Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 366

...for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

Anyone might complain about the Lord's common sense observations concerning sunshine and rain. The blessings of warmth, sunshine, and water fall wherever they fall without regard to anyone's virtue or wickedness. Likewise, droughts, floods, and searing heat can afflict anyone. 

But it's also true that the wealthy use due diligence before purchasing floodprone lowlands; and their irrigated lawns are green even in arid deserts. The poor scrape out a living in those lesser places where the wealthy cannot be bothered. 

Psalm 73 complains about that apparent injustice:  

...I was envious of the arrogant

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For they suffer no pain;

their bodies are healthy and sleek.

They are free of the burdens of life;

they are not afflicted like others.

Thus pride adorns them as a necklace;

violence clothes them as a robe.

Jesus, a homeless vagrant, recognized the privileges of wealth and their indifference to nature's vicissitudes . He had read the rest of the Psalm. The Divine Author reconsidered his attitude with verse 15:

Had I thought, “I will speak as they do,

I would have betrayed this generation of your children.

Anyone can see how removed the wealthy are from this generation of your children. They distance themselves from certain elements even of their own families. The foolish, reckless, heartbroken and helpless must keep far away; while the polished, poised, influential and elite are made right at home. Wicked wealth does not risk the careless associations of large churches where anyone can come in, take a place, smell, and sing off-key. 

To associate with the wealthy, one must "betray this generation of your children." Jesus, who cannot deny himself, cannot deny his kinship with with the disinherited and despised. 

Like Saint Francis who boasted toward the end of his life, "The Lord gave me brothers," Jesus invites everyone whom the Father gives him: 

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.

The Holy Spirit will not let us forget that Jesus and this generation of his children is our only wealth; he is our privilege and delight. All that other stuff is just stuff.