The reconstruction of the burnt down Notre Dame de Paris has begun.
There have been pledges from conglomerates for the funds needed to rebuild the
Cathedral. However, recent reports indicated that money instead is coming from
the small donors whilst the multinationals have yet to make good their
promises. This is rather telling.
Here are some figures to further your reflexion. From 2017 to 2018,
there was an 18% jump in wealth amongst the 2208 billionaires coming from 72
countries and territories giving them an aggregate worth of US$9.1 trillion.
China, the supposedly great egalitarian country, hosts 373 billionaires and
their wealth grew by 39% compared to the 12% increment of 585 billionaires
living in the USA. (These statistics are gleaned from Forbes). Well, note that China
is going to swarm all over the world. Like cockroaches.
Anyway, some of them have gotten rich on the back of their employees. An
example is Jeff Bezos of Amazon. Amazingly, it pays the workers poverty-level
salaries. What is glaringly unsettling is that many transnational companies
also maintain a disproportionate scale of reward for the upper echelon of
management. For example, what sort of philosophy undergirds such a corporate
culture that in order to be sacked, a chief executive is paid £75m?
Furthermore, many of these billionaires also know how to bankroll governments
so that policies favouring them can be kept intact. Was this Dr M’s reference
to the Deep State? Sadly, the chasm or divide between the rich and the poor is
only going widen because automation makes it easier to discard the human labour
force in favour of machines.
What do these depressing scenarios have to do with the Gospel this
weekend?
One can read the Rich Man as a failure of stewardship. In general, the
land that a person claims to own, it cannot be that it belongs to him
absolutely. Since God is the creator, one may say that the occupants are merely
tenants and whatever they possess is owned in the form of stewardship. A
quotation attributed to so many sources might help us understand what this
notion entails: “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We
borrow it from our children”.
Within the maxim, we recognise the transient or temporary nature of
ownership echoing the First as well as the Second Reading. However, in a
culture of victimhood and blame, it is easy to embrace an idea that being rich
is somehow a curse whereas poverty is somewhat favoured. The Gospel lends
itself to such a thinking because we keep hearing how the poor will be exalted
and the rich brought down. However, in all His teachings, Jesus has never
criticised the rich for being rich.
The sin of the rich man was not that he received a bountiful harvest.
His sin was choosing to live without any reference to God. He toiled, as the
author of the Ecclesiastes reminds us, in vanity of vanities. He has not sought
things that are above as per the letter to the Colossians. Life for him was
rather autonomous because he did not think further into the eternal but instead
thought he could store up for himself the fat of the land.
What was his sin but blindness? It is a kind of blindness can lead to a
calculativeness which in the example of the rebuilding of the Notre Dame is
seen in “how much tax rebate can I get for my contribution?”. Measure that kind
of consideration against those who give out of their pocket, thinking only of
the God’s glory rather than their benefit.
It is not communism to regard wealth as a blessing to be shared. To be
rich is more than a personal blessing. Remember the steward in Matt 24 or Luke
12 who was entrusted with feeding the household when the master had gone away.
In place of rendering his stewardship conscientiously, he set about lording
over those placed under his charge—beating and starving them whilst he himself
enjoyed life. The Lord’s reappearance did not bode well for him. Of course,
those who are blessed may not be doing anything of this sort but it invites us
to think what it means to be a blessing for others who are not as blessed as we
are.
If wealth is a blessing, then we must make a distinction between the
equality of opportunity and the equality of outcome. In order for a society to
be just, we need to ensure, as far as possible there be an equality of opportunity
for every person although we can never guarantee the equality of outcome. In
fact, this country squandered away that possibility of creating a just society.
It had an affirmative programme which was designed to ensure that the
economically deprived had equal access to opportunity. But, it was blatantly
abused and when the equal outcome could not be attained, the corrupt government
then devised even more asinine programmes or policies to force an equitable
result with disastrous consequences. Just like the APs for the importation of
cars. The point is, give every person an equal amount of capital and the
outcome can be as different as the number of personalities involved in the
exercise. We can never force a just ending.
Be that as it may, those who are able to make more, like the first two
men of the parable of talents, whatever surplus is generated, consider it a
blessing even though personal effort may have gone into it. Why? Even the best
and the brightest sometimes do fail. For example, it was the best and the
brightest, assembled under JFK that gave birth to the Vietnam War and also
destroyed the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. Whatever success we can attribute
to our prowess, it helps tremendously to recognise that it could have been a
failure because nothing can be guaranteed. Thus, the rich man’s bountiful
harvest was no more than a blessing. For, no success is ever our own if God
Himself does not permit it. Without God’s permissive will, all successes could
have been failures.
Accepting that may help to mitigate or ease one’s resentment at having
to share one’s blessing. It is easy to look at a failed person which we have
the obligation to share with, as someone who is lazy. It does not take much to
make us resentful. Wealth is never a personal blessing even if it feels like
it. Instead, God blesses a few so that they can reach out to the many.
We have generated unimaginable wealth the world has never witnessed
before if you consider the wasteful lives of some of the rich and famous. Note
that one’s future is not assured, as the rich man thought, by one’s effort and
especially by the promise of storing up wealth. Our wealth can never buy us
heaven and so our relationship to wealth must follow St Teresa Avila’s fabulous
advice. The great saint tells us that “Money may be the Devil’s excreta,
but it is certainly a good fertiliser”. Hence, wealth, when properly
administered and judiciously used, may be a stepping stone to heaven although
we must always rely on God’s grace and trust in Him and never our abilities or
possessions for salvation.
Finally, you should
not feel guilty if you were rich. You should celebrate being rich. However, be
aware that there are the terms and conditions: When a man has a
great deal given him, a great deal will be demanded of him; when a man has had
a great deal given him on trust, even more will be expected of him (Lk
12:48). If I were a Proddy preacher, I would be guilt-tripping the congregation
to putting more into the collection but I am not. I am merely want to state
that this is a mortal reality with an immortal repercussion.
