The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – August 3, 2025
Jesus does not condemn the rich for being rich. Think of Zacchaeus, the wealthy tax collector who received Jesus’s blessings (Lk 19:1–10) or the rich man whom Jesus looked upon with love (Mk 10:21). Being rich does not make one a sinner, but being “not rich in what matters to God” (Lk 12:21) makes one a fool.
What, then, matters to God? Or, as many English translations put it, what does it mean to be “rich toward God”? It’s not enough just to give God what is due in tithes, obedience, or praise. The rich man whom Jesus loved followed the commandments. Still, he was lacking. The offerings by the wealthy to the temple treasury outmatched the poor widow’s two small coins (Lk 21:1–2). Nonetheless, their contributions were insufficient.
What truly matters to God is to know our need for the other and to use our possessions for the other so as to live in right relationship with them.
We must look beyond the material to understand what truly matters to God. It is to know our need for the other and to use our possessions for the other so as to live in right relationship with them.
Whether that “other” is God, our family at home, our neighbor next door, the stranger far away, or the generations to come, all we have is for them. If we desire true wealth, then they are the answer to God’s question to us this day: “The things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?”
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