Hoarding God

October 22, 2018

I grew up in a house of “collections”. My parents collected a lot of things from decorative plates that you hang on the wall, to blue and white vases, to Thomas Kinkade model houses, to clocks of every shape and size, and my dad’s last collection of baby Jesus’s from nativity sets (yes, just the baby Jesus in a manger part and not Mary or Joseph or any other characters in the nativity!) Dad was always fascinated with the infant Jesus because he just loved babies! Now that dad is gone, mom and I look around the house at all the collections and none of them seem to have much meaning. It’s just stuff and we reflect on the collections that really matter such as: dad’s stories that were, oh you know only about 20% true, but very entertaining, going on long drives after mass on Sundays, family tickle fights in my parent’s bed, answered prayers, love letters, knowing all the words to every Anne Murray song because we listened to her when we did our chores and every Christmas morning, or Barry Manilow because mom loved him, or Jim Croce because dad and I loved to swing dance to “Leroy Brown” in the living room.

These moments of actual grace are the “riches in what matters to God” from today’s gospel. These blessings do not create useless clutter, or simply catch dust, nor will they ever be sold in a garage sale or donated to Good Will. We don’t need to build a shed in the backyard to store these encounters, in fact, these experiences of God widen the walls of our soul, expanding our love, our faith, and our hope to soak in and receive even more. God wants us to hoard every moment with Him. He wants us to savor every sunset, every heart to heart, every love song, every gentle breeze, every experience of wonder, and every outpouring of love. 

Having just come home from an amazing vacation with beloved friends right into a Spirit-filled retreat weekend, I am bursting with an abundance of these blessings and my soul has been stretched to the kind of capacity where it just spills out.  The difference between hoarding stuff and hoarding God is that the stuff just piles up and closes off every open space, but grace gives us more and more room to receive loveliness. Raise your hand if you want more loveliness in your life. “What matters to God” is the “stuff” that widens our soul to hold more “stuff that matters to God”. May we burst at the seams with grace so that it spills out to everyone we meet and it is well with my soul. 

Reading 1 EPH 2:1-10

Brothers and sisters:
You were dead in your transgressions and sins
in which you once lived following the age of this world,
following the ruler of the power of the air,
the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient.
All of us once lived among them in the desires of our flesh,
following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses,
and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.
But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;
it is not from works, so no one may boast.
For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works
that God has prepared in advance,
that we should live in them.

Responsorial Psalm PS 100:1B-2, 3, 4AB, 4C-5

R. (3b) The Lord made us, we belong to him.
Sing joyfully to the LORD all you lands;
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
R. The Lord made us, we belong to him.
Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
R. The Lord made us, we belong to him.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise.
R. The Lord made us, we belong to him.
Give thanks to him; bless his name, for he is good:
the LORD, whose kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness, to all generations.
R. The Lord made us, we belong to him.

Alleluia MT 5:3

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are the poor in spirit;
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel LK 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God.”