James 5:1-6 / Mark 9:41-50
Much has been said about wealth, and yet much more can still be said about wealth.
And to be fair, we have to talk about the both sides of wealth.
Wealth can be the result of hard work and prudent savings and good investments.
But wealth can also be the result of greed and dishonesty, with also a splash of stinginess thrown in.
Whichever
way it is, wealth stands as a neutral object. The question is the
attitude towards it that generates the interest behind it.
The 1st
reading has a lashing for the wealthy by telling them they can start
crying and weep for the miseries that are coming. Because their wealth
is rotting, their clothes are eaten away, their gold and silver are
corroding.
But that
is because their wealth is gain through injustice and oppression - they
cheat their labourers, hold back the wages of the reapers, condemned the
innocent.
Wealth made them think that they had the might and right and no one dared to resist them. But the time of reckoning will come.
In the
gospel, Jesus gave us this warning - whatever causes us to sin, we must
cut it off. Rather to cut off a sinful thing than to go to hell with
everything.
Anyway,
wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few
wants. All we want, all we need is Jesus. The rest is transient and will
eventually pass away. But Jesus will be our eternal reward.