Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Agnes Church, New York, NY
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Extraordinary Form
August 29, 2021
Gal 5:16-24, Mt 6:24-33
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided today’s homily:
- Today in the Gospel Jesus calls us to be different from those in the world who place their desires, their hopes, their love, their trust in the things of this world, who serve “mammon,” a Jewish word that means not just money but material possessions. If we’re Jesus followers, we must rather intentionally serve God and place our trust in him. Jesus says that we as his disciples cannot serve mammon, because when we’re serving mammon we cannot be serving God. “No one can serve two Masters,” Jesus says. “You cannot serve God and wealth.”
- Jesus’ message is even more timely for us today than it would have been for his first listeners. We live, as Pope Francis has repeatedly noted, in a culture driven by serving mammon, in which most people spend far more time seeking to become rich in mammon than they do seeking to store up heavenly treasure. We live in a culture in which so many, especially younger adults, say they “have to” work on Sunday but somehow don’t think they “have to” pray and worship the Lord. We live in a culture in which people value high definition televisions more than they do Bibles, in which people obsess over what they’ll give or get in their own or others’ wills and few think about what moral lessons they’ll pass on or receive. The reason why we can’t serve two masters simultaneously, Pope Francis said, is because “in a heart possessed by riches, there’s no longer place for faith, everything is consumed by riches. If on the other hand one gives God the place he expects, the first place, then his love will lead us to share our material possessions.” In other words, we’re either going to place our faith, hope and love in God or in material things. If we place it in mammon, that will suffocate our life with God; if we place it in God, then we will see material things not as stuff to accumulate but means by which to spread God’s love and serve his kingdom.
- New York City is perhaps the most famous place for the making and increase of mammon. But this culture of the worship of the ancient golden calf, when our heart treasures above all material goods, possessions and pleasures, leads to total insecurity in life, to a culture of worrying and anxiety. Even those who are very rich worry that they can lose much of it or even it all if the stock market takes a hit. Those who aren’t rich but who easily have enough to survive worry that if they get sick at the end of their life, the nursing home will take it and so they have to rush to take advantage of various tax structures and trusts in order to ensure that they’ll lose as little as possible for their own care.Those who are just barely making ends meet can be eaten alive by worry that if their hours are cut, they’ll need to move, dramatically change their lifestyle, or worse.
- Jesus confronts head on this culture of worry that flows from the precariousness of basing one’s existence on the weak foundation of material goods. Immediately after reminding us that we can’t serve both God and mammon, Jesus says, “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” What’s the “therefore” there for? It’s because when we serve material goods, we can’t help but worrying. When we are really serving God on the other hand, when we are really seeking first his kingdom and his holiness, we do not fret as much about our life, our food and drink, our clothing, our shelter. Jesus gives us moving images of why we shouldn’t worry: “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you — you of little faith?” Jesus’ point is that if God takes care of grass and birds, he’ll take care of us, too.
- I remember when God drove this point home to me in an unforgettable way. I was in my first year of Seminary at Mt. St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg. The previous summer I had to work for the Diocese at Cathedral Camp where the gross pay was $1,400 for the summer, and about $500 were taken out for taxes. With the rest of the $900, I was supposed to be able to pay for a car, for gas between here and Maryland, for insurance, for books and for all other incidental expenses. Soon the little savings I had from working during college was depleted. One day I went to the mailroom and got my mail. On the top was a bill for Visa for $74.27, what I had used for gas and other expenses in the previous month. I didn’t have the money and I didn’t know what I would need to do. I look at an icon of Jesus hanging on my wall and I told him, “Jesus, you promised that your Father loves us more than sparrows and lilies, that he has counted every follicle on our head, and that he would provide. I need that help now because I don’t know what to do!” To distract myself from the worry I started opening the other mail. Eventually I got to a letter with an Attleboro return address. I didn’t know anyone from Attleboro. When I opened up the letter it was from an organization that up until then I had never heard of, the Serra Club, which prays for and supports priestly vocations. Inside there was a check for $75, which was what I needed to pay the bill. I looked back at the icon and said to Jesus with wonder and gratitude, “Thank you for keeping your promise!” I’ve never doubted since.
