Fr Jack SJ MD: With Apologies to ABBA, Money, Money, Money: Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 7:7-11

Ps 90:12-12, 13-15, 16-17

Heb 4:12-13

Mk 10:17-30

Some of the most exquisite images in scripture describe the attributes of Wisdom. Wisdom is not innate or genetic. It is never present at birth or the early stages of development, which go up to 25 or older. It has nothing to do with IQ. It has even less to do with educational level or number of advanced degrees. Wisdom is acquired and molded through long experience of success and failure, of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. It is the special possession of those with a listening heart who have the courage to enter into silence, prayer, and self-reflection.

Wisdom defines and supports civilization. It is fundamental to being human. Wisdom definitively separates us from all lower animals, no matter how cute, cuddly, majestic, or clever they might be, only humans are capable of wisdom. Somewhere in the bowels of MIT worker bees are slaving away at artificial intelligence. I’ve yet to hear of anyone working on artificial Wisdom. A computer can be programmed to check the spelling of and translate the lyrical passage just proclaimed, but no computer can be programmed to create something as splendid from its circuit boards.

The Wisdom literature is not inert. It is not an historical curiosity that explained the world to the benighted, non-scientific, and unsophisticated peoples of the Ancient Near East. They weren’t all that different from us today. Wisdom recognizes and supports all that God does in the world. It should undergird all that we do in the world.

Though there is a pragmatic dimension to it, the Wisdom literature is not a handbook along the lines of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It is much more than that. Wisdom reveals the mystery of God, a mystery we cannot begin to approach through any literature but the mystical, the numinous, the poetic, and perhaps through music. We come closer to understanding the mystery of God through the poetry of the psalms than we do through books of systematic theology or historical-literary criticism of the Gospels.

British neuropsychiatrist Sir Michael Trimble published The Soul in the Brain in 2007. The book emphasizes neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and neurophysiology while outlining the role of the brain in the genesis of language and art.

Language and art are important components of religious belief and perhaps the most important means of transmitting that belief from generation to generation.

It is a brilliant book that also considers the ancient wisdom of philosophers and theologians.

Whether speaking of the Ancient Near East or the early years of the 21st century

one must ask what Jesus meant by the startling and uncomfortable image

of the camel passing through the needle's eye more easily than the wealthy. Does wealth automatically condemn? Are all the wealthy excluded

from the Kingdom of God? More specifically, what income level is damning?

Should I have saved all my W-2s?

Jesus is not warning against wealth as wealth. He is warning about a human behavior that hasn't changed in millennia. That behavior is the drive to acquire more and more wealth. The drive that demands more and more time, energy, and attention to maintain and increase that wealth, to the detriment of caring for and about others, if not outright destroying them. Too often the more one has

the less one shares.

We've become almost jaded to news detailing the latest financial scandals

involving obscenely paid executives who appear to want even more. The saga of the recently imprisoned Elizabeth Holmes, the Stanford dropout foundress of Theranos Corporation, is a tale of greed mixed with the pursuit of wealth, fame, and magazine covers. She combined those desires with a callous and criminal disregard for the health of others.

As a society we tolerate, and even rationalize, the greed of overpaid athletes and their agents whose whiny demands for more and more astronomical salaries, have pushed the cost of taking a family to a game beyond the ability of many. In an effort to increase its revenues, the NCAA is systematically destroying college football. The impact of the business for profit model on medicine is a separate homily. There are also, of course, middle and lower level atrocities in the pursuit of wealth committed by those with similar mindsets but much smaller budgets.

Money seems to desire more money no matter the cost to others or the cost to oneself, as long as one doesn’t get caught.

It is not the cold hard cash that Jesus is decrying. Jesus is warning against the mind-set of wealth craving more wealth that is the well-beyond what is needed. Unlike membership in a country club or a place on a Forbes Magazine list

salvation does not derive from human achievement. One is not automatically saved because of rank, bank balance, or the number of toys one has upon death.

Wealth is not one of the keys to the kingdom. It need not be an impediment to entering the kingdom, but it will never move anyone to the front of the line.

True wealth is not what one possesses, but what one gives. True wealth is not what one hoards, but what one shares. The more we share our treasure with those in need, the treasure of money, time, or the gift of presence, the larger the eye of that needle becomes.

. . . and that there camel gallops right on through.

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Photos are black and whites from the monastery. When the inevitable day comes that I won't be able to get out with a camera--and the day will come--I hope to spend the time converting and processing much of what I've taken into black and white.