“Seek What is Above” by Rev. Paul Berghout (@FatherPB)

“Seek What is Above” by Rev. Paul Berghout (@FatherPB)

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Piety 

“Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” Ecclesiastes 1:2

“If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”  Colossians 3:1

“Teacher, tell my brother to share his inheritance with me.” Luke 12:13

Study

From Shel Silverstein comes the following about the Giving Tree:

“The tree gives the little boy her apples to pick and her branches to climb. The boy and the tree love each other and are happy in their life together. As the boy grows older, however, his interest in the tree becomes less. The tree is very lonely until one day the boy returns as a young man. The tree offers her apples and branches, but the boy claims that he is too busy and mature to climb and play. He is more interested in money.

’Can’t you give me some money?’ he asks the tree.

The tree has not money, but she does have apples. Why doesn’t the boy pick the apples and sell them then he will be happy? The boy does this, and the tree is happy. But then the boy stays away an even longer time and the tree is sad.

Years later, the boy returns. The tree is overwhelmed with joy as she invites the boy to swing from her branches. But the boy is too busy to play. What he wants is his own family and a house to keep him warm.

Can the tree give him a house? No, but the boy can cut her branches and build a house with them, suggests the tree; then he will be happy. The boy does this, and the tree is happy.

Many years pass before the boy, now middle-aged returns. The tree, overjoyed, invites the boy to play. But now the boy says that he is too old to play. All he wants is a boat which will take him far away.’ Can you give me a boat?’ The tree invites the boy to cut down her trunk and make a boat so he can be happy. The boy does this, and the tree is ecstatic--but not really, for now only a bare stump remains.

When, years later, the man returns, much older now, and he has arthritis. The tree apologizes for having nothing to offer any longer, no more apples to eat or branches to climb, only an old stump.

But the older man says his teeth are too weak for apples, and he is too old to climb. All he needs is a quiet place to sit and rest for he is exhausted.

’ Well,’ says the tree, straightening herself up as much as she can,’ an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, boy sit down, sit down and rest.’ And the boy does. The tree is very happy.”

An excellent story isn’t it? That was indeed a giving tree. It gave and gave and even when it only had a stump left, it still gave, a place of rest and quiet.

 But that apple tree is not the only giving tree. I can think of another tree, another tree which gave of itself, gave body and blood, gave love and mercy gave forgiveness and compassion, gave acquittal and freedom-- The tree of Calvary, which is the Cross of Christ; Another giving tree.

And that tree still gives through the Body and Blood which Jesus shed upon it, in the Eucharist.

I think that the moral of the story about the Giving Tree is that the boy (and then man) took and took and took his entire life was never satisfied, but the tree who gave everything she had was happy in the end.

One application can be a warning about greed. St. Thomas Aquinas defined greed as an immoderate love of possessing. Even after someone is well-established in their field, they feel insufficiently recognized. Or the parent who feels their son or daughter never scores enough goals or points in sports or does not get straight A’s.

Jesus says, “Beware of greed!” in our Gospel today.

Our Second Reading speaks of greed too: put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry.

Our Gospel teaches us that if we keep all our profits for ourselves, it will end badly for us—like the Rich Fool, to whom God said, “This night your life will be demanded of you.”

Action

Poem by C.T Studd: “Only one life, twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

It’s O.K. to be successful. Prosperity means to have no lack. “I have enough; I am enough; God is enough.”

Being rich for God means spending some of your treasure on what matters to God: like on the poor, widows, orphans, immigrants in real need. If a person does not acknowledge other human beings, such a person does not recognize the existence of God.

The Rich Fool had no gratitude but a crisis of greed: What should I do? We hear him. “Mine all mine.” An unacknowledged presence -- God -- overhears his interior monologue. Have a relationship with the giver of the gifts as you work in this world.

In what ways do I yearn for more? How have I learned that possessing more does not make me anything more than I am?

“Demanded back” means that man’s earthly life is on loan from God; similarly, Wisdom 15:8 says, “The life that was lent him is demanded back.”

There’s an old story about a hermit who stumbled onto a cave where he found an enormous hidden treasure. The hermit, being old and wise, realized what he had discovered and immediately took to his heels and ran from the cave as fast as he could. But as he was running, he came upon three brigands who stopped him and inquired as to what he was fleeing.

“I’m fleeing the Devil!” he said.

Curious, they said, “Show us.”

Protesting all the way, he took them to the cave where he had found the treasure.

“Here,” said the hermit, “is death, which was running after me.”

Well, the three thought the older man was crazy and sent him on his way. Gleefully reveling in their new-found treasure, they determined that one of them should go back to bring back some food, while the other two would prepare the new-found wealth for hauling it away. One volunteered, thinking to himself that while in town, he would poison the food and kill his rivals and have the treasure all to himself. But while he was away, the other two were thinking that they could kill him when he returned with the food and divide the spoils between just the two of them. They did this, and then they settled down to eat their food and celebrate their successful plan. But their banquet turned out to be a funeral feast, because when the poison hit their stomachs, they too died, leaving the treasure as they had found it.