Dai­ly Reflec­tion
August 19, 2013

“The chil­dren of Israel offend­ed the LORD by serv­ing the Baals.”

“Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be per­fect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have trea­sure in heav­en. Then come, fol­low me.”

We are told that the young man had many pos­ses­sions and want­ed to know what good he must do to gain eter­nal life. Jesus sensed the trou­ble the young man was expe­ri­enc­ing in his heart and how pos­ses­sions were keep­ing him from giv­ing him­self whole-heart­ed­ly to God. “Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be per­fect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have trea­sure in heav­en. Then come, fol­low me.”

What do our pos­ses­sions pro­vide for us? Do they sat­is­fy our desire for hap­pi­ness and secu­ri­ty? Do pos­ses­sions pre­vent us from giv­ing our­selves whole-heart­ed­ly to God? Do we serve our pos­ses­sions [like the chil­dren of Israel serv­ing the Baals] instead of serv­ing the Lord? Pos­ses­sions can’t give us the kind of peace and hap­pi­ness that we find in God. Some­times our hope for hap­pi­ness gets mis­placed in mate­ri­al­ism. Jesus chal­lenges our attach­ment to earth­ly pos­ses­sions. Jesus chal­lenges us to con­tem­plate what our great­est trea­sure is tru­ly. The thing we most set our heart on is our high­est trea­sure. The Lord is acces­si­ble to all, the rich and the poor. Pos­ses­sions can­not pro­vide the last­ing peace and hap­pi­ness that the Lord can pro­vide. No oth­er trea­sure can com­pare with the Lord.

This sto­ry has been on social media for a few years. Whether or not authen­tic, I thought it spoke well to today’s readings:

An anthro­pol­o­gist pro­posed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a bas­ket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who­ev­er got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each other’s hands and ran togeth­er, then sat togeth­er enjoy­ing their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that, as one could have had all the fruits for him­self, they said: “UBUN­TU: how can one of us be hap­py if all the oth­er ones are sad?”

‘UBUN­TU’ in the Xhosa cul­ture means: “I am because we are.”