A reading from the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, teacher, tell my brother to give me my share of our inheritance. Jesus replied, friend, who has set me as the judge or arbiter? Then Jesus said to the crowd, avoid greed in all its forms. A man may be wealthy, but his possessions do not guarantee him life.
Then Jesus told them a parable. There was a rich man who had a very good harvest. What shall I do? He said to himself. I have no place to store my harvest.
Oh, says he, I know. I will pull down my grain bins and build larger ones, put up real big silos. All my grain and my goods will go into them. Then I will say to myself, you have blessings in reserve for years to come. Relax.
Eat heartily. Drink well. Enjoy yourself. But god said to that man, you fool. This very night, your life will be required of you.
To whom will all this piled up wealth of yours go? That is the way it works with a man who grows rich for himself instead of growing rich in the sight of god. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
Notice there's not a word said against riches here. Just keep that in mind. Our blessed lord points out very explicitly that this man grew rich for himself. And it's very clear in the dramatic words of our blessed lord that this man thought that when he put up his bins you can you can just imagine this. Because remember, they didn't have a savings bank down on the next corner.
You had your wealth in terms of cattle and grain, the wine you had put up, the buildings you had, the children you had, because they were your best insurance for old age, and that's still true in the East. So that this man, after he gets all of this and notice, our blessed lord doesn't say the slightest slightest criticism of the wealth. Not a word. So when the man has all this stuff, he looks around and says, I've got it made. I have it made.
Relax. Retire. Live on your income. And he dies almost at once. What our blessed Lord is remember, this is a parable.
This isn't and our Lord is teaching us a lesson. There there you see, I say this, there is an attitude, there is a climate, there is a how shall it's it's not explicitly stated that there's something wrong in being wealthy, that there's something wrong in being a success, that there's something wrong in having a big business, that because it's big it's wrong. That that's in our atmosphere today. That if if there are poor people, then everybody should be poor. If everybody you don't hear that about disease.
If everybody is sick, I mean, if some people are sick, let's ever let everybody get sick, let's spread it around. That's not quite the way it is as regards illness and disease, is We have to keep our feet on this ground. Yesterday, in my well chosen remarks, I I guess I bore people silly, but you can't get more basic than the basic teachings of the holy Roman Catholic church. And I mean the church, not some alleged church men or church women. The and the I I talked about the the the the kingdom of God.
Remember, that's all Christ was interested in, was the kingdom of God. He wasn't interested in this world. And yet, it's just fantastic. I told you, and I'll repeat, I I get a missionary and you get I'm sure you get it too, and you know the one I'm referring to. You can get it and read it from cover to cover, and you you you get the impression that there's nothing involved in life except making this life better.
Sharing the wealth, removing disease, making people literate. Well, remember, you can go to heaven and be a saint, and be diseased, and be illiterate, and be the poorest of the poor. Just keep that in mind. But if although that is true, although that is very true, nevertheless, we have to realize we are living in this world. And there is no command of our blessed lord that that's the way everybody should be to get to heaven.
You'll say this is fiction. It's not fiction. The church has had to fight this all down the centuries. Some of you may have read that book Echo by by the Italian author Echo. Something about a rose.
I read the whole thing, awful waste of time. But that brings out this this particular attitude that that people have. Now, if someone wants to be to be a hermit, if someone wants to go into the Nile Valley and live like a bum, ragged and stinking, that's his privilege. He can go to heaven. But he doesn't have to tell us all that we have to do.
We have to come back. The whole thing, as as I began to say and lost the the the point I wanted to make was that the church says that the church of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God in this world is lodged in men, meaning human beings. We we don't live in a vacuum. The church is a visible, concrete, tangible organization. We are all living in this world, and we have to use the world, not to be used by it.
And that's the bottom line. There is the trouble. There is the trouble. As I've said many times, this banner up here emphasizes the family. Whenever I see this, the thought strikes strikes me, that's true.
The family is the heart and the unit of society. But in any parish, in any parish you go, especially around this part of the country, you're going to have plenty of people who are not involved actually in a family. Plenty of people. I'm not speaking only of what we call the single parent household, although we have many of them right in this parish. Now, the thing is we are in this world, and we have to use the things of this world for the next, for the next, for the next.
If it as here's what this is what Newman pointed out in his Anglican difficulties. If the Catholic church, as indeed it has been, involved in education, in care of the sick, in removing poverty, in many ages, ages, it was the only it was the only agent that was doing it, the only agent. The state didn't have the have the remotest idea it was responsible. There was no such thing as an organized society running a community fund. If anything was done for the poor, the sick, the despised, the outcast, the prisoner, it was done by the church through church men, through church women who devoted their lives to it, devoted their lives to it.
But the thing is that this church of ours, that this kingdom of God on earth that we're talking about, that's what that's what we are introduced to the kingdom of God by baptism. And by baptism, we become members of Christ Church. It's that simple. And we must use these things and value these things and value for what they're worth. And their worth is not in themselves.
Their worth is instruments to bring us closer to God, to being our to be our nourishment in this life, in the kingdom of man, to make us secure citizens in the kingdom of God. And that's the whole point of this of this reading today. Our blessed lord isn't condemning the man for accumulating wealth. He's not condemning him for saying, well, now I have to big I have to build build bigger barns. I've gotta put up bigger silos.
I've gotta put up, larger granaries. He doesn't condemn that at all. What what our blessed lord is driving home is this, you have not here a lasting city. You are not citizens of this world. This world and its good things, and they're all good.
Remember, the devil can't create a single pleasure. Keep that in your mind. He can't create anything. That poor old devil, you get sorry for him when you read CS Lewis. I hope you've read his screw tape letters.
If you I mean, your sympathy because the poor guy's on the losing side in many ways. Now, so we come back to This is a very important question today. I'm not fighting a windmill. We've got to get our heads screwed on right about these things. And that is that the things of this world are given to us for a purpose.
We don't own them. Although in many instances, it's hard to keep them from owning us. We are custodians. Saint Thomas of Christ had this in plenty of places. We are custodians.
What are you custodians of? It's so easy to blame the thing for its misuse and abuse. So easy. So easy. And that's what our blessed lord is talking about here.
He's saying, don't be dumb. Don't be foolish. Don't be idiotic. Don't think and make that dreadful eternal mistake of identity yourself identifying yourself with this world. You're not intended for this world.
You are intended for something much much better, much better. Your faith and your hope, these are not based upon this life. And you don't have to live long to realize if if they are, we are in dreadful shape. Kierkegaard, to the contrary, notwithstanding. And so let us take this to heart today.
Not to under not to underestimate, not to undervalue, not to despise the creatures of God, but to use them for God's sake and for our own eternal sake. In the name of the father, with the son, holy spirit. Amen.