Metrics - Update

Update - Pope Francis's homily for this weekend's notable canonizations also dwelt on today's Gospel reading.  I've pasted some of it at the bottom of this post.

This is my homily for today, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.  The readings for today are here.

We are going to have some eminent visitors in the coming weeks.  Next Sunday, at the 11:30 mass, our pastor, Fr. Darrio, will officially be installed as pastor of St. Edna; the new bishop of our vicariate, Bishop Rojas, will be coming here to do the honors.  And I’m told that sometime early next calendar year, possibly in February, Cardinal Cupich will come to dedicate our new parish center, which will be finished by then (we hope!).

There was a time, it must have been sometime late in the 1990s or perhaps very early on in the new millennium, when Cardinal George came to St. Edna.  If he came for any particular occasion, I don’t recall now what it was. 

There was one specific thing about that visit that still sticks in my mind, and it’s pertinent to this morning’s Gospel, which is about the spiritual perils of great wealth.  Cardinal George, in some ways, was a throwback to the old style of church official: he was stern and demanding, and he could be daunting.  Every deacon in the diocese could tell you that he didn’t suffer fools gladly.  But beneath the imposing façade, there beat the heart of a genuine priest, and there were times when it shone through.

 

That particular morning at St. Edna was one of those times.  To prepare him for his visit, someone had given him our annual report.  Now, in the business world where I work all week, an annual report is a set of financial statements, with income and expenses and assets and liabilities and government filings and all the rest.  But one of the many things I love about our parish is that we have our own spin on an annual report: instead of being obsessed with financials, our annual report also includes other metrics, like how many babies we baptized, how many times we brought communion to people in nursing homes, how many families in need received our Gift of Love at Christmastime.  Those numbers may not interest a financial analyst, but they’re real measures of the health of a parish.

Cardinal George loved our annual report.  He held it up and waved it in front of him.  And you could see all the pastoral activity in the report excited him – he smiled, which was not something that came easily to him among a group of strangers.  And he said the only words I can recall from that day – he said, “Reading this annual report is like reading the Gospel.”

What a wonderfully insightful comment that was from Cardinal George.  We do publish our actual financials regularly here at St. Edna – another thing about our parish that I love is that we try to be as transparent as we can about our finances – and if you read them, as I do, you know that, as the world measures wealth, this is not a particularly wealthy organization.  In fact, most years, it seems like it’s touch and go whether we’ll finish in the black – and some years, we don’t.

 

But acquiring and investing vast reserves of wealth is not how success and failure are measured in the kingdom of heaven.  I really think, if God is into metrics at all, he’s going to measure this faith community’s success by using the sorts of metrics that populate our annual report: to how many of our children did we try to pass along our faith?  To how many hungry people who came to our door did we provide food?   How many people in crisis found someone to talk with here, someone to listen to them, someone to pray with them?  To how many people did we proclaim the Good News that Christ died for us, rose from the dead for us, and is present with us when we gather here in his name?

Jesus’s message this morning to the wealthy man – go, give away your wealth, and then follow me – is hard for us to hear.  Did you notice that the disciples were amazed?  They had been taught that having wealth was a sign of God’s favor; the corollary would be that if you were poor, it would seem to be a sign of God’s disfavor. 

That was the misconception of their day.  The misconception in our day is a little different: it’s that whatever money we earn, whatever wealth we accumulate, is due to our own talents and character: our own shrewdness or guts or intelligence or hard work.  Isn’t that the mythology of the self-made man or woman?  That myth is embedded deeply in our American souls. 

My brothers and sisters, I think we need to resist that myth – the myth of the self-made man or woman.  It’s false.  Instead, let’s situate ourselves in the truth, by trusting God, and worshipping him in spirit and truth.  And when it comes to wealth, here is the truth, the wisdom of the kingdom of heaven: whatever good things have are blessings from God.  If we have much, it’s because we’ve been given much. 

It’s not a sin to be rich.  But having wealth brings its own set of spiritual perils.  One of the chief perils is that we’ll think that our wealth is something that we deserve, that it’s due us.  The truth is that whatever we have – wealth, talents, power, beauty, whatever gifts we have - is not due to our native abilities, and it’s not to keep for ourselves.  The truth is that whatever we have has been given to us by God.

When we trust God, when we put our faith in God, one of the gifts we are given is eyes to see.  And when we look around with eyes to see, we see things that disconcert us.  We see that there are people who don’t have enough, even in the midst of a community like this one where many people have more than they need.  Every day in our community, there are individuals and families in peril of being evicted from apartments because they’re unable to pay the rent.  There are people at risk of having their electricity shut off or their water supply turned off, because they don’t have enough money to pay their utility bills.  And yet how many people in our community have so much extraneous space in our homes that there are entire rooms that we seldom use?  How many of us consume electricity and water without giving much thought to it?  Some of us have so much, while others of us have so little. 

Jesus instructed the wealthy man to sell his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor.  If we’re fortunate enough that we have more than enough, let’s acknowledge that we’ve received a gift from God, and let us therefore do what he wishes us to do, which is to share our good fortune – share, literally, our fortunes – with those who are less fortunate.  Let us look for opportunities to be generous to those in need, perhaps even embracing a simpler lifestyle to do so.  Because those are the metrics used to measure our suitability for the kingdom of heaven.

Update 10/14/2018 10:48 pm ET:  Pope Francis canonized Pope Paul VI, Archbishop Oscar Romero, and five others this weekend.  Gerard O'Connell's story in America  included the following passage that gives us a sense of Francis's take on this week's Gospel reading.

[Pope Francis] referred to both saints [Paul VI and Archbishop Romero] in his homily when he commented on the Gospel story told by St. Mark the Evangelist that was sung in Latin and Greek at the Mass. That story recounted how a rich young man ran up to Jesus and asked what he must do “to inherit eternal life,” since he had observed all the commandments. Francis noted that the young man asked what he must “do”; in other words, he wanted “a good to be obtained, by his own efforts.” But, the pope recalled, “Jesus changes the perspective: from commandments observed in order to obtain a reward, to a free and total love. That man was speaking in terms of supply and demand. Jesus proposes to him a story of love” and calls on him to “sell what you have and give to the poor.” 

Pope Francis told the crowd that “the Lord does not discuss theories of poverty and wealth but goes directly to life. He asks you to leave behind what weighs down your heart, to empty yourself of goods in order to make room for him, the only good. We cannot truly follow Jesus when we are laden down with things. Because if our hearts are crowded with goods, there will not be room for the Lord, who will become just one thing among the others.”