Placing My Trust Rightly

In today’s first reading, James 5: 1-6, St. James has strong words for those who become rich by cheating the poor and refusing to share their wealth to make the world a better place for all peoples The Scriptures do not condemn wealth. What is sinful is taking advantage of the poor, exploiting the poor, denying them just wages and thus jeopardizing their ability to shelter, feed, clothe and educate their families. What is also being condemned is trusting in one’s wealth, putting all one’s energies in accumulating and consuming material goods as gods in themselves upon which their salvation depends. “This,” the psalmist says, “is the way of those whose trust is folly, the end of those contented with their lot: Like sheep they are herded into the nether world; death is their shepherd and the upright rule over them,” in eternity, that is. But even here on earth, living selfishly is hell in itself.

Jesus says to us in Mark 8: 35: “Whoever would save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for the sake of the gospels’ will save it.” Am I willing to be “broken bread” and “poured-out wine” for others? Am I willing to give service to others, helping the poor and oppressed, addressing injustices, sharing my wealth with the less fortunate? Jesus says to us in today’s Gospel, “Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.” And that reward, for rich and poor alike, is eternal life. “God will redeem me from the power of the nether world by receiving me” (Psalm 49), the psalmist says to each of us.

Festal Gathering

In today’s first reading, Heb. 12: 18-19, 21-24, we are presented with two different experiences of God: one is terrifying, that of “a blazing fire and gloomy darkness and storm and a trumpet blast and a voice speaking words such that those who heard begged that no message be further addressed to them.”  The other, “Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,…[where dwell] countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled Blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.”

I am deeply touched by the words “the spirits of the just [are] made perfect” and that this is the place where Jesus, our mediator’s, Blood “speaks more eloquently than that of Abel” or any other person martyred for the faith. You and I, God willing and God does will it, will join this “festal gathering.”  We, too, will be “made perfect,” a perfection begun here on this earth through what we suffer, as was true of Jesus: “He learned obedience through what He suffered” (Heb. 5:8).   This is our faith. This is the hope that strengthens us as we journey to “the Promised Land.”