18th Sunday of Ordinary Time, C August 3, 2025
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Uh, friend Jesus, our Father did. In Acts chapter 10, Peter the chief apostle outright says, Jesus “commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.” So, is Jesus being forgetful or is he just trolling this guy?
Actually, “trolling him” isn’t far off. If you’re unfamiliar, that expression is used to describe when someone purposely says things more to get a reaction rather than to help the conversation along. As usual, Jesus is doing multiple things at the same time here. He really is trying to help the man with the question while at the same time using it as an opportunity to teach something to the whole crowd. It’s not the help that the man with the question wants, but it is what he needs.
Even if we focus on just that one guy, Jesus is giving him two answers. The first answer is “no” and “you shouldn’t be so focused on money anyway.” But that question “who appointed me judge” isn’t just an annoying dismissal. It’s a real question and if the man really stops to think about it, it could change everything. Jesus never says he isn’t the judge, he only wants the man to think about why he is so quick to assume Jesus can help him.
The thing is, so many people intuitively get that Jesus is important. Even non-believers tend to have this vague idea of Jesus as a wise teacher who loved the poor. But Jesus doesn’t want vague belief. He doesn’t want thoughtless impressions. He wants faith. This man with a question has the beginnings of faith. He knows Jesus can solve his problem, but he doesn’t know why. If he did, he’d realize that Jesus is there to solve a much bigger and more important problem: his own heart.
If it wasn’t obvious from all three readings, I’ll say it plainly: we should care more about holiness and grace than we do about money and power. As St. Paul puts it, “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.” It’s not that money is evil. Greed is evil. Self-reliance without God is evil. But money? Or grain? It’s just stuff. Use it as needed, then let it be. Jesus gives us this parable about saving up grain; can you think of another bible story that involves someone saving up a bunch of grain?
Joseph in Egypt. The pharaoh has a dream that Joseph interprets to mean there’s a famine coming. So, Joseph saves up 7 years-worth of grain and it’s a good thing he does. That investment saves the whole region from starvation. Why is it okay for Joseph to save up his grain but not for the man in Jesus’ parable?
Joseph was the second most powerful man in Egypt, so he was also very rich in material things. The difference here is that Joseph was even richer in what matters to God. Joseph used his wealth and power as instruments of love where the man in the parable used it as instruments for his own pleasure. What are the riches that matter to God? Faith, Hope, and Charity – the three theological virtues.
Joseph had faith in trusting God’s guidance. He had hope that God would provide enough grain ahead of time to save up and make it through the famine. He had charity – love of others that moved him to save that grain for the sake of others rather than himself. This rich man in the parable? All he had was a bunch of grain.
When Joseph died, his faith, hope, and charity came with him while the gold and grain stayed on earth. When the rich man in the parable died, the gold and grain also stayed on earth, but he had nothing to take with him. Vanity of vanities, it’s all vanity. That’s why Jesus is challenging the man who asked about his inheritance, to wake him up to the vanity of being so focused on money.
Look, the man’s brother should share the inheritance with him. Justice is a virtue and God is just. He wants us to be fair and honest with each other. But earthly justice, like earthly wealth, is just not all that important in comparison with heavenly justice and heavenly wealth. And what is heavenly wealth again? Faith, Hope, and Charity.
What the man with the question needs is faith. That’s why Jesus hits him with the question “who appointed me judge?” He’s saying, “if you’re so ready to trust me with your lawsuit, what else should you trust me with?” The answer, of course, is his heart. Somewhat ironically, Jesus is judging this man. Jesus can read hearts, so he can do that – we can’t. Jesus judges the greed in this man’s heart and says “wake up!”
Why do children leave the faith they were raised in? Why to people leave the Church they belonged to their whole life? Many reasons, but this is probably the most common one: they got tired of people using Jesus instead of actually following Jesus.
What’s insidious about this is the way our sinful hearts so warp our relationship with God that we use God to make money instead of trusting and loving God. Precisely because we sense that Jesus has real authority, we so often try to wield that authority to our own advantage. We see this with corrupt priests and bishops using their positions to manipulate, control, or simply profit off the people entrusted to them. That is a tragedy, a scandal, and an outrage that the Church in every generation has to deal with. May God grant us courage and purity!
Yet, do you know where else people abuse Christ’s authority? Friendships. Children. When stressed out about our own situations, it can be tempting to use Jesus like a weapon, to guilt-trip people into getting what we want. It might be subconscious, but some part of us thinks “if I use Jesus’ name, I can get this friend or child to do what I want.” I bet most of you know exactly what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that tactic. It’s especially galling when the person doing it is a hypocrite, like “you’re gonna lecture me about following Jesus, but you don’t even take him seriously yourself.”
This is insidious because parents and friends should use faith to convict the ones they love. If I love you, I want you to go to heaven and so I’ll call you out on your sinful behavior. But there’s a difference between “I love you, so I want you to stop sinning” and “I want something from you, so I’ll guilt-trip you into giving it to me.” Even when the thing we want is right – like a fair share of our parents’ inheritance – we’re wrong for using that tactic to get it.
Do you see how dangerous that is? So you see why Jesus was more worried about this man’s faith than his share in the inheritance? Not only is it a sin to use Jesus to manipulate other people, it’s a really great way to make it harder for people to trust the actual authority of Jesus Christ. It jeopardizes your own relationship to Jesus while at the same time driving a wedge into another person’s relationship to Jesus.
…I want you to be detached from money. I hate greed. I want you to live simply, to be generous, and to work 10 times as hard at growing in virtue and holiness as you do at making money. But what I – and Jesus – want even more than that is for you to actually accept the authority of Jesus. Don’t manipulate that authority. Don’t treat it like a tool in your psychological arsenal. Accept it. Embrace it so that you can treat Jesus the way you should: as the Lord. The Lord of your life, your possessions, and your relationships. Jesus is not meant to be a political ally or an investment tool. He is meant to be the Lord of your heart. And making that true is worth more than all the gold and grain in the world… and even more besides.