17 October 2016 - his handiwork

[ Today's Readings ]

Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.

Jesus isn't so much concerned about what we have or don't have. He's concerned about our priorities.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (see Matthew 5:3).

There is no sense focusing all efforts on storing up good things for many years. Eating, drinking, and being merry are pleasures that can all be taken from us at a moment's notice. If we live for these sorts of things we are never fully happy and ultimately disappointed because the night is coming for each one of us when our lives will be demanded of us.

Jesus knows that these investments of ourselves are doomed. Yet he does leave us something in which we can invest ourselves.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich (see Second Corinthians 8:9).

God "is rich in mercy". There are riches that he has for us just because of his great love for us (even when we're dead in sin, even when we can't deserve it). He wants to "show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." Because we ourselves are his handiwork we ourselves are worth more than anything we can buy or sell on earth. And the riches in which we can invest? "good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them."  The corporal and spiritual works of mercy and true riches. They manifest the treasure of God's grace at work in us and refine us to more perfectly express that grace. Ultimately, by God's grace working through us in love they serve to unite us with him in whom all true value is found.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire (see Second Peter 1:3-4).

Rather than our brother's inheritance, let us focus on the inheritance from the Father of whom we already have the first installment: the Holy Spirit himself.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise.