Monday of Week 20 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
Ezekiel 24:15-24 | Deuteronomy 32:18-21 | Matthew 19:16-22
The encounter between Jesus and the rich young man, documented in today’s Gospel, is a familiar yet disturbing passage. In the end, the faithful young man leaves disconsolate because Jesus asked him to let go of his bountiful riches and follow Him.
I suspect many who hear it proclaimed at mass respond with the canonical “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ!” but privately think “nah, that doesn’t apply to me, surely?”
In Chinese, this would be considered 耳边风, literally “the wind past your ear”, something not meriting much attention. Honestly, we’d prefer not to think about it because we share the young man’s qualms, but there’s a way out of this dilemma…
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My friends have long known that I’m a sci-fi fan, and one series that particularly caught my teenage attention was Frank Herbert’s Dune saga. Apart from his provocative treatment of amalgamated religions that provokes thought from me even today, there have been passages from those books that randomly pop into my head, decades after last reading them. One of them actually has great bearing on the rich young man’s dilemma:
One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp too strongly is to be taken over by power, and thus to become its victim.
– Frank Herbert, Children of Dune
Substitute “riches” for “power” in the above quote, and now his problem is clear…and so is the devilish relationship many of us have with money.
Life in Singapore can be really, really expensive, especially when we set our sights on something significantly above subsistence living. Add to that our desire to ensure our children’s present comfort and financial future, and the joke that “Singapore has the largest proportion of millionaires in the world” starts getting serious.
And when that wealth is threatened one day by grave illness, loss of livelihood or other significant event, we start panicking and taking ill-advised risks, and even consider things like fraud and theft that run counter to Christian values. It is then that the ugly truth emerges: we grasped money too tightly, so we were taken over by money, and thus became its victims.
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Perhaps, starting today, we can adopt a more nuanced perspective of money in our lives, as a way to directly support Christian living. Not anything as mercenary as Jesus’ depiction of the dishonest steward (Luke 16:1-13), but more along the lines of “how can I use my riches to help others?” Perhaps we could sponsor needy students in their studies, or help support a local hospice.
But let us also not forget the other part of Jesus’ request: that we follow Him in His ministry. That involves engaging with the poor and disadvantaged, taking the time to know them, to love them, and to serve them.
And not just throwing money at them, or writing cheques for our salvation. I don’t think Jesus quite had that in mind when he said:
use money, tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into the tents of eternity. (Luke 16:9)
Lord, we sometimes love our possessions more than we love You. Give us the courage to loosen our grip on our earthly things, so as to more firmly grasp Your outstretched hands that guide us to our eternal reward. Amen.