Today’s
Gospel reading should make us all squirm a little.
This is what
Jesus is asking us today.
His question
should make us uncomfortable. There are no easy answers to this challenge by
Christ. And it should make us think -- to
reflect deeply -- especially in this time of Stewardship renewal.
If we are to
love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul and all our might, and
love our sisters and brothers as ourselves as Jesus commands, we have to ask
ourselves do we give enough?
Today our
Church offers us two models of faith-filled giving. Both are women, both are
poor and both are widows – perhaps the most marginalized of peoples of Elijah’s
Day, Jesus’ Day, and today. These are people who have no visible means of
support, no future, no hope. To their
despair, God appears and asks them to give. Trusting in God’s presence in their lives,
these women represent for us how to live and how to give in God’s Kingdom. They
gave their all.
I don’t know
about you. But this sort of talk makes me uneasy. But I know that this uneasy
feeling comes from being blessed to live at the top of the world’s financial
pecking order, blessed to be born in the United States, in wealth, and not in
poverty.
Bishop
Robert Barron had a great insight on today’s readings. He says, “Here’s the
great spiritual truth. When you are linked to God who is nothing but (gift and)
giving … you (too) can give and give and never run out.”
But here he
says is the flipside to this truth, “When we cling to pathetic substitutes for
God (money and sex and power and honor) then we can hoard and hoard and hoard
all we want, but we will never have enough. He says, “To get this is to get the
bible.” Wow!
Pope Francis had some
challenging words for Americans to ponder on his recent visit to U.S.
The Holy
Father spoke to Congress and United Nations. His words while in the U.S. were
an antidote to the consumerism, materialism and the ME-ism present in society
today.
How some
modern scribes had a field day criticizing the Pontiff. Scribes are the very people Christ is holding
up for scorn in today’s Gospel reading.
The words of pundit and scribe George Will:
"Pope Francis embodies sanctity but
comes trailing clouds of sanctimony. With a convert's indiscriminate zeal, he
embraces ideas impeccably fashionable, demonstrably false, and deeply
reactionary."
Will says: “Americans cannot simultaneously
honor (Pope Francis) and celebrate their nation’s premises.”
Are we Catholics more passionate about the
Kingdom of God or our own Kingdom here in the United States?
Therein lies
the problem for many Americans and why it’s so tough for some of us here in the
U.S. to accept Pope Francis’ message to Americans or Jesus’ message today.
The Lord brings justice
to the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets captives free, cares for widows
and orphans and thwarts the path of the wicked.
We, too, are responsible
for the poor and oppressed in our society. Each of us needs to do our part to help
– with our time, our talents and our treasure.
Many of the
faithful poor in the Third World are as generous as the widows in today’s
readings.
Take for
example the experiences of Jesuit Father Gary Smith documented in his book
“They Come Back Singing.” The journal tells of his six years living among the
Sudanese refugees in Northern Uganda.
Father Gary experienced
giving in the Catholic communities of the refugee camps that took his breath
away. Such love for God, such love for their sisters and brothers barely
surviving in a region torn by years of Civil War, and generously giving to
others with what little they had.
So when we
are asked to give, is our giving breathtaking?
Do we give from our very livelihood, trusting in God to the point where
it hurts? Or do we only give from our
surplus wealth?