True Wealth

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

We had a wonderful event take place in our community this past week.  Thirty-one of our youth North of Smokey graduated from high-school.  They were sent off with a wonderful message from their valedictorian.  She told them that life was not going to be easy.  They all had hard times in their future, but they were also going to achieve great things.  It was a wonderful message because it was both inspiring and realistic.  I wish everything we taught our youth was like this.

Unfortunately, our society, through TV, the internet and many other sources, sends some really awful messages.

Girls should all be tall and thin with big breasts.

Boys should be tall, muscular and good at sports.

Drinks and food that are full of sugar are good for you.

Energy drinks are a good part of your daily routine.

Winning the lottery is a good plan for retirement.

And that’s not even getting into the sexual messages we are bombarded with daily.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that we read today ties in with one of these messages; the one about winning the lottery.  If we listen closely to what Paul is saying, we have to accept that the world today is seriously broken.

Paul is talking about how wealth is divided up.  Some with more and some with less.  That is okay.  Jesus said the same thing.  Jesus never said that he saw a future where everyone had the same amount of money.  He said that those that have need to help those that don’t have.

Paul says that and a bit more.  Paul sets some guidelines about how much the rich should give and how much the poor should receive.  It’s all about being realistic.  It’s all about moderation.  If you are rich, don’t give so much that you have trouble getting by.  If you are poor, don’t ask to be rich, just ask for enough to get by.

If we could listen to this message and accept it, no-one would ever play the lottery.

Do you know why?  The lottery is about extremes.  Most of the money spent in any kind of gambling, including bingo and 50-50 draws, is spent by people that really can’t afford it.  We spend that money because our society pounds the message into us over and over again that being extremely rich is the only true goal in life.

The only way to really be happy is to have more money than you can spend.  Of all the messages I listed earlier, I think this is the most destructive.  It is more destructive than unrealistic body images.  It is more destructive than unhealthy food.  It is even more destructive than learning about sex from internet pornography.

Why is this?  What happens when one person gets wealthy?  Several people become poor.  What happens when one person gets rich?  A bunch of people become poor or a few become impoverished.  What happens when one person becomes extremely rich?  Lots of people become impoverished.  All of these are on the individual level.  This effect becomes truly horrible when it happens with nations.  What happens when a nation becomes rich?

We live in a rich nation.  Our government tells us that it is important for our economy to keep growing.  It does everything it can to make sure of that.  We live in a rich nation that is intent on getting richer.  There are many nations around the world that don’t have enough money to feed their people.  In Canada some live in poverty.  In many nations, almost everyone lives in poverty.

Is this okay?  Is this how Jesus would want it to be?

So how do we change it?

We have to change the message.  We have to give up the false god of wealth.  We have to teach ourselves and our children a different idea of happiness.

I know with my own children how hard it is to convince them that they can be happy without all of the gadgets, toys, foods and everything else that they see in commercials or that their friends tell them about.  So how can we really change anything?

I think I know where to start.  We need to teach about dividing things into two groups: those things we need and those things we want.  We can work with our own families to do this.  Make a list of all of the things you spend money on and divide it into two parts: needs and wants.  You might even make a second list of what you spend time on.  Once our lists are done, we can put a cost next to those things in the want column.  What will it cost my family to do that or to not do that?  Will we have to give something up?  What will it cost others if I do or don’t do that?

Once we actually understand the costs of our needs and wants we can start to talk about the real cost of helping someone else or choosing not to help.  You can choose whether to spend money on that lottery ticket, and be able to say what you have to give up in return.

Also, if we truly want to take Paul’s message to heart, I think we need to make the same kinds of lists as a parish.  We need to list all of our wealth and divide it into needs and wants.  We need to list all of our costs and divide them into needs and wants.  If and when we do this, we can have a better idea of the future of this parish and what it can and can’t afford to do.  We can make our decisions not only by what money is needed, but also by what the cost will be to the community.  We will be able to measure our wealth by a different standard.  Not by how much money we have, but by what we stand for and what we can do.

If we can change the meaning of wealth for even a few people, then we have followed our calling.  If we can change our meaning of wealth as a parish, I have no doubt that this parish will be making a difference in this community long into the future.

Thanks be to God!