Dcn. Tom McClelland's Homily:
        Sunday, 18th Week in Ordinary Time, August 5, 2007

"Guard against greed.  Although you may be rich, life does not consist of possessions."  These are the words of Jesus, as given to us by St. Luke.  Do not be tied to your possessions.  Be satisfied to have just enough.  Do not strive for more and more, as a goal unto itself — just to have more.  Be willing to let go of your possessions and to share them with others.  Be free of them possessing you.

Let me share with you a little Scottish story — with me being a McClelland and all, and with my son Mike and his family having just spent this past week in Scotland.  You'll see that this story fits well with the gospel.

There was a wealthy landowner who lived in the Scottish Highlands.  He had a stately mansion overlooking a beautiful valley.  But there was a basic emptiness in his life.  He had no religious belief, he lived alone, and in a very real sense he was dedicated to his wealth and possessed by all his possessions.

In the gatehouse, at the entrance to his estate, lived a man named John who managed his farm.  John was a man of simple faith and deep religious commitment.  Along with his family, John was a regular church-goer.  The Lord's presence was a reality in his home, and often at night the landowner noticed John's family on their knees in prayer.

One morning the landowner was looking out on the valley.  As he gazed on the beautiful scene, he was saying to himself, 'This is all mine,' when suddenly he heard the doorbell ringing.  Going down, he found John on the doorstep.  'What's the matter John?' he asked.  John looked embarrassed.  'Sir, could I have a word with you?'  "Certainly," said the landlord.

Hesitantly, John said, 'Last night I had a dream, a vivid dream, and in it the Lord told me that the richest man in the valley would die tonight at midnight.  I felt you should know'.

The landowner listened and then dismissed him, but John's words kept bothering him, so much so that at eleven o'clock that night he got in his car and went to the local doctor for a complete physical check-up.  The doctor examined him, pronounced him fit as a fiddle, and said he'd give him another twenty years.  The landowner was relieved, but a lingering doubt caused him to invite the doctor back to his mansion with him.  They enjoyed a small meal and some conversation, and at 11:45 the doctor got up to leave, but the landowner prevailed on him to remain a little while longer.

Eventually, when midnight passed and he was still in the land of the living, the landlord saw the doctor to the door, and then went up the stairs muttering, 'Silly old John… he upset my whole day… him and his dream!'

No sooner was he in bed when he heard the doorbell ringing.  It was 12:30 in the morning.  Going down he found a grief-stricken girl at the door, whom he recognized instantly as John's teenage daughter.

'Sir,' she said, looking at him through her tears, 'Mommy sent me to tell you that Daddy died at midnight.'  The landowner froze, and it was suddenly very clear to him who had been the richest man in the valley.

Picking out some elements of this story, we might be able to say some things about how well or how poorly each of us balances the material and the spiritual aspects of our daily lives.  Notice that the premise here is that each of us has, to some extent or other, a spiritual aspect of our daily lives — that we do something each day to invite God to be an active part of our lives.

We know that God loves us, and that He wants us to love Him and to love everyone of our fellow human beings.  But like the Scottish landlord, if we don't pray to God each day, and if we don't regularly read the Word of God in scripture to understand His teachings and make them a part of our lives, and if we don't seek the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit in our daily activities, our attention will naturally be drawn more and more just to the material things of this world, and less and less to God's Kingdom.  We lose the balance in our life between the material and the spiritual.

The more we are concerned about things — the food we eat, the style of clothes we wear, the quality of the car we drive, the size of our TV screen, the house we live in, and the amount of money we have — the greater the opportunity for greed to set in.  And there is the keyword for today — greed.  Avoiding greed is the principal lesson in today's Scripture readings.

Greed is a capital sin, which means that it is a sin from which other sins also flow.  It is precisely what Jesus is telling us to avoid in this gospel message. Greed is wanting or taking more than you need. It is hoarding things for yourself.  Greedy people want and work for things in excess, and greed is defining your own perception of success in terms of your possessions, particularly if you feel it is important that you have more or better things than someone else.  You've all heard the expression: "He who dies with the most toys wins."  That is a pure expression of greed.

One of the evils of greed is that it is blinding.  It skews our spiritual vision.  Greed keeps us from seeing situations from other people's view points, and we are prevented from seeing not only what we are doing but who we are becoming.  Notice how the man in Jesus' parable is all about personal pronouns.  He says, "What shall I do?  I have no place to store my harvest.  I will build bigger barns.  I shall say to myself, "Eat, drink, enjoy yourself!"

The use of I, me, mine are overwhelming, clouding the man's vision of how poor he really is, how poverty-stricken his soul is.  "But God said to him, 'You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you.'"  To whom will his worldly treasures belong then, and how poor is he in what matters to God?

The loss of spiritual sensitivity and insight, and the loss of human priorities are the usual effects of greed.  Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a tragedy to put things back into perspective.  For example, we have all seen on television the interviews of people who have lost all their possessions due to tornadoes or floods.  But as they stand in the middle of their crushed home, after the storm is past, they say, "Yes, we have lost our things, but what matters is that we are alive." The tragedy has radically re-ordered their sense of values.  We should pray that we are never blinded by greed or lose our perspective on what's important — that we will always share the blessings God gives us with others who are less fortunate.

Another evil that flows from greed is displacement.  When greed becomes a motive in your life, it "pushes out" other values.  And a good question then becomes: What is it that greed is keeping me from?  What is greed pushing out of my life?

For one thing, greed keeps us from truly knowing ourselves.  All the energy and time spent in acquiring things, all the time spent defining and rationalizing luxuries as necessities, eventually leads us to believe that we are what we have.  Yet in fact, faith tells us that we are much more than what we possess.  But greedy people don't see that.

Secondly, greed keeps us from making connections.  It pushes out the only thing in life that ever really matters, relationships.  Think of it this way: no job promotion can replace the times when your child falls asleep in your arms.  No fancy car or boat or home can take the place of being with your son when he is growing from a child into a young man.  Time spent with your children is not a distraction from the main event.  It is the main event!

Greed tends to put children and spouses at the bottom of the list for time and attention.  Some parents today more or less subcontract out their kids, while they go off and "build for their future," storing up luxuries — when the only luxury the kids want is the parents themselves.  Greed builds walls.  Every added room, every additional car, every extra television separates.

It is true that people need a certain amount of material goods and money to live a decent life and provide for the future.  But the question is: when does a legitimate desire to meet present needs exceed reasonable limits.  Greed is present in the desire to accumulate more even when one already has what is sufficient and reasonable.  And when you are concentrating primarily on accumulating and having things, along with your "things" comes separation — separation from the very ones we profess to love.

Of greatest concern, greed separates us from God.  So let us not define ourselves by our things, but by our relationship with God.  In the words of St. Athanasius, "A person who lives every day as if he were to die will not sin, because good fear extinguishes most of the disorder of our appetites; whereas he who thinks he has a long life ahead of him will easily let himself be dominated by pleasures."

Live and pray each day so as not to be dominated by your possessions.  If there is any sense of greed in your life, push it out.

May God Bless you always.