This week’s gospel mentions greed and love of money. In America on our money is printed our motto “In God we Trust.” Many Americans claim to trust in God, but are really motivated by material achievements. How much material stuff do we need to make ourselves happy? Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The earth provides enough for each person’s needs, but not enough for every person’s greed“. In the Arab world, people are revolting against rich and greedy dictators like Mubarak in Egypt, Qaddafi in Libya, Assad in Syria, and many others.
Money feeds your greed and makes you want to accumulate even more. It can also make you feel superior to those who have less than you. If you lived alone on an island, you would have no use for money. Remember when Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt, he caught them worshiping a statue of a calf made out of gold. It seems silly to be worshiping a gold statue doesn’t it. But what if that gold statue weighed 500 pounds. In today’s gold prices, that’s about 10 million bucks. Does it now seem as silly? It is said that money is the root of all evil, but it is rather the love of money that is the root of all evil. If you are blessed by God with lots of money, God wants you to convert your excess money into heavenly wealth by helping those who are not as fortunate as you are.
Why should God care if you worship money or not? Your love of money does not hurt God in any way, but God who wants you to be happy, knows that love of money will probably harm you and you will find no happiness in accumulating lots of it. You need look no further than our movie actors in Hollywood to see that all their money has not made many of them happy.
We do need money to provide food, shelter, clothing, and many other basic needs in today’s world, but to want to accumulate much more than you really need won’t make you any happier. Remember the Beatles song that went “I don’t care for money, money can’t buy me love“. They had it right, love will make you happy, money will not. Love of God, love of friends, love of family, love of neighbors, that is what ‘s important. That’s what Jesus came down on earth to teach us.
For me, life on this earth is the proving ground to determine if I am putting God first in my life, or would I rather have the golden calf. The first of the ten commandments states, “I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have any other gods before Me“. On the last day, I will be judged by God and not by humans, and money means nothing to God. Like it is written on our American money I need to put all my trust in God. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me. John 14:6
Lloyd Lapierre
