Simply Sinfully Rich

Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries. Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire. You have stored up treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on earth in luxury and pleasure; you have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter. You have condemned; you have murdered the righteous one;

he offers you no resistance.

When we look at a poor person, we are doing something that a rich person will never do.  The poor among us can go unseen.  For example, do you notice the person running the lawnmower around the office or home that you inhabit every day?  Or are they just a lawn mower, a tool to be used until it breaks and then discarded?  Our poor blend into the landscape and they are all around us.  The maid at the hotel, the person working behind the counter at the doughnut shop, the janitor mopping a floor, all of these people are invisible to the rich.  Our greed will die with us and our wealth will be distributed to another and we will be judged on how we used our wealth, club or carrot, what did we choose? 

For any of us to believe that we own anything in this world is an amazing folly.  Everything that there is, every dollar ever minted, every fleck of gold pulled from the earth belongs not to those who possess it, no, it belongs to God.  We come naked into the world and at the moment of our birth, when our eyes first see the light of day, we can look at our hands and know that what is in them is the sum total of what we will be taking out when we leave this world. 

Take Harley Davidson for an example of corporate greed.  The company received a windfall because of the tax decrease engineered by the Republicans.  Many companies took that windfall and made life a little better for their employees, but Harley Davidson decided to use the money to fund a stock buyback and to help fund this they will lay off some eight hundred workers from their plants. James speaks of withholding the wages of the harvesters in our reading today and that is what this company is doing.  Enriching the owners by crushing the backs of the workers.  Do they have a right to do what they are doing?  Of course, they do!  This is America and you can manage your companies in any way you choose, within certain legal limits.  This right does not make it right to do so. 

The fact is that we are all rich.  We are all fabulously wealthy because of who we are.  What we have should not be stored away, it should be used to better the world we live in.  We cannot all be Bill Gates with billions of dollars to give but we can recognize the carriers of water and hewers of wood that are among us.  We can recognize the little people that do the work.  We can champion for them to receive not just a minimum wage but a living wage.  We can give dignity to those who only have known scorn.  We have so much, we have to share it with those that have so little. 

The Poor Souls in Purgatory are not nameless, faceless, unknown people.  They have names such as "Mom" or "Dad" or "Sister" or "Brother."  They are people who need our help. We must pray for them to shorten their time in Purgatory.  It feels good to think that Mom is in heaven...but what if she isn't?  What if she is in Purgatory?  Don't let your love and honor for her end at the grave.  Pray for her today.  Remember as they are, one day you might be.