Gospel: Luke 12: 13-21
A casual observer would be shocked to discover that Jesus teaches against greed and the hoarding of possessions after witnessing how his alleged followers live. Houses filled with endless possessions, so much so that storage units are needed to store what we cannot fit in our homes. Domiciles awash in material goods that one does not even know what is contained therein until forced to liquidate these vast empires of things.
And all the while in our world exist the poor and hungry, the naked and homeless, the refugees, migrants, and immigrants that we have created as a result of our greed. We amass possessions and deprive the poor of the basic necessities of life. We go to war over our possessions, creating refugees in dire need of safety. We exploit other nations to increase our national wealth, thereby creating migration, and yet we do not in any way want to help them in their need.
We have within our own homes the means necessary to significantly help the poor, and yet we refuse to do so. We continue to stockpile possessions and both perpetuate and exacerbate the problems of poverty in our world. We think it someone else's duty to help the poor while we continue to steal from them through our greed and selfishness. One day we will find ourselves in the position of this farmer in the parable, and what will we say?
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