October 30, 2011 Cycle A
We have parishioners who are math teachers, accountants and bookkeepers, who tell me that numbers and math can be fun. Well today I’d like to begin with a series of numbers that have to do with earned income.
According to the Washington Post the average household wealth of the top 1% in the United States – including home, equity, stocks and investments, was almost 14 million dollars in 2009. The average wealth for the bottom 80% was $62,900.00.
Those statistics may be startling enough, but here is another. One in six Americans lives on $22,000 year. Everything: food, clothing, housing, transportation, tuition. A family of four is making it on less than $2,000 a month. Can you believe it? Yet these individuals and families are trying to do just that. According to the September report of the US Census Bureau, more than 15% of Americans are living below the poverty line. The poverty line is currently defined as $22,314.00 for a family of four.
Given the current jobless rate and the devastated economy it’s hardly surprising. With such a poverty rate – one in six – means that poverty is much closer than we think – that the poor are in our midst.
And these poor are not just the unemployed, not just the unskilled, not just the unlucky. The poor – our poor – are members of a faith community. For example: the unemployed technician who has been drudging from hopeless interview to interview for months is a parishioner. The desperate mom or dad working three or four part-time low paying jobs to feed their family is a member of a parish. The child that comes to catechism hungry because there is nothing for breakfast, and then during the week his family can’t give him anything for lunch money is part of a faith community too.
When we believe that we are to be brothers and sisters to one another in the faith, this extends more than just to those who are worshiping by our side. It speaks too of the call to care for others for as the Gospel today reminded us, “The greatest among you must be your servant.” We know that Christ sits at the table with the poor at the Soup Kitchen. Jesus shares a crowded house of family and friends who share cramped quarters to save money. And Christ sleeps in the van with the single mom and her two kids because they can no longer afford their own apartment.
Jesus, the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, walks in our midst. Have we seen them? Well, according to the US Census Bureau we all have.
A columnist writing the New York Times articulates a concern he has for the graduating classes of this year and the next. David Brooks says, “Today grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self is the center of a life, but of course, as they age, they discover that the tasks of life are at the center.” He goes on to write, “Most of us are egotistical and many are self-concerned most of the time. But it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only to those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself, but rather it is to “lose” yourself.
Today, in our Gospel, Jesus says that greatness is discovered not in finding ourselves, but in “loosing ourselves” in the great tasks of life. Not in our own wants, but in our generosity in helping others find their own reasons to hope and to persevere. Jesus would go on to teach not in procuring our own satisfaction, but in finding the enduring joy of happiness found in charity, in loving and in being loved.
For those of us who call ourselves disciples of Christ, our purpose and meaning in life is realized in the act of doing good. Our meaning is realized in imitating Jesus in such work and further assures that we are bringing the love of God into the lives of others. Jesus who welcomed to His side the rejected and scorned of society, who washed the feet of His friends and taught them to do the same, leaves a legacy of such “greatness” to each of us, to His Church, to “lose” ourselves in the “tasks” of discipleship.
Here on the last weekend of the month, I would like to invite you to enroll again for a year of financial support and commitment. By giving to your parish family you are underwriting the ministries that I spoke of earlier, not only to look after the needy, but also to continue to educate our youth, and all who continue to strive to learn more about our Lord Jesus in the Scriptures and the rich traditions of our Catholic faith. Your pledge, your commitment to another year, certainly will help us all in serving those who come to our doors assisting, growing, educating, and praying with.
Would you please now turn to the Stewardship Pledge Cards in your pews, pass them among yourselves, and consider filling it out today, or if you wish take it and bring it back soon. Information requested, especially your phone contact, enables us to update our census.
In today’s bulletin you will find the parish Financial Report for July 2010 to June 2011. Like all of you, the Church operating expenses have increased, especially for utilities and insurance. And like many of you, our parish staff did not receive a raise this year. In fact recently we had to take $10,000.00 from savings (emergency fund) to pay our bills. We are all keeping our budgets to the minimum hoping that we will not have to implement “furlough” days, or decrease the programs and services we offer to you, the parishioners. Please consider this Financial Report while discerning your pledge for the year 2012.
Your sign of support is fulfilling truly the challenge of the Gospel today. May God bless us all as we continue to grow in our faith life and generosity of spirit as we “Walk the Walk” here at Christ the King Parish.
Amen. Amen. Msgr. Tom Adrians, Pastor Christ the King