- The punch line of Jesus’ encouraging words today is, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” While everyone else is striving for the basic necessities of food, drink, clothing, housing, Jesus calls us to make our supreme aim the establishment of God’s kingdom in our lives and in our world. He calls us to spread seek holiness, not to worry about our food but to be fed spiritually, not to worry about what we are to drink but to imbibe from the fonts of everlasting life, not to worry about our clothing but to be clothed in Christ with the armor of God and the spotless garment of our baptism, and not to worry about where we are to live but to abide in Christ. If we do this, Jesus promises us, all these other things — all these material needs — will be given to us as well. We won’t need to worry about them, Jesus assures us, because God will make sure we have what we need.
- So that’s Jesus’ challenge for us today. Are we going to be worriers about material things or seekers of the things that will last forever? Are we going to serve mammon or serve God? Are we going to put our trust and security in our own hands, work, and investments or believe in God’s promises? Jesus says we have to choose. We can’t serve God for an hour on Sundays and a few minutes before we go to bed and then serve mammon the rest of the week. We can’t seek God’s kingdom “a little,” but spend the vast majority of our time seeking to build up our own kingdom. Jesus is calling us to make a radical choice about the foundation and direction of our lives. What’s it going to be?
- To help us to choose to serve God, to trust in him, to place our faith, hope and love in his providential care, God gives us himself in the gift of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul, in today’s reading from his Letter to the Galatians, frames the path of worldly mammon versus God’s kingdom in terms of the battle between living according to the flesh versus being guided by the Holy Spirit. The contrast can’t be greater. To live by the flesh means to place our heart, our treasure, in the things of this world, in mammon and material possession, in carnal pleasures, in fame, power, influence, in superficialities. It means to give in, as he tells the Galatians, to immorality, impurity, lust, idolatry, hatred, rivalry, jealousy and envy, anger, selfishness, dissensions, drunkenness, debauchery and to life not consistent with the kingdom of God. Life according to the Spirit, he says on the other hand, helps us to experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those fruits don’t happen as a coincidence; they all flow from a union with God; they all flow from the gifts God gives us in his Providence if only we trust in him, seek him and treasure his kingdom.
- As we celebrate this Mass today, we’re aware that God in his providential care, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is providing the richest feast imaginable for those who us who seek him first. He is about to feed us with his Son’s body and blood, nourishment that not only strengthens us in this world, but brings us to eternity. This is something God the Father does neither for the birds of the air or the grass of the field. This is a special privilege kept for his sons and daughters who seek to live by Jesus’ way, by his word, by his standards. St. Paul wrote to the Romans, that if God the Father didn’t even spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, would he not give us everything else besides? Yet God the Father not only gave his Son to save us, but gives his Son to us everyday on this altar. Since God the Father is so lavish in giving us what he treasures most, we can be totally confident that he will provide everything we need. Jesus on the altar is the most tangible reminder we’ll ever need of how God cares for us. If God loves us this much, we have nothing to fear. God ultimately seeks to transform us here by his lavish love so that, moved by the Holy Spirit, we can go out as instruments of his providence to share with others what we have ourselves received so that, just as Jesus cared for us in our need, we will care for him in his, when he says to us, “I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink, naked and you clothed me, a stranger and you welcomed me, ill and in prison and you comforted me.” Jesus who provides for us and sends us with the Father the Holy Spirit also makes it possible for us to go out with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control to proclaim to others our treasure and make it possible for us to say, “This is my body, this is my blood, these are the material possessions given by God to me that are now given out of love for you.”
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Galatians
Brothers and Sisters, I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want. But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Those who belong to Christ [Jesus] have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.
The Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew
Jesus said to the crowds, “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.”
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