PERMANENT DEACON TALKING

HOMPOD WEEK 18 - YEAR C - RICH FOOL

Deacon Tom

GOSPEL LUKE 12:13-21.  

The things you have prepared whose will they be?

Prayer for people who are hungry  By Helen Moriarty/CAFOD

Music - HEAR ME LORD ( excerpt)     https://youtu.be/nMF6_j3B41I?feature=shared

 Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group   Hear Me Lord · Bonnie Raitt  The Best Of Bonnie Raitt On Capitol 1989-2003 ℗ 2002 Capitol Records, LLC    Released on: 2003-01-01


Text. Message to Deacon Tom

Deacon Tom Copyright © 2025
I sincerly hope that no copyright has been infringed. Pardon is sought and apology made if the contrary is true, and a correction will be made in any future Hompods.


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Permanent Deacon Talking, 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C. Peace be to this house. Welcome to Week 18 in Ordinary Time. Our opening prayer is from Caffod.

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Lord Jesus, you fed the hungry. you shared your bread with all your people hunger now and we are called to share your bread may rains fall upon the dry and broken earth and quench your people's thirst so seeds grow tall and flourish producing a bountiful harvest may we share the blessings you give us and bring comfort to those in need May we show love through our actions so all have enough to eat.

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The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. At that time someone in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, Man, Who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? And he said to them, Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. For one's life does not consist in the abundance of one's possessions. And he told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, What shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this. I'll tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods, and I'll say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink and be merry. But God said to him, Fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So, is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. The Gospel of

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Lord. Do you ever have people coming to you and not asking a favour? but telling you what they want you to do or say. They are frustrated about something or more often upset by another person and they want you to instantly take sides and back them in their particular argument. We have an example the other week with Martha peeved at her sister Mary and crying to Jesus, tell her to help me. Today we have someone in the crowd telling Jesus to make his brother cry. to divide his inheritance with him. I love this translation of Jesus' response. It makes him sound like a California hippie. Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? But unlike the typecast hippie who would go back to waxing his surfboard, Jesus sees an opening to help this man in the crowd with what is Probably an unhealthy dose of jealousy, anger and covetousness that probably goes much deeper than just the inheritance. All this leads into the wonderful parable of the rich farmer who just wanted to relax, eat, drink and be merry. All of the stories in scripture contain both narrative and symbolic meaning. On one level we can hear the story and nothing else. We may miss the symbolic elements or what is seen as the real point of the story. Jesus himself would say, listen if you have ears to hear. And Luke likes to go into stories in depth and has an agenda I'm sure as well for the reason for putting his gospel in particular order and his stories at certain points. In this we have Luke warning all his listeners, not just the brother in the crowd, everyone to be on their guard against greed and jealousy. and the yearning desire to turn life into a gathering of rich comforts that are mainly physical and selfish. The wanting for these life gifts is not the same as making them a life's quest above all else, and especially instead of compassion, love and mercy, which ends in a life not rich towards God. I think Luke is also proclaiming another example of living the good life, and that is the one demonstrated by Jesus. It presents Jesus as one who is anointed by God's Holy Spirit, the same Spirit which has been active from the beginning of creation, what Richard Rohr might describe as the Cosmic Christ, active in Jesus and who now directs the church and presents Jesus as the saviour of the world. Luke turns the quest for riches on its head, the limited view of making life this quest for pleasure and he insists that the good news of Jesus is for the poor and those regarded as outcasts with the proclamation of the treasures of the kingdom as being the thing that one should seek. In fact his terminology is rather crude in calling the man in the parable a rich fool. Jesus on the other hand has a life of ministry that includes healing, comfort of the poor and A reconciliation that's for all, forgiveness for all. Remember last week, forgive us all trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So this parable, this great parable of the rich farmer who just wanted to relax, eat, drink, and be merry, and here's what a lot of people think. That's not too bad a goal, is it? The conclusion is, Let's look at what Jesus says. In the Beatitudes, Jesus once again turns the desire for the rich farmer upside down. Jesus said, Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. It's in Matthew chapter 5. A sister I've been looking at, great information that she talks about, the last words of Jesus on a cross in her Guide to Spiritual Growth. Sister Laurie Brink, she says, there is an invitation to join Jesus in thirsting, not in to be satisfied with overflowing wine lakes and bursting barns, but to join Jesus in being poured out like living water and by giving our own bread to the hungry instead.

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Help me now, help me Lord Help me Lord, I'm feeling low Help me Lord, I'm feeling low