There is no one like Jesus among those who are wise and rich before God. Those who follow him and live like him share his wisdom and his riches.

People generally take Teachers of the law to be wise. That is why they go to them to settle inheritance issues even. It should not be surprising, then, that someone who considers Jesus as such a teacher asks help about an inheritance matter.

Jesus says “no.” But the occasion becomes a teachable moment as he warns the crowd against greed. That is, he lays out a radical solution to an old problem.

Jesus addresses, yes, the root of problems about inheritance, the gap between rich and poor, and other things. And right away he tells them the parable of the rich fool. He underscores that, though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.

In other words, we must wholly trust in God, and not in wealth or in any other thing. To be wise, we have to learn to “number our days aright” (Ps 90, 12). We fool ourselves when we daydream that we can avoid death with money (see Ps 49). Or that success and wealth can follow us below.

But to be wise and rich before God means, above all, to follow Jesus and to live like him.

Jesus surely puts his trust wholly in God. That is why he does not mind that he has nowhere to lay his head. Not imprisoned in himself, his interests or security, he freely goes about doing good. And proclaiming the good news.

And he takes nothing with him, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, nor extra clothes. He trusts completely in God. This God sees to it that one receives when one asks, that one finds when one seeks, that someone opens the door when one knocks.

Jesus reveals, of course, his absolute trust in God as he becomes the fool on the hill. There he gives his body up and sheds his blood for us, commending, in the end, his spirit into the hands of the Father.

Needless to say, we are wise and rich if we, like Jesus, trust in God. Especially if we are willing to give up even our lives for others.  Instead of trying to get and hoard everything for ourselves, thinking foolishly that it is all due to us. But what do we possess that we did not receive? And do we not have co-workers? Surely, moreover, “we live on the patrimony of Jesus Christ, on the sweat of poor people” (SV.EN XI:190).

Lord Jesus, help us put to death all greed, which is idolatry. And may we prefer dialogue to soliloquy, so that we may not be too wise that we distort your teaching. Give us the simplicity of the poor who have the true religion.

4 August 2019
18th Sunday in O.T. (C)
Eccles 1, 2; 2, 21-23; Col 3, 1-5. 9-11; Lk 12, 13-21