18th Sunday in Ordinary Time "C"

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time "C"

What is the meaning of Life, or perhaps more specifically what is the meaning of our own life's, and is our treasure something here? Were you able to take it along with you when you moved here?

The question that we hear today in our readings, points us in a direction that maybe, just maybe the things that we work for all of our lives are just things.

And that perhaps the things that really matter to each of us in the end, when we look back and see things more clearly with the wisdom that comes with age, looking back over our life's through a different kind of a Lens, were acquired maybe not always as a result of being able to buy them at the time, but were the sum of our relationships that we formed and are still forming along the way.

Jesus is telling us in this Parable in today's Gospel that we should be aware and know the difference between being rich in earthly possessions and by being Blessed with the richness of knowing God.

We can be blinded by our ambitions, and we can lose ourselves if we allow things like money and possessions to divide our families, Jesus has been asked by the one gentleman to settle a money matter that had arisen between two brothers, certainly nothing has changed there in the last two thousand years. Money has been the culprit in many broken families, everything that one generation has sacrificed for, another might squander. Good men, Brothers and family members can, and often do fight over inheritances each unwilling to yield. Many might stop talking to each other, and will turn away from God and their brother over money or over possessions.

This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the very things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves.

But are not rich towards God.

There is no need to build bigger barns, but rather as Jesus has suggested perhaps there is a need to reappraise where are treasure lies. Open the eyes of my heart Lord, open the eyes of my heart. I want to see as you see Lord, when we are looking at things from the Heart, we can see the futility of Life as our first reading told us today if we put all of our hopes and dreams in this life and not the next.

Vanity of Vanities, All things are vanity says the teacher. The writer was despairing over what he saw is the reality that all that we can spend our lives toiling for at times can seem like it's for nothing if we are looking for our happiness in all that we have accumulated.

Perhaps the way we might look is to see in the good work that we have accomplished in our brief lives might be in the way we have witnessed the Gospel to others. Do our children have a relationship with Christ that is modeled on the one that they saw in our lives?

Do they value the things that truly matter in life like love and faith, are they going to be able to pass these qualities along to their children. The questions is will the examples that we have taught, be based on building up relationships or will it be based on building barns to store things that will ultimately fade and pass away.

Saint Paul in our second reading warns the Colossians to seek what is above, that just as they have been raised with Christ Jesus so too have they died with him. Jesus reminds us to suppress the earthly desires we might be tempted by and to seek the things that are from above.

Loving Children, Good Friends, Good Health and an active relationship with the Lord these my good friends are the items that we can not purchase with money but rather can only be purchased with the hearts of the faithful.

The graces of Love, Charity and friendship, the brotherhood of sharing not only our wealth but also our poverty. Yes each of us has both wealth and poverty to share, and we each have something ton give and to take. The Church and the Body of Christ present and active in this faith community cares for the Common Good as the original Community of believers cared for each other.

Paul tells his followers to follow him and to strive to put to death their immorality, impurity, passion and evil desires.

His advice that he gives to them is to stop lying to each other, and also to put on our new selves, he has told us over and over to open the eyes of our Hearts, to see things in a NEW way, in his way.