[Propertalk] revised homily

[Sil Galvan]

Friends,
Too late to help anyone I'm sure, but I have revised this effort to 
include a commercial currently on TV that I wanted to include in my 
first draft but had forgotten about until I saw it again last night. FWIW!
Sil Galvan
http://www.deaconsil.com

Greed Is Not Good

∙ Perhaps you have seen a commercial sponsored by Traveler’s Insurance 
which features a dog and a bone. In the background is playing the song 
called Trouble by Ray LaMontagne. (You can see it at 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G7bGBUlx2M.) The lyrics are “Trouble 
been doggin' my soul since the day I was born. Worry just will not seem 
to leave my mind alone.” In the commercial, the dog tries to hide his 
favorite bone in what he considers a safe place. First, he tries several 
places in the house (in a laundry basket, under a carpet, on his 
master’s chair) without successfully alleviating his fears. The he tries 
burying it in the yard outside the house, but his worries won’t go away. 
So he takes a bus to the bank and puts it in a safe deposit box. My 
favorite scene in the commercial is when he is tossing and turning in 
this bed thinking about it there. So finally he brings it home and has 
it covered by a red umbrella, the Traveler’s Insurance logo of 
protection. Seems like an apt summary of this gospel passage which we 
just heard.
There are many directions that a homilist could take in addressing this 
passage. In fact, one commentator that I consulted devotes more than 
fifteen pages to it! I would like to focus on the place of material 
possessions in our lives and the possible results of having those 
possessions. Consider that “at the basis of Jesus' teaching about 
possessions there are three principles.
“1) First of all, all things belong to God. In Jesus' teaching it is the 
master who gives his servants the talents (Matt.25:15) and the owner who 
gives the husbandmen the vineyard (Matt.21:33). This principle has 
far-reaching consequences. We can buy and sell things; we can to some 
extent alter and rearrange things; but we cannot create things. The 
ultimate ownership of all things belongs to God. There is nothing in 
this world of which a someone can say, "This is mine". Of all things we 
can only say, "This belongs to God, and God has given me the use of it."
“There is a story of a city child who was taken for a day in the 
country. For the first time in her life she saw a drift of bluebells. 
She turned to her teacher and said, `Do you think God would mind, if I 
picked one of his flowers?' That is the correct attitude to life and all 
things in the world.
“2) The second basic principle is that people are always more important 
than things. If possessions have to be acquired, if money has to be 
amassed, if wealth has to be accumulated at the expense of treating 
people as things, then all such riches are wrong. Whenever and wherever 
that principle is forgotten, or neglected, or defied, far-reaching 
disaster is certain to follow.” (1)
∙ March 25th, 2011 will be the 100th anniversary of the Triangle 
Shirtwaist factory fire. It was the deadliest industrial disaster in the 
history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss 
of life from any industrial accident in U.S. history. The fire caused 
the deaths of 146 garment workers, most of them Italian and Jewish 
immigrants and young women between the ages of 16 and 23, who either 
died from the fire or jumped to their deaths. Most of the workers could 
not escape the burning building because the managers had locked the 
doors to the stairwells and exits to keep them from leaving early or 
stealing. Fire truck ladders only reached the sixth floor. The fire 
eventually led to legislation requiring improved factory safety 
standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' 
Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better working conditions for 
sweatshop workers. (2)
In a famous line from the movie Wall Street, the actor Michael Douglas 
says “Greed is good”. Well, based on this gospel text, and as certainly 
evidenced by this tragedy, amassing one’s wealth on the backs of the 
poor and indigent is not an example to be followed by anyone, let alone 
by anyone who calls themselves a Christian, that is, a follower of 
Christ. This leads us to
3) the third and last principle that Christ has taught us about material 
possessions, which is that “wealth is always a subordinate good. The 
Bible does not say that, ‘Money is the root of all evil,’ it says that 
‘The love of money is the root of all evils’. In other words, the 
possession of wealth, money and material things is not, in and of 
itself, a sin, but it is a grave responsibility. If someone owns many 
material things, it is not so much a matter for congratulation as it is 
a matter for prayer, that they may use them as God would have them do.” (1)
All of this discussion leads us to consider the result of having 
material possessions, especially an abundance of possessions. Ten of the 
eleven verses in this passage today have to do with worry and how we 
should deal with it. “In these ten verses Jesus sets out seven different 
arguments and defenses against worry.
(i) He begins by pointing out (Matt.6:25) that God gave us life, and, if 
