It’s like the sound of a best-seller: How to Get Rich the Easiest Way or How to Get the Most Out of your Money or Financial Success in Ten Easy Lessons. All of us get too busy earning money. Yes, we’ve got to have money. Getting that money has become top agenda in our program. We find it impossible to live without it. Well and good; but are we content with just meeting our basic needs — food, clothing, shelter, and children’s education, some extra money for recreation and another extra to keep in the bank for future emergencies? We are after a life comfortable enough, decent, peaceful, dignified. Trouble is, when that is not enough because we ambition a more luxurious one. Then we would like to have more than just what we need. We want to have more than what is necessary, more wealth which would rank us among the affluent or the filthy rich. We would like our names mentioned in the gossip columns. We are not content with just two or three pairs of shoes but would want to vie with the legendary 3,000 pairs of Madame Pompadour. Then we would want to be ranked among those who can afford to go jetting around the globe and immerse ourselves in wine, women and song. Anything for that coveted la dolce vita.
We are after the blessing in reserve for years to come as the rich man says it in the Gospel for today, with an implication of perpetuity in this temporary earthly life. With that smugness akin to the financially secure, he says to himself: “Relax! Eat heartily, drink well, enjoy yourself!” God calls him a fool. And many of us become fools in the same way. We are not careful that our earnest, honest toil does not turn out into an erratic obsession for material wealth; not careful of the perennial danger of having more than what is necessary. And the more we have, the less dependent on God we become; the prouder we are, the more we leave off praying as if we do not need God anymore; the more attached to this life we become, the farther we move away from the spiritual realms which should be our priceless inheritance in Christ Jesus, our Redeemer. We forget there is a heaven.
We are made for something greater, not for anything else. So we are wiser if we store up wealth which makes us rich for the life hereafter. What riches are we talking about? Every good thing. It’s that simple. Every good thing means no strange gods aside from the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The good thing means keeping holy God’s day, not making out of it a debauchery or a day of unlawful pleasure. The good thing means due respect, obedience and love for parents. It means preservation, prolongation and protection of human life especially that of the unborn and the helpless. It means respect for property rights; it means no kurakot. The good thing is fidelity of husband and wife to one another. Everytime we obey a law of God as it is expressed in the ten commandments, we store up treasure in heaven. Everytime we give food to the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the broken-hearted, help those in need, become peacemakers, we amass riches in heaven.
Every good thing gives worth to our existence in this earthly life. Once stored in heaven, they are there forever. They are jewels whose luster can never fade; the only riches which have value in the eyes of God. They are the riches which alone guarantee life, eternal life.