Word to the Wise
Saturday, November 8, 2008 - Saturday in the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
[Philippians 4:10-19 and Luke 16:9-15]In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me. (St. Paul to the Philippians] No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (Jesus in the Gospel of Luke]
It should be a matter of spiritual and moral common sense that lifestyle and faith are related to one another. But experience shows that we are quite capable of divorcing our lifestyle and faith from one another by "compartmentalizing" them. The result is not simply a personal insensitivity to the influence that "abundance" has on one's understanding of Jesus' message, but when the scale is large, as in an entire culture or nation, those with abundance lack all understanding of those who are deprived of abundance. Poverty and deprivation have their own corrupting influence as well! What happens is that when we compartmentalize our lifestyle and faith, we wind up actually trying to serve two masters! Perhaps we believe that we can hide one from the other or that one doesn't know the existence of another! Of course, we cannot hide God from creation, or vice versa! But we try! Our secular culture (which is the source of our "consumerist" lifestyle) has become a formidable Master. Some handle the conflict between the Secular Master and God by claiming that the Secular Master is actually a gift or blessing from God! This is a terrible mistake. The gift may be demonic, in fact! At least Faust knew who he was dealing with when he sold his soul to Mephistopheles! It is difficult for us to accept St. Paul's indifference to abundance and deprivation. As one wag put it, "I've been poor and I've been rich. Rich is better." Paul places his strength to endure anything in God, and not in his lifestyle. The current global financial crisis graphically demonstrates the relative priority of values which challenge our gospel vision. Nearly 2000 years of preaching are showing us that we still have a long way to go! AMEN
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