4th World Day of the Poor. Just the
fourth time we are marking it. However, in the interest of fairness, I wonder
why there is not a World Day of the Rich. But what do you know? Our trashy tabloids
are filled with or more relevant, cyberspace is flooded with news of the Rich
and Famous! Almost everywhere one encounters altars dedicated to their “champagne
wishes and caviar dreams”. What is more? If you had idiosyncrasies and
you were poor, people will label you crazy or mad. But, if you were rich, you
are eccentric or outlandish. It is good that we are having a day to remember
the poor in the midst of this ongoing crisis. As the 1st Reading suggests, the
virtuous woman symbolises the Church who is also our Mother. As a caring
mother, she opens her arms to embrace the poor. As such, the portrait of the
Church as our caring Mother ties in neatly with the Gospel message today.
How?
Firstly, the talents represent
everything that we have. The conclusion of the Gospel directs our attention to
how we should maximise the use of our talents because God will ask for an account
of what He has given to us. In other words, where are we in terms of our
responsibility towards what we have been endowed with?
A clarification might be needed
though. In common parlance, the word talent means a natural aptitude or skill. But
its original meaning is cash, large sum of cash. How large? A talent is not the
same as a single unit of our devalued toilet paper (RM). It is an ancient unit
of mass which, according to some scriptural commentators, is equivalent to the
weight of an average person. A talent is therefore the sum of money that is
about 50kg of gold or silver. In those days, silver was ranked as valuable as
gold.
Hence, a talent is seriously a lot
of money that the landlord has entrusted to his servants. This raises an
interesting point. One of the things that this pandemic has taught us is what
Najib had so presciently known: “Cash is king”. With cash, you
can buy almost anything but at the moment where mobility is curtailed and the
only venue that is opened to us is online shopping, we realise that restricted
movement makes for unhappy shopping. There is only that much we can order
online. We can continue to buy unnecessary things online but for how long?
Hence, cash may be king but consider this scenario. What happens when money loses
its currency? You might protest this to be ridiculous but apparently Netflix
does not think so if you observe the plethora of dystopian movies they are
peddling now.
Just for the sake of argument, what
happens when cash becomes useless?
This should give us pause to take
stock of what it means to be rich or to have talents. Both the 2nd
Reading and the Gospel invite us to reflect on what we are (talents) or have (wealth)
with reference to the future. We will get a more concrete glimpse of this
future in next Sunday’s Gospel which is focused on the Last Judgement.
For now, perhaps today could be the
feast day for those who are named Gregory. St Paul addressed the anxious
Thessalonians who were worried about the end of the world by telling them to be “gregoromen” (γρηγορῶμεν),
that is, to be “watchful and alert” for the coming of the Lord. This kind of
alertness means living with the values of the Kingdom, with a relativity in
which who we are and what we have here is relative to where we will be next.
All the talents, cash or otherwise, have been entrusted by God to us in
connexion with the afterlife. We are to use them in as much as they help us go
to heaven and leave them in as much as they prevent us from getting to heaven.
But this is easier said than done.
Some of us can be caught up with our
possession that we forget that nothing of what we have is ours in the first
place. A good example would be our children. Our attitude towards them mirrors
our approach towards cars. Have you noticed how people treat their cars in the
event of an accident? They stop in the middle of the road without consideration
of others to argue about who was at fault. Why? Because cars are supposed to be
“scratch-free”. Can you note the resemblance in how we treat our children? They
are like priceless cars that should remain unscratched. Observe how over-protective
parents can be. By saying this, I am not advocating reckless endangerment. What
may be missed out is the uncomfortable truth that your children are on loan to
you. They have been entrusted to you by God to be cared for, yes, but
ultimately to be returned to Him as and when He deemed it fit to take them.
None of us wants that. We would rail against God if He dared to take back what was
originally His.
Now, if children are God’s loan to
us, how much more our talents or our wealth?
Our attitude to wealth is fairly avaricious
or rapacious in which we are fired by a vision of unfettered accumulation. Just
think of the cyber entrepreneurs—Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and
Jack Ma. Can they ever finish spending their wealth in 20 lifetimes? That they
are rich is not an issue nor is it a problem. But the wild amassing is rather
emblematic of our attitude towards affluence where we view abundance in terms
ownership and not stewardship, in terms of entitlement and not providence. In
the matter of wealth or prosperity, the categories of “haves” or “have nots”
are easy and neat. In this, you realise that one wants to be the other—the poor
want to be rich. The other tries so hard not to be one—the rich tries to avoid
poverty. Notice how tired the categories are. They are not entirely irrelevant
but they do nurture a mindset of entitlement for the rich and victimhood for
the poor. Furthermore, within this categories, the “haves” are supposed to be
responsible for the “have nots” and this only creates resentment on both sides.
In an absolute sense, the rich owe us nothing and they should not be made to
feel beholden to anyone. The situation looks different when we look at it
relatively. The rich are related to the poor because both inhabit the same
planet.
Hence, with regard to talents and
wealth, a more helpful perspective is to adopt the language of stewardship
whilst leaving behind the vocabulary of ownership. This is not an advocacy for
socialism. Not at all. What ownership does is to give the impression that it is
absolute whereas stewardship connotes relationship. In radical terms, what I
own is never utterly mine for it were absolutely mine, why can I not bring it
with me when I die? Imagine if Jeff Bezos converted to Taoism and he dies. The closest
he can ever get to his billions would be burnt joss-paper. (Or maybe burn our
useless currency).
We are or we have is never for
ourselves. We are or we have is always with others and for others. Think of a
candle. What is it good for? To be lit and burnt off. As St Francis of Assisi
taught us: It only by giving away that we begin to receive. Thus, we celebrate
the World Day for the Poor for a good reason. Pope Francis challenges us to
concrete action based on a solid sacramental theology. So, “if we truly
wish to encounter Christ, we have to touch His Body in the suffering bodies of
the poor, as a response to the Sacramental Communion bestowed in the Eucharist”.
We will have plenty of opportunities to touch the poor in the months to come as the effects of the Confused MCO (CMCO) kick in for so many of our struggling brothers and sisters. In the end when all is said and done, no amount of money can ever open the gate to where we are supposed to go. Instead, the gate to eternity is opened to those whom the Lord specifically called “good and faithful servant”. God does not only call a few. Instead, to everyone He gives them that possibility to be such. It is well within our ability to respond to Him. What are we waiting for?
