 |
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati Main Page || The Catholic Telegraph || Live Letters index |
Live
Letters Twenty-Third
Sunday in Ordinary Time |
The Catholic Telegraph
September 8, 2000The members of the early Church were not generally important people. They were not rich or influential members of society. They were members of the poorer classes, even slaves. And when there was contact with people of greater economic substance, the contact was not without danger. The danger consisted in dividing up the Church.
In this Sunday’s reading, James warns against giving in to personal consideration of the rich, then shows one of the forms such discrimination takes, and then gives reasons for the warning.
If you are committed to faith in Jesus, he says, if you are an adherent of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead, you cannot act as if some people are more important than others. Then he presents a little drama by way of example: here comes Mr. Goldring in his dazzling outfit and, at the same time, a nobody in rags. You make a fuss over the well dressed person and find him a seat up front, but shove the poor man off to the side somewhere. What’s going on here? You are dividing up the community, making judgements about the worth of people, and bad judgements at that. Why is it wrong to favor the rich? Because God favors the poor. He enriches them with faith here and now and promises them eternal happiness in the reign of God that still lies ahead.
Who is really important? What constitutes importance? Those are the issues here. Jesus made it quite clear that, in His eyes, it is the poor who are important. At the very beginning of His public ministry He proclaims, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Mt. 5.3; cf. Lk. 6.20) Already in the Old Testament those without material possessions, the poor, had a special place in God’s care (cf. Is. 61.1; Zeph. 2.3). Jesus adds "in spirit" to indicate that blessedness was not simply a matter of one’s bank balance. It required some religious orientation even among the materially poor. Similarly, even those of a more exalted social rank could qualify for the blessedness Jesus promised if their spirit was touched with poorness. But poorness there has to be. That’s what qualifies people for blessedness. That’s what makes them important.
Why are the poor blessed? Because the poor are acquainted with one of the most basic and important prerequisites of religious faith: a sense of dependence. The economically poor are those who have no resources of their own, who have to rely on somebody else’s generosity in order to survive. The spiritually poor are those who recognize their complete dependence on God. The economically poor have the advantage over the economically rich, because they are already equipped with an awareness of their need. But that awareness has to be there. Otherwise the generosity of God won’t mean much to us.
The trouble with being rich is that wealth brings security. We are not much threatened by the world around us if we have a nice safe home and plenty to eat and drink. We are inclined to believe that we can get along quite nicely on our own resources and that we don’t need anything beyond what we have. We are comfortable, and we plan to stay that way.
But this attitude can easily lead us astray from the Lord. If we don’t think we need what God offers us, if we wave off God’s offer of life in Christ, or even if we make it a low priority in our lives, we are cutting ourselves off from what really matters in our lives, from what will provide us with eternal importance long after property and bank accounts have faded away.
True importance can only come from God, from sharing in His life, from expressing His generosity and faithfulness in our lives here and now. True importance means letting God be God in us and being willing to value everything as secondary to His love and attention to us. And in order to do that, we have to acknowledge our dependence, our poorness.
This is why making judgements between people, valuing some as more important than others, really doesn’t make much sense. In God’s sight we are all poor, all needy, all dependent. None of us has anything to rely on except the Lord. The gold ring on the finger and the expensive suit are of minuscule importance compared with God’s offer of love, life, and eternal glory. When it comes to being important, we are all equal. And we are all important to the extent that we are poor.
I’m not sure that the little drama that James describes in this reading is played out very often in the contemporary church. For one thing, people don’t seem to dress up much to come to church on Sunday any more so it’s harder to tell who is rich and who is poor! But the issues that this reading raises are of ongoing significance for us all. It’s important for us to be aware of our radical equality. It’s important for us to know wherein our importance lies.
###
Conversation Questions
Whom do I consider important? Why?
Am I poor? How? How poor?
###
Main Page
|| The Catholic Telegraph || Live Letters index
Copyright © 2000 Archdiocese of Cincinnati.