29th Sunday Year A - Homily 2

Homily 2 - 2008 

Around the world finance markets are going into turmoil.  The fall-out has hit Australia - and the suggested solution is to encourage consumers to buy more.  And it may well work.  I feel hopelessly out of my depth in the world of finance.  But, with all my ignorance, I feel in my gut that something’s radically wrong.  There are millions of people around the world who are starving … and we’re encouraged to spend money and to buy things that we really could do without.  It happens all the time, of course.  It just gets talked about more because people have stopped buying.  Don’t buy, don’t consume – and people get put off work.  And the poorest get hit the hardest: the poorest here in Australia, to say nothing of the poorest around the world.  There must be something radically wrong with the system somewhere.  To survive we have to consume what we don’t need, and use up the world’s limited resources, destroy the forests, exploit the minerals, pollute the atmosphere and eventually complete the circle and threaten our survival anyhow.

Is there an alternative? a better alternative?  In today’s Gospel Jesus says there’s one that’s worth the punt.  Forget about the accepted wisdoms, the economic rationalisms.  Give back to Caesar what’s Caesar’s:  Rid yourself of it.  Have nothing to do with it.  And try - just try - to focus on God.  Give to God what is God’s.  And, in case we’re not sure what that involves, next Sunday’s Gospel will remind us.  What’s God’s? Everything!  You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.  And you must love your neighbour as yourself.  Jesus didn’t map out any specific economic system.  He just said:  Try that, and see what happens.  The details you can work out.

And in the meantime?  At least, let’s try shedding the addictions; don’t fall for the illusions; don’t believe the advertisers’ sub-text.  It is happiness we’re ultimately looking for.  At least let’s look somewhere where we’re likely to find it.  Yesterday, I was reading an article in The Age newspaper.  In it the author wrote: One of my earliest spiritual advisers told me that to be human was to accept that there would never be world peace, but to live my life as though it were possible.  This is the core of my aesthetic, the belief in a deeper humanness that is beyond race, class, gender and power even as I know that it is not possible, and yet I strive for it in every way, even when I fail daily at it. In the end we may never know. Perhaps it is enough … to know that it will always be hard. May we cry, but may we never die of heartbreak.

Whatever about the author, Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is near at hand.  But, for it to materialise, it is necessary first for us to Repent!  Our position can be different  from The Age author’s.  We have hope.  It is for another reason, and from another standpoint, that we can say: May we cry, but may we never die of heartbreak.