This odd little gospel may sound awful, especially in a place like this, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” That’s exactly what it is says, but it means that there is a profound truth, a universal law, behind its shocking words. “The one who has will get more and the one who has not will lose what he has.” Let’s look at some very ordinary examples.
The person who is physically fit and keeps himself so will be able to lift more weight, run farther and feel better all around, while the one who lets himself go flabby, will be able to lift less weight, not be able to run as far or as fast and will probably have more physical problems like diabetes or high blood pressure.
The person who saves some of his money and invests it wisely will become richer, while the one who is a spendthrift and wastes his money on gambling and unwise purchases will probably end up losing whatever he has.
The person who has faith and feeds that faith with regular prayer and spiritual reading will end up with an even stronger faith, while the one with little faith, who skips church, skips prayer and skips any spiritual reading will, no doubt, lose what little faith he had!
Maybe
we could summarize the great truth behind the passage today, “The one who has
will get more and the one who has not will lose what he has,” with these two
popular phrases - “Choose it or lose it.” or “If you are not busy being born,
you are busy dying.”
Winston Churchill said, “Nothing gets better by leaving it alone.”
In fact, when we “leave things alone” the natural process of entropy sets
in – we start coming unglued, we start declining, we begin to rot! Entropy is
that spontaneous and unremitting tendency in the universe toward disorder
unless there is an opposing force working against it. People, like homes, when
they are left alone fall into decay. Even fruits and vegetables, unless
something is done to “preserve” them, begin to rot! When we “leave
ourselves alone,” we commit what I call “personal and spiritual suicide.”
I have concluded that there are two secret ingredients to becoming
all that we can be. (1) The first ingredient is a passionate commitment
to personal excellence – to loving who we really are – loving
ourselves enough to care about becoming our best selves. Really loving
oneself does not mean papering oneself. Rather, it means doing hard things for
one’s own good.
(2) After a passionate commitment to who one is, to being the best
version of ourselves, the second ingredient in really loving oneself is a
passionate commitment to vocational excellence. If you strive to be the best at what you have
been called to do in life, you will get better at it. If you choose the “good
enough to get by” path, you will become known for your mediocrity.
The word used by fourth century monks for this state was acedia. Acedia is
not a disease, it’s a temptation – the temptation to disconnect, the temptation
to stop caring, the temptation to stop making an effort. I find it fascinating
that acedia, in its root, means negligence -
a negligence that leads to a state of listlessness, a lack of attention to
daily tasks and an overall dissatisfaction with life, of not caring or not
being concerned with one’s self-care or position or condition in the world. In
other words, unlike clinical depression, it can be resisted. The sooner it is
confronted the more success one has in turning it around. It is true” You are
either busy being born or you are busy dying so don’t give up! Be like Sisters
Bernard and Irene! “Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”
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