he gave us life, surely we can trust him for the lesser things.
(ii) Jesus goes on to speak about the birds (Matt.6:26). There is no 
worry in their lives, no attempt to pile up goods for an unforeseen and 
unforeseeable future; and yet their lives go on.
(iii) In Matt.6:27, Jesus goes on to prove that worry is in any event 
useless because there is nothing we can do to alter the course of our 
lives or extend it beyond the time that God graciously gives us.
(iv) Jesus speaks about the flowers (Matt.6:28-30), and he speaks about 
them as one who loved them. The lilies of the field were the scarlet 
poppies and anemones. They bloomed one day on the hillsides of 
Palestine; and yet in their brief life they were clothed with a beauty 
which surpassed the beauty of the robes of kings. When they died they 
were used for nothing more than for burning. The point is this. If God 
gives such beauty to a short-lived flower, how much more will he care 
for man? Surely the generosity which is so lavish to the flower of a day 
will not be forgetful of man, the crown of creation.
(v) Jesus advances a very fundamental argument against worry. Worry, he 
says, is characteristic of a heathen, and not of one who knows what God 
is like (Matt.6:32). Worry is essentially distrust of God. Such a 
distrust may be understandable in a heathen who believes in a jealous, 
capricious, unpredictable god; but it is beyond comprehension in one who 
has learned to call God by the name of Father. The Christian cannot 
worry because he believes in the love of God.
(vi) Jesus goes on to say that there are two ways in which to defeat 
worry. The first is to seek first, to concentrate upon, the Kingdom of 
God. It was Jesus’ conviction that worry is banished when God becomes 
the dominating power of our lives.
(vii) Lastly, Jesus says that worry can be defeated when we acquire the 
art of living one day at a time (Matt.6:34). The Jews had a saying: "Do 
not worry over tomorrow's evils, for you know not what today will bring 
forth. Perhaps tomorrow you will not be alive, and you will have worried 
for a world which will not be yours." If each day is lived as it comes, 
if each task is done as it appears, then the sum of all the days is 
bound to be good. It is Jesus' advice that we should handle the demands 
of each day as it comes, without worrying about the unknown future and 
the things which may never happen.” (1)
Perhaps a modern day story would summarize all this better than I could. 
The author writes:
∙ I used to live in perpetual fear of losing things I had, or never 
having the things I hoped to acquire. What if I lose my hair? What if I 
never get a big house? What if I become overweight, out of shape or 
unattractive? What if I lose my job? What if I am disabled and cannot 
play ball with my child? What if I get old and frail and have nothing to 
offer those around me? But life teaches those who listen, and now I 
know: If I lose my hair, I will be the best bald guy I can be, and I 
will be grateful that my head can still stimulate ideas, if not 
follicles. A house does not make a person happy. The unhappy heart will 
not find contentment in a bigger house. The heart that is merry, 
however, will make any home a happy one. If I spend more time developing 
my emotional, mental and spiritual dimensions, rather than focusing 
solely on my physical self, I will be more beautiful with each passing 
day. If I cannot work for wages, I will work for the Lord—and his 
benefits package is unmatched. If I am physically unable to teach my 
child to throw a curve ball, I will have more time to teach him to 
handle the curves thrown by life, and this shall serve him better. And 
if aging robs my strength, mental alertness and physical stamina, I will 
offer those around me the strength of my convictions, the depth of my 
love and the spiritual stamina of a soul that has been carefully shaped 
by the hard edges of a long life. No matter what losses or broken dreams 
may lie in my destiny, I will meet each challenge with dignity and 
resolve. For God has given me many gifts, and for each one that I may 
lose, I will find ten more that I never would have cultivated were the 
course of my life to always run smoothly. And so, when I can no longer 
dance, I will sing joyfully; when I haven't the strength to sing, I will 
whistle with contentment; when my breath is shallow and weak, I will 
listen intently and shout love with my heart; and when the bright light 
approaches, I will pray silently until I cannot pray. Then it will be 
time for me to go to the Lord. And what then should I fear? (3)
The dog in that commercial I mentioned in the beginning of this homily 
found peace having his bone insured by Traveler’s Insurance. I don’t 
think we can do better than to place our lives in the hands of the Lord 
of all that is and trust in his benevolent care.

References:

1. From the Gospel of Matthew, copyright 1975 by William Barclay. St. 
Andrew Press, Edinburgh, Scotland. Used with permission.
2. From Wikipedia at 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory
3. What Should I Fear? by David Weatherford. From Chicken Soup for the 
Unsinkable Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Heather 
McNamara (1999, Health Communications, Deerfield Beach, FL)