A homily for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 3, 2025
Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23, Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11, Luke 12:13-21
“He who dies with the most toys wins!”
Hmm…
I think that, when it’s my time to go, I’ll rate at least a bronze medal.
I am a tech junkie, and whenever I can afford it and somehow justify it, I add to my collection of USB-rechargeable gizmos, devices and photographic gear.
And (likely because of Catholic school), I’m also a bit of a stationery hoarder.
I think our four computer printers and nine reams of paper may straddle those obsessions. Yeah, probably.
The late genius comedian George Carlin used to rant about the size of people’s houses, saying they were merely places where people kept their stuff. And when people ended up with too much stuff, they moved to bigger houses.
His vitriol for self-storage units came later and far more acerbically.
But he wasn’t wrong (except, maybe, for his renunciation of religion).
We Americans do love our stuff.
Well, “love” is inaccurate, because our stuff can’t love us back. But I’ve already preached about that, so let’s press on.
We Americans highly value our stuff. And depending on what kind of stuff we’ve accumulated, we assign social significance to it.
Coins and stamps and baseball cards may endear us to grandkids.
Action figures, comic books and Funko Pops might earn us 15 minutes of fame through an appearance on MeTV’s “Collector’s Corner” show. Alas, “Comic Book Men” is no longer making new episodes.
High-end electric limousines from Lucid, Mercedes-Benz or Rolls-Royce could drive our fashionable selves to the Met Gala red carpet in New York City next May.
And the list of what we stash in our dwellings and elsewhere goes on and on, ranging from fountain pens to yachts and private jets.
Americans and stuff — puhhh-fect together.
Here’s the catch, psychologically, theologically and spiritually:
We are clinging to tangible stuff. We are holding on to things we can hold onto. We feel a need to feel … something. We framed a dollar bill from our first paycheck to reassure ourselves that it was real. We laminated our diplomas, even though they merely symbolize our knowledge and experiences and academic achievements. We can hold our plaques in our hot little hands, while our nights at the student newspaper are tucked away up there (I point to my head).
We are storing up stuff in our own Fort Knoxes here in this world. We are surrounding ourselves with items that will not last, with items that could be washed away in a flood, incinerated in a wildfire or swallowed by an earthquake or a sinkhole.
Of these things that will not last — and, yes, many of them do make life a little easier, a little sweeter — of these impermanent things, how many of them can we say we’re sharing with the suffering Christ we encounter on the street every day?
When someone needs a shirt from us, do we give them our coat as well?
When someone needs a shirt from us, do we also give them our shoulder to cry on, our hands and our treasure to feed them, our knowledge of career guidance and job listings to help them get on their own two feet?
When we let go of stuff, when we shred the figurative super-clingy Saran Wrap, when we understand how some of our sisters and brothers may need stuff we’ve accumulated because we wanted it, because we thought we had to have it even though we didn’t, then we start to store up the real treasure.
Here’s another catch we should accept: Unlike Bank of America, the store of heavenly treasure doesn’t issue monthly statements or offer a 1-800 number for us to check our balances. We must trust, as Matthew writes in the sixth chapter of his Gospel:
[Y]our Father who sees in secret will repay you.
Now, as I rant about the things of Earth vs. the things of Heaven, I realize I risk being hypocritical or at least playing the Do As I Say, Not As I Do card. I do have nice tech gear and enough pens to draw a line from here to Mars.
And I believe it’s OK.
That’s why I can confidently yet humbly assert that in my professional career and in my ministry, I’ve demonstrated at least a modicum of charity and justice. The living I earned did not come at the expense of others, as far as I know. I even hesitate now to state this (Matthew 6 …).
I have no idea how much treasure I’ve stored up in Heaven. None of us do. That’s why, ideally, we are people of hope. That’s why we are people of faith, justice and charity.
That’s why, ideally, our daily prayers should include “Thank you, God” and “How can I be your eyes, ears and hands today, Lord?”
