Sunday Scripture Readings

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eighteenth sunday

in ordinary time,

august 5

Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23; Psalm 95*; Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11; Luke 12:13-21 OUR GOOD NEWS: Greed and selfishness lead only to unhappiness, now and in eternity. The Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes (also called Qoheleth) is strong but healthy medicine, with a message especially meaningful for our modern times. The author expressed a ruthlessly honest pessimism about prospects for finding true happiness (first reading). He deftly destroyed smug, pat answers, including the religiously pious phony. "Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!" "Vanity" here means emptiness or useless hot air, a blunt summation of his disturbingly candid skepticism. We Christians can only agree that possessions don't bring lasting satisfaction. Too often, total dedication to work, "laboring with wisdom and knowledge and skill," only results in ultimate loss. All the worse when one's hard-earned riches will be squandered by a playboy heir - "To another who has not labored over it, he must leave property." Finally, what can really get us is worrying over all the troubles associated with wealth and power while sleeplessly tossing and turning in bed. "All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation; even at night his mind is not at rest." How right he is: Greed and selfishness aren't worth the effort. In today's Gospel Jesus turned a brief interruption into an opportunity for warning us against a fundamental sin completely opposed to true discipleship. A petitioner came up wanting Jesus, as an expert in Jewish law, to settle a family dispute like other teachers. "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me." Jesus curtly refused. "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?" We may be surprised that Jesus denied possessing authorization to act as a judge between litigants and as an arbiter to fairly divide their property. Jesus came to bring people to God, not to bring property to people. He refused to meddle, playing the busybody and minding other people's business, functioning not as a judge in his own right but the means through which God shows how he judges. (In modern psychological terms, Jesus refused to parent our child by solving all our problems.) Reapportioning an inheritance more equitably doesn't address the root problem, for Jesus wasn't interested in making people law-abiding but in making them good. By his extraordinary, behavior Jesus unambiguously teaches that repentance begins with me rather than the other person. Wanting what we don't have and don't need is so destructive of true discipleship that Jesus appended a memorable parable. Traditional Jewish good works included prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Blessed with an excellent harvest, a landowner does the opposite. Instead of thanking God and sharing with the hungry he gives himself over to a pagan orgy - "eat, drink and be merry." God however abruptly challenged his smug greed. "Fool! This night your life will be demanded of you!" Jesus tellingly reminds us that we can't keep what really isn't ours. (*Lectionary for Mass, Vol. 1, 1998, misprints Ps. 90 from Twenty-third Sunday.)