notice and savor every aspect, its color, bouquet, flavor, body and more. Do notice with delight in the beauty, goodness, grace that litters your life? God and people are giving, do you delight. To become alive to the moment, you’ve got to savor the moment!
That contemplative moment then gives birth to speech; a great wine invites sharing impact. You don’t drink a great wine by yourself! It is for the table, for others, and yes, even for the waiter who served it! (Yes, I’ve done that..
The lesson of wine is savor and share!!! If God has shared so much with you, how can you not notice and not erupt in thankfulness by inviting others to a table of sharing? God doesn't give you anything just to be hoarded. Savor and share. There is the caveat: the first gift God gave you is you! Appreciate and share yourself.” God did, he does it still from this table!
