Be Rich

How does one become “rich in what matters to God,” as Jesus’s parable urges? The parable about storing up good things to extremes invites us to put possessions and relationships in perspective, to set priorities in our lives. Is money more important than my relationship with my brother? Is my status at work more important than my relationship with my family? Our focus should not be on temporal wealth or position that can disappear in an instant, but on our spiritual relationship with God and one another. In the Responsorial Psalm we read, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.” Praying for “wisdom of heart” helps us to cultivate detachment from the human, earthly desires that keep us distracted from “what matters to God.” Lord, teach us to pray; teach us to ACT. Teach us to be rich in kindness and mercy, communication and caring, forgiveness and acceptance, inclusion and hospitality, and all that matters to God.

Because of Our Persistence

When one of the disciples asks Jesus to teach them how to pray, Jesus tells them to address God with the intimate, relational name Father. He asks them to pray that the kingdom, God’s kingdom that we anticipate in eternal life, be actualized on earth. How do we imagine God’s kingdom? What is God’s desire for all of creation? How is all of creation related? How are we to live in relationship to each other and all that God created? How do we respect the dignity of all of creation—the earth and all its creatures, as well as humanity in all its diversity?

As I reflect on the state of God’s creation today, I am sad, disappointed, disgusted, angry and close to despair. So much is a mess! That’s when I most need the rest of the prayer, the rest of the way Jesus teaches us to pray.

In our prayer, Jesus teaches and invites us to ask for “daily bread.” When we ask for God’s forgiveness of our sins, Jesus assumes that we ourselves are already forgiving everyone to whom we owe forgiveness.

Jesus uses a very easy acronym for the pattern of our prayer: Ask, Seek, and Knock (ASK). Have you ever prayed for something and gotten the opposite thing you asked for or nothing at all? Prayed and gotten what you wanted? Has anyone ever asked you for something and received it from you or asked and been refused? Jesus says persistence pays off. Just as you would not refuse a needy person a loaf of bread, God won’t refuse the Holy Spirit to anyone who persists in asking.

Hospitality

When I was in first grade in a one-room schoolhouse, our teacher decided to pitch a tent outside and to have the 1^st and 2^nd graders practice hospitality. We were taught to meet our visitor at the door, ask them to come in, share some conversation, ask them to be seated and then offer them something to drink. We even practiced some “visiting conversation.” We learned the basics of hospitality.

In this Sunday’s gospel, we hear about the visit that Jesus paid to Mary and Martha. Remember that Jesus was quite itinerant and really didn’t have a house. Some scholars and homilists portray Martha as the busy one and Mary as the contemplative, often asking us to choose which one most describes us. Others focus on women’s “proper” role in society and how Mary breaks the norm and Jesus affirms her in that role. She too can learn from the Master.

The artistic portrayal of Mary and Martha that I chose to accompany this reading is very modern and very applicable to life today. Martha, the anxious worrier, is not unlike most of us who try to balance so many things in life. At times, we even become jealous of each other when one seems to be doing all the work and the other is just “visiting.” Children, home, shopping, career, church, civic commitments, volunteer work—all preoccupy us. We become distracted from time to just sit and be in the presence of another, especially in the presence of God.

Jesus doesn’t reject Martha’s cooking, but he reminds her that service must also be connected to listening. Service that does not embrace listening to Jesus’ word misses the heart of everything. That’s why Jesus says that Mary has chosen the better part, the better portion of the meal. Christianity requires service, but the Word of the Lord needs to be heard first. Do we take the time to do that after participating in the Eucharistic meal?

And about those distractions, anxieties, and worries the writer Anne Lamott reminds us: “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes…including you.”

Go and Do Likewise

What must I do to gain eternal life? Love your neighbor. Who is my neighbor? Anyone in need? Be compassionate and do something. Go and do likewise.

This is a summary of our Sunday gospel reading. We are all familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan, the one who responds to the need, even when others have justified inaction. We probably all examine our consciences and try to think of times when we have been the Good Samaritan.

Today I invite us to think of ourselves as the other person in the narrative—the one that is ostracized, politically not deserving of care, not of a certain race, or gender or marital status, one who differs in cultural, religious and political matters.

Imagine yourself not as the Samaritan who wants to love God and neighbor, but as the person who is in need. Who among us “dying” or “left to die after being beaten?” A woman who has been raped? A mother, abandoned by her spouse, with several children to care for? A man with no hope? Can you see yourself at your most vulnerable time, deeply troubled, deep in despair with only one hope that someone, anyone will see and hear the pain, give credence to it, and with compassion do something to help.

One writer described the stranger who stops to help in this way:

Now imagine that the stranger who is most kind, most loving is not the upstanding citizen who looks and thinks like you. Imagine that she or he is that person you dismiss as a bigot or a heathen, a racist or an instigator, a misogynist or a baby-killer. Imagine that your succor is delivered by someone whom you would never consider to be your neighbor, your friend, your sister or brother in the faith. Imagine that your greatest need is filled by such a person. What would that teach us about the meaning of loving God and loving neighbor?

When the lawyer in the gospel story asks the question “who is my neighbor?” it seems that he, like us often, is trying to find the loophole that divides the world into neighbors and non-neighbors; the deserving poor, the undeserving poor; the refugee, the economic migrant; the freedom fighter, the terrorist; the needy, the scrounger; the shirker, the worker.

In other words, Jesus tells the story to teach us that God’s love and compassion knows no bounds. If we see and know the world as God does, there are no exceptions, no divisions in identifying who my neighbor is.

Jesus spoke with credibility: He himself was a refugee who with His parents escaped to Egypt when King Herod ordered a mass slaughter of children. Jesus was homeless and relied on others to provide support and shelter his entire life. Ultimately, He was executed by an unjust power who felt threatened by His challenge to realign with the Kingdom of God.

Today, our challenge is to follow Jesus in recognizing who our neighbor is with no exceptions. To do so is to open our ears to hear the cry of the most vulnerable among us, and with tender hearts to come in contact with suffering that calls us out of our selfishness. Jesus says: Go and do likewise.