I couldn't help but be a little disturbed that our priest mostly ignored the Gospel reading this weekend and, instead, went on a diatribe about palm reading, the Devil, and minor possessions. 

As I'm trying to get my eight-year-old daughter to 'get into' the order of the Mass, I want her to listen to the homily and understand that the priest is making the readings from the Bible applicable to today, but if you ignore the reading outright, you're ignoring the message it's trying to communicate.

So this is where I am with this particular reading, one that I think the rich ignore at their peril. Charles Dickens wrote about the vanity of the rich and powerful in the opening of A Tale of Two Cities: "In both [England and France] it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever." There is an arrogance in assuming that no one will ever challenge your authority, that you are necessarily right and, even if you're not, there's nothing anyone can do to stop you anyway. 

The Gospel reading is a reminder that everything is in a state of flux. The tides come in and they go out again; the moon waxes and wanes; the summer turns to autumn and winter and spring and back again. And everything that currently is will give way to something else, something we have already seen, something we will see again.

People who seek Power as an ideal have placed all their hopes in the strength of their followers, who must necessarily hold them up and perpetuate their rule. Trusting in that as your foundation is folly. Power cannot rest merely on the idea that the people underneath you will have your back. It must be wrested from some sort of ideal, a goal and a hope for creating a better world. Any structure built entirely on hopes of loyalty and oaths of fealty is necessarily going to collapse.

The reminder is evergreen and also specifically important to consider now. The Gospels aren't just a promise: they're also a challenge. Jesus didn't just preach about how things might be someday or about how things will be in some other life, but he challenged his followers to make the world better today. 

And this reading, and ones like it, strike at the heart of the so-called 'prosperity theology' and demonstrate just how false a teaching it is. The Gospels don't encourage us to hoard up wealth. Outward signs of power and riches are not signs of God's favor in this life or in any that might follow. 

The Gospels are not just there to bring us hope: they are also a warning, a rebuke as strong as any commandment written in stone. The rich have already had their consolation. Their grief and weeping is imminent. ~