No one can serve
two masters
It seems that the words of Christ in today's Gospel are not for the
contemporary world. "Do not be anxious about your life, what you
will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will be wearing. Consider the
birds ..." Does Jesus approve the idleness by this, does He really
favour famous "blue birds " and "children flowers ", does
He suggest the laziness, and support irresponsible people, counting on the
"manna from heaven"? You can easily come to this conclusion by
reading the words of today's Gospel only briefly and superficially. But we know
that it is not so. He was (supposedly) the son of a craftsman and certainly
knew very well how hard you have to work for "daily bread" and that
in the sweat of your brow one should acquire the necessary measures to life.
Certainly He doesn’t approve idleness and procrastination, irresponsibility and
lack of creativity.
However, He warns us against the specific attention to the worldly goods,
against the blindness of greediness, against the error of considering that my
whole life is reduced to only these material dimensions. Are these warnings not
for today? Let's see how many people so much "progressed" in their "resourcefulness",
how they forgot everything else, that for them the whole life is summarized in
securing worldly prosperity and well-being, even at the expense of others, at
the expense of social justice at the expense of ordinary honesty. Whenever I
read these words, I think of those who have forgotten that they live next to
other people, that the world is beautiful and worthy of admiration and delight
of those who have been blinded by so much "mammon" they see nothing
else beyond money. They do not see their own family, children, friendship,
eternal life, nothing else but money.
Does not want Jesus in these parables simply say: "You're not
unhappy because starvation or because you are missing something, but because
you requirements are for a large. Stop to amass and seek to collect what is
secondary, and you'll definitely be happier"?
Does He not want to say also: "Trust in God rather than in your capabilities,
systems, cleverness and your wealth, and you'll be much happier"?
I read somewhere once that, for example 260 richest people in the world
have on their accounts as much as the annual income of three billion poorest, more
that the poorer half of the world. What are they doing with the "mammon"?
Is it not shocking? Is not that what Christ is talking about?
I recently found also this information: "The poor children in
India, China and Pakistan, are sewing by hand the soccer balls for the big companies".
These children cannot go to school, they have no toys, no childhood, but .....
their slave labor makes kind the lives of millions of other sports fans even
unaware of this injustice. And as if that were not enough, according to UNESCO
to provide schools for all the poor children in the world we need only $8
billion annually. At the same time to prepare the Winter Olympic Games 2014 in
Sochi 50 billion dollars were spend. Again, some people cannot even dream of
school, when others spend a fortune on their pleasure.
But do we need to go that far. Let us look around us, our society, our
systems and our lives. How much injustice is in it, how much blindness of
mammon, how much selfishness and egoism, and arrogance....?
The "Mammon" blinded the world completely and Christ warns us
before we fall in that blindness. He warns us also against quieting our
conscience: "I still have to take care of myself and my family. I cannot feed
all the hungry of the world. I have to ensure first my life and the life of my
kids and then I'll be able to think about others' needs ..." Is it not an infatuation?
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus imposes itself ... And the words of
Jesus: "whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine ... you did it
to me …" remain valid.
Lord do not let the mammon blind me so much that I don’t see the world
and another people in it ...
Do not let me forget about your kingdom...
Because eventually.... whom I serve....?
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