On a cold morning in 1989, this 10-year-old boy woke up with an itch for money and baseball cards that he just had to scratch. This fateful morning about 30 years ago is what came to mind as I was reflecting on our first reading and today’s Gospel about the rich young man. Our first reading talks about how King Solomon pursued wisdom instead of wealth. Well, King Solomon, I was not.
Instead of being wise, I made the stupid mistake of asking my older brother, Pat, and my younger brother, Steve, what I could do to make some money so I could buy some more baseball cards. I thought they would tell me I could make their beds or clean up their rooms. Instead, my brothers came up with this game plan: They told me they would give me $3 if I stripped down to my tighty-whities and made a long run into the winter wonderland of our backyard. Blinded by the dollar signs in my eyes, I looked at what my brothers proposed and decided it was a good idea.
So off, came my clothes. Then, I swung open the door to our upstairs deck in hopes I could avoid my Mom seeing me, and I started my polar bear run. The first 10 steps with my bare feet in the snow were frigid, but then my feet started to feel numb and the adrenaline kicked in. I found my stride and before I knew it, I had ran 100 yards and was turning around to head back to the house. As I started running back to the house, I began to hear the faint sound of our Labrador Retriever quickly coming up behind me. Immediately, my running went from a fast jog to the fastest sprint my skinny little body was capable of. Even though I was running as fast I could, I heard our dog, gaining on me. I was about half way back to the house when I turned my head around to see how close our dog was to me. Then, our dog leapt into the air with his paws outstretched for my shoulders and his body about to land on my upper back a. Our dog pulled off a tackle that would make our UT football players proud. My bare skin slammed into the frigid snow. With our overly friendly male dog on top of me, I knew I needed to get up out of the snow quickly, so I managed to get back up and ran the remaining distance to the door. I was welcomed by my brothers’ roaring laughter. The $3 I soon held in my hand began to soothe my red skin and tingling toes.
But before long, I decided that $3 wasn’t enough. That’s the way greed works isn’t it? No matter how much in the way of money or possessions we have, it is never enough. When we’re asked how much is enough, the answer is always “more, more, more.” So I stupidly asked my brothers what else I could do to make more money. They told me they would give me two more dollars if I stuck my head in the toilet and flushed it. I decided the risk of losing my dignity was worth the $2 so I gave myself a swirlie. After I had done the deed, my brothers spilled the beans to my Mom. Later that day, my Dad came home from work and said “Justin, we need to talk.” My Dad told me that he didn’t want me to be stupid in my pursuit of money, so he made me give the $5 back to my brothers, making this the best free entertainment of my brothers’ lives.
When Jesus told the rich young man to give away all that he had, the rich young man went away sad. Man, do I know the feeling. Giving that $5 to my brothers was tough, but poverty isn’t the saddest thing in this world, it’s the loss of dignity.
I think the message my Dad was trying to communicate to me is the same message God is trying to communicate to us in these two readings: Don’t be stupid in pursuing wealth and possessions and in trying to hold onto them. When it comes to wealth and possessions, it seems like the more we have the tougher it is to let go of them. This painful truth about losing money is known by those of us who have lost a large sum of money whether it be through a business venture, in the stock market or while gambling. The painful truth about letting go of possessions we’ve accumulated is known by those of us who have had to get rid of our possessions during a move to another home or when cleaning up the basement or attic of the homes we live in.
After Jesus tells the rich young man to give away his possessions, the last we hear about the rich young man is that he went away sad, so we don’t know how he spent the rest of his life. For all we know, maybe later in his life he sold some or all his possessions and followed Jesus. While I can only speculate about how the rich young lived the rest of his life, I do know the ending of the story of the not so rich young man and his baseball cards.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in Church looking up at the tapestry of St. Francis of Assisi, who gave up a life of wealth and possessions to embrace a life of poverty without possessions. It seemed like this great Deacon of the Church was looking right at me. In that moment, the idea popped into my head to get the baseball cards from my childhood out of the attic, sell them and give the money to the poor. So I went into my attic got my baseball card collection. I then contacted a store and a guy that buy baseball cards only to find out that my baseball card collection was worth nothing. I had been holding onto these possessions for 30 years that were worth nothing. Like my baseball cards, whatever our possessions are, in the end, they’re all worthless. Whatever we have, we can’t take wealth and possessions with us.
Jesus doesn’t want us being stuck in the end clinging to possessions that are worthless. Instead, he wants us to pursue and invest in those people and activities that will provide a good return on investment in the long run. While this world tries to tell us what counts, it is Jesus who knows what really matters in the end.
For those of us who have some wealth and possessions, the poor may need us to be able to get out poverty. But Jesus wants us to realize that we may need the poor to live lives of value in this world and the next. Jesus says, “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me.” When it comes to giving to the poor, Jesus also tells us that whatever we have done for the least brothers of his we have done for Jesus. That means that when we give to the poor, we are investing in the poor and we are also investing in Jesus.
When we do what Jesus wants us to do with the gifts we have been given and give them to the poor, Jesus does more than just double or triple the investment we made in the poor and in him. Listen again to what Jesus said, “there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.” 100 times. Not a bad return on investment. So, when we invest in the poor, we are investing in Jesus and we are also investing in our own lives today on this earth and eternally in heaven. When we let go of our wealth and possessions, what we find is life.
We discover this life when we see our worth through the eyes of Jesus. This is different than our net worth in the world’s eyes. Our net worth in the world’s eyes counts the value of our baseball cards. Our net worth in the world’s eyes counts things like the profit a financial planner makes on selling a bad investment to a client. But the Jesus economy works different. The Jesus economy focuses on what matters in the end. Our net worth in Jesus’ eyes is not determined by the wealth or possessions we’ve accumulated. Instead our net worth in Jesus’ eyes is determined by what we have invested in the least of our brothers and sisters and in Jesus. Our net worth in Jesus’ eyes looks at the quality of the education we provided to a poor child with the money we donated through our tithe last week to Central City Ministries. Our net worth in Jesus’ eyes looks at the fullness of the bellies of those who are homeless after we feed them next weekend at Tent City. Our net worth in Jesus’ eyes looks at the courage we demonstrate by standing up for the rights of the poor and oppressed, like our soon-to-be newest Saint, Oscar Romero, did.
When we give to the poor and to Jesus in this way, Jesus will provide us with a return on this investment that will be one hundred times better with the relationships we have, with the places we feel at home, with the lands we visit and with the experiences we have that we otherwise would not have had. This is true both in this life now and the next.
Brothers and sisters, we are reminded today that God requires a response from each of us about how we are going to live the rest of our lives. Will we spend the rest of our lives playing the young person’s game of stupidly pursuing wealth and possessions and be stuck in the end sadly clinging onto these things that are worthless? Or will we instead be those who grow up living the rest of our lives pursuing God’s wisdom and having all good things come to us with this wisdom? The choice is each of ours to make.