Alfred rose early and set about to prepare his morning
cup of tea. He was more anxious than
normal this morning as he was thinking about his brother who had passed away a
few days before. He hastily glanced
through the morning paper looking for news of the event. When he turned to the obituary section, he
was shocked to see his own name listed among the deceased. The newspaper had published Alfred’s obituary
in error instead of his brother’s. But
he was even more appalled when he saw the obituary title: “The
Merchant Of Death Is Dead”. The
article described him as someone who had found new ways to kill people and becoming
very rich in the process. Is this what
people really think of me? He thought.
Of course, the description was somewhat true. You see Alfred had invented dynamite and
other types of explosives that were being used as weapons of war. And the sale of the explosives did make him
very rich. But was he really the evil person described in the
obituary? Well Alfred certainly didn’t
think so; but it started him thinking.
Before he was to finish that first cup of tea that
morning, he realized that he had to change his life. In a moment, he resolved that he would no
longer focus on developing instruments of war to gain riches for himself. Instead, he vowed to devote his time and resources to improving the lives of others. The rest of his life would be dedicated to working for world peace.
At the end of his life in 1896, Alfred left most of his
very sizable estate to finance generous awards for those who would follow in
this work of peace. His full and well-known
name, even to us today, was Alfred Bernhard Nobel.
Most of us will never experience such a life-changing
event as Alfred Nobel did. But his
experience of facing his own unflattering obituary might give us reason to
reflect on our own priorities. Are we focusing
excessively on accumulating more things?
Are we striving for a higher rung on the social ladder? Are we spending excessive energy on obtaining
what we feel is rightfully ours?
St. Paul in his letter to the Colossians reminds us that
our lives are surrounded with many passing things. And these passing things can, if we allow
them, occupy most of our thoughts, time and energy; but unfortunately, they
will never fully satisfy us. Matthew
Kelly in his most recent book called “Rediscover the Saints” wrote: “We
all have restless hearts. And we so
often mistakenly believe that certain things like possessions, pleasures and
experiences will make us happy for longer than they do. We have all made those mistakes, and yet God
waits for us; waits for us, like a patient Father.”
St. Paul tells us today: “Set your hearts on things that are above, not on the things that are on
earth.” In other words, all that we
do, our social involvements, our family relationships, and our work should
reflect our faith in Jesus, our love for God, and the love we must have for one
another.
St. Paul teaches us that we should “put to death" those
parts of our earthy reality that does not conform to the life that God desires
for us, whether it be immorality, impurity, evil desire or greed. We must put on a new self; we must be renewed
in the image of our creator.
I believe we all know this. We have heard it many times over the years
from the Wisdom scriptures, from the Gospels and from others; yet, for some
reason, it is something that is so easy for us to forget as we get distracted
and carried away by so many things around us.
In the Gospel today, Jesus tells us two stories to
illustrate how easy it is to become obsessive about the passing things of the
world. The first story is about a man
caught up in a dispute over a family inheritance. This man feels that his brother has taken
advantage of him, and wants Jesus to be his arbitrator in settling the
account. And of course, Jesus wants
nothing to do with this. The lesson for
us from this story is that, in the Kingdom of God, our lives will not be
defined by our possessions.
To explain this, Jesus goes on to tell the story of the
rich man who has had an abundant crop. His
thoughts are not on sharing his abundance with those who have little or
nothing, but on creating his own security nest egg where all the comforts of
life will be available to him.
Jesus shows us the folly of this hoarding of worldly
goods when he warns the rich man; “this very
night your life will be demanded of you; and for all those things you have accumulated,
to whom will they now belong? The
rich man does not even recognize that he has become a prisoner of his own
possessions. He lives only to
accumulate. Sure, he’s able to increase
his wealth and amass goods, but when death calls, to what end does it serve.
Neither Jesus nor St. Paul condemns us for our accomplishments,
or the use of our gifts to provide for our needs and the needs of our
family. They both know that money is
important to us, that we need it to house, feed, clothe and care for those
trusted to our care. But they urge us to
consider just how vital our wealth really is.
Is it such an obsession that we allow it to dominate our lives? Have we become slaves to our
possessions?
Each of us have been given certain gifts by God,
including our intelligence, our physical abilities, our time, and our
talents. Even our wealth and material
possessions are gifts from God. The
question that we must always ask ourselves, even as challenging as it
may be: "Do I use the gifts that God has given me to create riches in God’s
eyes, or am I only storing up treasures for myself?"
Alfred Nobel needed that time; he needed that moment of
awakening to realize that his abundance was given him, not just for himself,
but to serve God and to serve others.
How may we, perhaps in the many small ways we can, share our gifts of
time talent and treasure to become rich before God?
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