{"id":1877,"date":"2016-07-31T12:05:07","date_gmt":"2016-07-31T16:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1877"},"modified":"2016-07-31T12:05:07","modified_gmt":"2016-07-31T16:05:07","slug":"18th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/18th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

18th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time<\/a>
\nEcclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23
\nPsalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17
\nColossians 3:1-5, 9-11
\nLuke 12:13-21<\/p>\n

A person comes to Jesus with a request, to tell his brother to share the inheritance with me.\u00a0 Jesus seems to brush off the question.\u00a0 Jesus isn\u2019t interested in \u201cinheritance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now one might ask isn\u2019t inheritance about family?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t family about relationships?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t Jesus tell us to love our neighbors?<\/p>\n

The man doesn\u2019t ask Jesus to help the family get along and help each other.\u00a0 The man asks for a share of the inheritance.\u00a0 The man is concerned about material things.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 advice?\u00a0 He tells the crowd to \u201ctake care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one\u2019s life does not consist of possessions.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

What makes you rich<\/em>?\u00a0 What makes you happy<\/em>?\u00a0 What brings you fulfillment in life?<\/p>\n

Are material things important?\u00a0 They can be.\u00a0 We need a place to live.\u00a0 We need food to eat and clothing to wear.\u00a0 A car can be important to get around but do these things dictate our life?\u00a0 Do they determine what our life is worth?<\/p>\n

They can occupy our time.\u00a0 We need to be smart about our purchases to get good, dependable stuff at a fair price but having these things should never be for greed or pride.\u00a0 If we purchase for greed, we get more than we need to have more.\u00a0 Or we do so just to be able to brag about what we have, which would be pride.<\/p>\n

What does it get us?<\/p>\n

Jesus tells us the parable of the rich man who had such a great harvest that his barns could not store it all.\u00a0 What did he do with the excess?\u00a0 He built bigger barns to store it all and figured he was set for life.<\/p>\n

Set for life?\u00a0 What life?<\/p>\n

The store of grain would help him be set for physical food and that is nice.\u00a0 What about eternal life?\u00a0 Did the store of grain do anything to nourish the man\u2019s soul?\u00a0 Did it do anything for his salvation?<\/p>\n

The man died that night.\u00a0 The store of grain did him no good.\u00a0 It went as inheritance to someone else.\u00a0 Maybe it went to family that was important to him.<\/p>\n

The man spent his life focused on earthly things rather than what is above.\u00a0 God was not part of his decision of what to do with the bountiful harvest.<\/p>\n

Is God part of your decision making about what to do with your material possessions?<\/p>\n

What does it mean for God to be part of our decision about material possessions?\u00a0 After all, when the man asked Jesus to tell his brother to share the inheritance, Jesus didn\u2019t seem interested.<\/p>\n

Jesus doesn\u2019t care if we have a red car or a blue car.\u00a0 Jesus is interested if we spend all that we have to buy a car with things we don\u2019t need and have nothing left to help others.<\/p>\n

With the man with abundant harvest, the man was blessed by God with an abundant harvest.\u00a0 What he had in abundance he could have shared with others in need instead of keeping more than he needed for himself.<\/p>\n

I have worked with some young couples who wait to get married and start a family until they establish their careers.\u00a0 On the surface this might sound great but is it what really happens or does your career then dictate your whole life?\u00a0 For instance, one might say they will work long hours just to get started but then do the long hours ever go away?<\/p>\n

If we look only at today, things like food and a home take priority.\u00a0 If we look at eternity, then God takes on a lot more importance.<\/p>\n

People can talk about the importance of material things in providing for their families so it might seem like children could just make material things all the more important.\u00a0 Then, with children also comes football, soccer, plays, etc. that compete for our time against church.\u00a0 Yet, sometimes when people have been away from the church, it is precisely when their children begin to grow and learn that they come back to church, wanting their children to know about God.\u00a0 So, material possessions are not all we need.<\/p>\n

When you leave today will God be part of your decisions?\u00a0 Will God be a priority in setting direction in your life?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23 Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17 Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11 Luke 12:13-21 A person comes to Jesus with a request, to tell his brother to share the inheritance with me.\u00a0 Jesus seems to brush off the question.\u00a0 Jesus isn\u2019t interested in \u201cinheritance.\u201d Now one might ask isn\u2019t inheritance …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[185,184],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-uh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1878,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions\/1878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}