DESIRE TO BE RICH


WEDNESDAY, FOURTENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME

Hosea 10:1-3,7-8,12; Ps 105:2-7; Mt 10:1-7

The Temptation to Idols

God offers us more insight into why we seek to set up idols for ourselves through the prophet Hosea. The temptation to set up idols for ourselves is strong when we feel we have what it takes to control our destiny in life. When we have sufficient resources to meet our needs. When that is the case, we flaunt our wealth and riches and use the power they give us to put ourselves before others and oppress them. With enough wealth and riches to throw about, we look less to God for our needs. We gradually feel that we have no more need for God, or to spend time seeking his face or favour. We desire to worship only the God we can control or manipulate to accomplish our will. Since God cannot be manipulated by us, we end up with a god, an idol. We forget that everything we possess is from God, and we are nothing without him. Many of us seek material wealth because of the security and power it offers, without God, as they think. They devote their whole life to seeking and acquiring material wealth and riches, supposing that these will make them happy and secure in life. But all who live for wealth and riches are deceived, for they put false hope on what is perishable. We must never trust in wealth or riches to keep us safe, happy, or alive; this is to idolize a creature. We must rather look to God to keep us safe and happy in life.

Without the grace of God, it is really difficult or impossible not to fall into this trap of the devil or the prince of this world. The people of Israel, whom God delivered from the house of bondage in Egypt and settled in the Promised Land of Canaan, could not escape this temptation to idol worship, prompted by the desire to grow rich. The prophet says this of them: “Israel was a luxuriant vine yielding plenty of fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built; the richer his land became, the richer he made the sacred stones.” It is because of this tendency of riches and wealth to sway our hearts away from God that the author of Proverbs prayed for neither wealth nor poverty. Prov. 30:8 “Give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” Accumulation of wealth and riches makes us feel like God, able to do almost all things. The desire to acquire riches for its own sake and lord it over others is an aspect of the temptation of the evil one. He tempts us to be like God, away from the communion of God. When we want to play God in other people’s lives, putting them down and trampling on their rights because we have material wealth, we attract God’s just punishment as He states through the prophet. “Their heart is a divided heart; very well, they must pay for it: the Lord is going to break their altars down and destroy their sacred stones.” To have recourse to anything for our well-being is to oppose God in our lives. It is to fall out of communion with God.

This is not to say that riches and wealth are inherently bad or evil. Riches and wealth are of God. We must use them to serve God. Understanding that everything we have is given to us by God, we gradually learn to use each to fulfil the will of God for us. The difficulty of learning this lesson in the abundance of material well-being prompts our Lord to urge his close followers to sell everything in order to follow him. Without any material possessions, they would readily put their trust in God and be freer to move about to proclaim the Gospel of heavenly and spiritual riches we have received in God. To his disciples who emptied themselves of material possessions, he gave heavenly authority to proclaim the Gospel and cast out demons. “Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to cast them out and to cure all kinds of diseases and sickness.” Though the Lord did not explicitly demand the forsaking of material possessions for the lay Christians, we are all required to dispossess our hearts of any entanglement with material riches. Our love for God must make us ready to use everything we possess to accomplish his will. This is the only way to truly sing God’s praises. “O sing to the Lord, sing his praise; tell all his wonderful works! Be proud of his holy name, let the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice.”

Let us pray: O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised up a fallen world, fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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