Gospel: Luke 12: 13-21
It is easy for us to read this Gospel and apply it to the scandalous and sinful income inequality in our own times. We could very well recall the age of the robber barons and industrialists who stored up vast quantities of wealth while exploiting their workers. We might well note how our nation was founded through stolen land given to corporations who then brought cheap labor in the form of indentured servants and slaves in order to amass great wealth. All of that would certainly be true.
Additionally, we might well apply this story to ourselves. The average person has a vast quantity of things in their homes and storage units they do not use - clothes, kitchenware, our exercise museums, and all sorts of things that could be used by others who need them. We might not regard ourselves as rich, but to the person from a developing country or the ghetto our comfortable home filled with stuff is a mansion in their eyes.
If we ourselves are not willing to part with the excess in our own lives, it is then very likely that if we were to become rich we would hoard wealth just as the elite of our societies do in every age and place. Today is a day to take stock and reduce it, living simply and helping others who have nothing at all. This Gospel lesson is for all of us, not just the one percent.
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