PRAYING FOR PRUDENCE & GETTING A WHOLE LOT MORE!
28th Sunday Year B
October 14, 2012
PRAYING FOR PRUDENCE & GETTING A WHOLE LOT MORE!
Just about every six months, some new gadget is introduced
into the volatile and highly competitive market. No sooner have many people
saved up (or begged or borrowed from others) and bought the prized gizmo, than
another one comes out to replace it. The compulsion to shop till you drop is
all pervading, all encompassing. One feels compelled, not necessarily to have
more, but to have something else, as W. Cavanaugh (2007) wisely writes. It is
about having something that no one else has for the meantime, until they find
enough courage to charge it once again to their piling debt, and buy the prized
object with plastic money, charging it, for all intents and purposes, to one’s
uncertain future.
Before the ubiquitous pull of that “something else,” that
“something unique” and “something different” that “few” individuals have,
prudence, understood as practical wisdom, goes out the window of pragmatism,
convenience, and an artificial – if, temporary – boost for one’s situational
self-esteem.
Prudence, and, along with it, a train of other virtues,
including the capacity to hold oneself back, to restrain oneself and the ever
present and ever increasing drive to consume, to have, to possess, to hold and
to cherish (until the next new thing comes by!), is sacrificed on the altar of
the new demigod called “shopping” or “malling” as the case may be.
The first reading from the Book of Wisdom tells us a
different story … The persona would not part with prudence in exchange for “scepter and throne,” “riches,” “priceless
gems,” “gold,” “silver,” “health” and “comeliness.”
Ouch! That hurts quite a wee bit! Health is not my best
asset right now. I feel a little sick, nursing a strange cold for two days now,
that racks my whole body with pain and discomfort and my throat with some lump
that takes away what little “comeliness” I might think I have. More like a
low-grade flu, it takes away enthusiasm and delight at the ordinary things of
daily life. One almost feels the pull of “something new,” “something
different,” and “something unique.” When one is in some form of discomfort, one
wants the best for oneself … the best food, the best drink, the best care from
others who are just as equally needy of the same (if not more) items that life
is presumed capable of giving anyone!
The psalmist reinforces what the first reading speaks about.
He prays so that “he might number the days aright,” and that he “might gain
wisdom of heart.” He prays and pleads for the right stuff, and the right stuff
has nothing to do with what we all long for on an average day.
But like as if on cue, the letter writer to the Hebrews
throws in for good measure what this wisdom is based on, or consists of, or is
a function of – the word of God, that “is living and effective, sharper than
any two-edged sword.”
We now hang on the lips of marketers and commercial gurus.
Last year, when Steve Jobs died, the whole consumeristic world grieved at the
passing of someone whose every word we believed, for dear life, for dear
comfort, and dear convenience, and dear lifestyle that all make us think we are
better than others, just because we have a lower case “i” before three other
letters that makes the product definitely a “cut above the rest.!
Today, 28th Sunday, we are once more reminded.
Today, we are also convicted … you and I … and we face the call to transcend
the culture that keeps us enslaved to the pull of the more, the better, the
different. And the readings make no mistake about it. They do not mince words
by saying that that elusive wisdom does not come from having more, and being
different, but by being like Him who was born poor and died poor, and hobnobbed
mostly with the poor: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.” (Alleluia verse).
Disappointment was written all over the face of the
initially enthusiastic young man who approached the Lord in the gospel. He
wanted to cut a dent. He wanted to make waves in society, sort of, asking the
Lord that question that was as much a made-up decision to do good, as a
tentative attempt at making a shot for “eternal life.”
But the young man’s wisdom fell far short of his too
lofty-sounding dream. He got the right noble goal, but missed the earthy,
simple, and lowly human means that are necessary if one is to even start a
journey towards greatness and holiness. He had the brilliance to aim for
eternal life, but lacked the wisdom to part with what ultimately bogged him
down. “At that statement, his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many
possessions.”
Being sick and uncomfortable right now, my own short-sighted
and earthy “wisdom” leads me to pine for many things. But I cannot deny that
the readings convict me and cajole me to aim for higher things. I am sure my
readers and hearers would also have their own stories of desire for all sorts of
creature comfort, along with the temptation to remain on that level.
The first reading suggests something … We are asked to
plead. We are told to pray. And yes … it has nothing to do with the latest iPod
now making many people’s mouths water. It has to do with asking for heavenly
wisdom. And this strain of wisdom does not make much of what commercial gurus
tell us, but what the Word of God leads us to. It comes, though, with a promise
that is literally out of this world: “No one who has given up house or brothers
or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the
sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this
present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and
lands, with persecutions, and eternal life the age to come.”
And last thing I heard is, eternal life does not last only
six months, to be replaced with something new, something different, something
unique. It lasts. And though it has no warranty for a year, it guarantees what,
in our undiluted wisdom from above, we all can see with the eyes of faith –
eternal life. And this means, forever, with no more need for updates, for
codecs, and for periodic registrations, for it has to do with the “age to come.”
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