Riches can impoverish (Tues, Week 20, Year II)

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The Prince of Tyre became so wealthy that he thought that it was by his wisdom, understanding, intelligence and ingenuity that he has made so much wealth. He became so proud that he even claimed that he was a god, arrogating to himself the powers that he had not. The word of God went to him through Ezekiel (Ezek. 28:1-10) that since he claimed that “he is as wise as a god, as powerful as a god, strangers will be brought to him, the most terrible of the nations shall make war on him, shall draw their sword against the beauty of his wisdom.” The point is that if the prince really had the powers that he claimed that he had, he should be able to defeat the nations. But the opposite would be the case. Those strangers would prove to him that he was not as wise and powerful as he claimed that he was. I am sure he must have learnt from his experience that “every good thing that we have comes from God” and so we shouldn’t claim that it was by our might, intelligence, smartness and wisdom.

When riches abound, let us pray that wisdom should abound all the more. There is always a very strong tendency to think or behave in such way as to say that “EVERYTHING WAS GOT BY OUR MIGHT, INTELLIGENCE AND SMARTNESS”. When we allow riches to possess us, we become too heavy and too big to stoop low and acknowledge the fact that “it was God and it has been God all the way”. And that is why Jesus said that it is easier for a came to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (cf. Matt. 19:23-30). For the Jews, the “eye of a needle” was a small entry point with a gate through which animals and other beasts of burden pass. That entry point is so small that no heavily loaded animal can pass through it without offloading whatever it has or carries. And after offloading whatever it carries, it still has to stoop very low before it can pass. What Jesus is saying then is that if care is not taken, riches can make our situation even far more terrible than that of a heavily loaded camel before the “eye of a needle”.       

Our riches can be our talents, relationships, material wealth and so on. If our zeal for the things of God begins to wane, it is a clear sign that our attention has been diverted and that our hearts and minds are being gradually loaded with things that will make it difficult for us to “pass through the eye of a needle”. Life is like a journey, a race towards LIFE itself. Let us learn to travel light and this journey would become much easier and less cumbersome. We can only travel light if we divest ourselves of those
things that are not needed.  

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