Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me." He replied to him, "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?" Then he said to the crowd, "Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one's life does not consist of possessions." Then he told them a parable. "There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. He asked himself, 'What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?' And he said, 'This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, "Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!"' But God said to him, 'You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?' Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God."

Reflection

A sobering comment on the worthlessness of working unnecessarily for material possessions is the old saying that there are no pockets in a shroud. Every generation learns, often through bitter experience, that life is brief and entrance into heaven cannot be bought with riches. We leave the world the same way we came into it so what is the point of hoarding, when someone else, who may care nothing about us, will inherit and perhaps waste all we have worked to achieve. The rich fool found this out to his cost because death exposed his real poverty. During his life he behaved as if he was going to live forever. He failed to realise that what counts when we die is no wealth but the person we become in the process of living. Greed cut him off from God and other people. It showed up the foolishness of thingking that happiness can be attained without taking God and death into the reckoning.

In case we are in the process of switching off, because we think that his gospel applies only to the rich, it's well to remember that Christ preached this parable to people who were very poor by our standards. This is the story of the person who spends life without any reference to God. Christ is really warning us against going it alone, and trying to hold our future in our hands - of wasting our time, gloating over possessions and setting ourselves down securely in this life's comforts. This is a caution about greed and the hold which possessions exercise over the human heart. Greed and meanness are not confined to the wealthy but the most common of human failings and all of us can become victims of them in our struggle to earn our daily bread. They spell disaster for us and build us as to where true value lie. The frustrations, disappointments and incomplete joy that the pursuitof material possessions bring are a reminder that happiness does not come from having what we want, but being content with what we have.

We can overcome the temptation to greed by helping those who are less fortunate than ourselves. What is given to others is not lost but is transformed into a treasure for eternity. In the evening of life we will be measured by the good we have done. Rather than wrap money around our hearts, we are urged to give our money to the poor. In the light of what Jesus says, each of us has some hard thingking to do about our attitude towards possessions. God is at the end of the line waiting for us when life is over.

from Homilies and Prayers of the Faithful for the Three-Year Cycle
by Desmond Knowles
Paulines Publication