In plenty and in want...

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 21, 2022: Proverbs 30:5-9; Luke 9: 1-6

We have today persons who earn exhorbitanly high salaries, in some fields. There are otheres who put in a lot of work, even more than the former sort, but earning not even just enough for their upkeep and their family's. But no one bothers about the other! The one who gets more still aims for more and the one who gets less goes on slogging for more! People in want and people with plenty are living side by side, as two worlds that exist within one! There are those in want dreaming of  shortcuts to get rich; and those in plenty, who seem to have forgotten the one who gives.

Jesus instructs his apostles on being a messenger of God. The crux of his instruction is not merely about whether to have or not to have, whether to possess or not to possess, but it is all about depending on God or not! Poverty within the worldview of the Reign of God, in terms of Jesus' thinking, is a fundamental dependence on God. Being grateful for what God gives, and being expectant like a child to be given things in love.

It is more than what the book of proverbs suggests in the first reading today. While the passage from the proverbs carries a tinge of cynical realism, the Gospel offers a proactive sense of dependence out of true human freedom, that defines a true disciple and a dedicated apostle. This is the same as St. Paul suggests, to learn to live in want and in plenty, because we can do anything through the one who strengthens us (cf. Phil 4:12,13). In plenty or in want, what matters is how mindful we are for the true wealth of a Christian - not what we possess, but the One who gives that to us.