29th Week OT (M): Ephesians 2.1-10 and Luke 12.13-21
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX
The Gospel of Power and Wealth has been in the news much lately. All those megachurch celebrity-preachers who buy used football stadiums and fill them up with folks desperate for a message of easy hope and cheap grace. Here’s the formula: take a few tidbits of folksy conventional wisdom; gently mix in a few carefully selected biblical images or ideas; fold these with several large dashes of alliteration and bumper sticker brevity; bake for a few years on cable access and strip mall storefronts; then package as a Prosperity Gospel with the subtitle: “God Wants You to be Rich.” Your former stadium becomes a “church” and you, a former used car salesman, are now a “pastor.”
We have to be careful. I don’t mean to mock those who do find hope and grace in these communities. My point is a bit more subtle than taking a few jabs at the competition. My point is this: when you put material prosperity, earthly treasures, at the center of your spiritual life—whether as an indicator of God’s blessing or a reward for strong faith or as a consequence of sound biblical financial planning—when you make your stock portfolio or your savings account the measure of your holiness, the benchmark of your righteousness, you risk—dangerously risk!—losing the true riches that God has for you. Making your wealth in things rather than your poverty of spirit the measure of God’s grace working in your life is foolish—literally, “without any wisdom.” God, surveying the vain attempts of the rich man to store up his treasures, says to the man, “You fool!” You are poor in the things that matter to God.
So, what matters to God? Our Father has mercy in great abundance. And because he has such love for us as His children, He has brought us back to life despite our sin. We are restored to life with Christ, lifted up with him, and seated next to him in the presence of God. And why? Paul writes to the Ephesians: “[so] that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace…for by grace you have been saved through faith…it is a gift of God.” Not from our works. For we are his handiwork.
The public sign of our abundant riches is not the Lexus, the Gucci wardrobe, the Rolex, or the micro-mansion in Plano. The public sign of our wealth in Christ Jesus is our willingness to serve through good works, our eagerness to repent and to forgive, our excitement at the chance to witness to our trust in God, our ready obedience to one another, and our humility before the historic faith. And even with these the riches of God’s grace are immeasurable. What is prosperity? What is wealth? What is abundance? What is any of this held against the infinite progress of His gift of life and eternal life?
It is true: only the rich go to heaven. Only those greatly blessed with great wealth will see God face-to-face after death. In fact, there’s not much point in the poor struggling now for heaven later. If we will not take the treasures given freely by God now, there’s no hope of finding ourselves in the crowd around the throne later. Everything you need to live abundantly is freely given by the Father through His Son in the Holy Spirit. Your life is freely given. Your redemption is freely given. Your blessings are freely given. Your sins are freely forgiven. And you are brought to the Divine Life pristine, glorious, and free. Only the rich see God face-to-face. Only those rich in His mercy, only those freed as His possessions.
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX
The Gospel of Power and Wealth has been in the news much lately. All those megachurch celebrity-preachers who buy used football stadiums and fill them up with folks desperate for a message of easy hope and cheap grace. Here’s the formula: take a few tidbits of folksy conventional wisdom; gently mix in a few carefully selected biblical images or ideas; fold these with several large dashes of alliteration and bumper sticker brevity; bake for a few years on cable access and strip mall storefronts; then package as a Prosperity Gospel with the subtitle: “God Wants You to be Rich.” Your former stadium becomes a “church” and you, a former used car salesman, are now a “pastor.”
We have to be careful. I don’t mean to mock those who do find hope and grace in these communities. My point is a bit more subtle than taking a few jabs at the competition. My point is this: when you put material prosperity, earthly treasures, at the center of your spiritual life—whether as an indicator of God’s blessing or a reward for strong faith or as a consequence of sound biblical financial planning—when you make your stock portfolio or your savings account the measure of your holiness, the benchmark of your righteousness, you risk—dangerously risk!—losing the true riches that God has for you. Making your wealth in things rather than your poverty of spirit the measure of God’s grace working in your life is foolish—literally, “without any wisdom.” God, surveying the vain attempts of the rich man to store up his treasures, says to the man, “You fool!” You are poor in the things that matter to God.
So, what matters to God? Our Father has mercy in great abundance. And because he has such love for us as His children, He has brought us back to life despite our sin. We are restored to life with Christ, lifted up with him, and seated next to him in the presence of God. And why? Paul writes to the Ephesians: “[so] that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace…for by grace you have been saved through faith…it is a gift of God.” Not from our works. For we are his handiwork.
The public sign of our abundant riches is not the Lexus, the Gucci wardrobe, the Rolex, or the micro-mansion in Plano. The public sign of our wealth in Christ Jesus is our willingness to serve through good works, our eagerness to repent and to forgive, our excitement at the chance to witness to our trust in God, our ready obedience to one another, and our humility before the historic faith. And even with these the riches of God’s grace are immeasurable. What is prosperity? What is wealth? What is abundance? What is any of this held against the infinite progress of His gift of life and eternal life?
It is true: only the rich go to heaven. Only those greatly blessed with great wealth will see God face-to-face after death. In fact, there’s not much point in the poor struggling now for heaven later. If we will not take the treasures given freely by God now, there’s no hope of finding ourselves in the crowd around the throne later. Everything you need to live abundantly is freely given by the Father through His Son in the Holy Spirit. Your life is freely given. Your redemption is freely given. Your blessings are freely given. Your sins are freely forgiven. And you are brought to the Divine Life pristine, glorious, and free. Only the rich see God face-to-face. Only those rich in His mercy, only those freed as His possessions.
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