Brothers and Sisters, we are in this Jubilee Year, with its motto, Pilgrims of Hope. Let’s keep in our prayers two groups of young people from our diocese: one in pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi, the other on pilgrimage to holy places in France.
In the Sunday Gospels we are hearing from St Luke this Year C, we are reminded of the greatest pilgrimage of all: that of Jesus with his disciples towards Jerusalem. He and they were journeying together to keep the annual feast of the Passover. More importantly he was en route to his own Passover, through death, resurrection and ascension to the house of his Father, to the heavenly Jerusalem. This is the pilgrimage the journey that makes sense of all the journeys, changes and transitions of our own lives. This is the journey that gives us the true goal and direction of our human existence. This is the pilgrimage we really want to subscribe to. St Paul had this in mind in the 2nd reading: “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Today’s Gospel reading doesn’t explicitly mention that Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, but it comes from the long stretch of St Luke’s Gospel that relates this journey. It’s not in today’s text, but it is the context. Bearing this in mind helps us understand the individual episodes better. A man in the crowd calls to the Lord, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me”. He’s trying to enlist the Lord as his lawyer. He wants him to compel his brother to give him his share of the inheritance. But Christ replies, “Man, who appointed me an arbitrator?” I’m not your solicitor. Don’t distract me from my journey to the Father, from my mission – and above all, don’t you be distracted. So, Jesus pauses and tells the crowd the story of the rich farmer, a good capitalist who’s on a roll, expanding his enterprise. But it’s all for his own enjoyment, and suddenly he’s called by death to face his Maker. It’s striking how he wanted more “space” for his crops, for himself, and it doesn’t bother him that other people might go to the wall. Look at the news; it’s all there.
The message of today’s readings is surely: check the horizon of your life, reset the compass. Don’t let the desire for wealth become your Jerusalem. We distinguish magnetic north and true north, and perhaps this is a metaphor. There’s a “true north” to our lives: the Lord, eternal life, the heavenly Jerusalem. And there are life’s magnetic fields – the desire for security and things and success – taking us off course. Yes indeed, we need money, we want steady income, a career that grows, we’re not averse to pay rises, we have responsibilities to our families and our children, we have to surf the cost of living. But this is not what life is ultimately about. The ancient words of the 1st reading ring out: “vanity of vanities. All is vanity.” The Hebrew word suggests something without real substance and short-lived, something like smoke or mist, cotton candy, an idol. “Teach us to number our days”, prays the Psalm, “that we may gain wisdom of heart.” Wisdom is the virtue that enables us to prioritise: to distinguish the primary from the secondary, the ends from means, the lasting from the passing. It helps us have the right scale of values in our life.
Avarice is one of the seven deadly sins. Greed, acquisitiveness, getting, having, holding, hoarding, how can we free ourselves from their clawing power over our heart? How can we keep our inner freedom, and not just be reduced to the pressure of need? Not in thrall to vanity? How can we have at least one of our eyes constantly fixed on the glorified Christ? How can we be rich towards God? Jewish and Christian tradition has an ancient answer here. It’s the Lenten word: almsgiving. By reversing our instinct to hold on by handing on, by giving rather than keeping, by sharing rather than hoarding. In Gaza, children and adults are starving (and not only there). One Scottish bishop said recently, that thinking of Ukraine, the Holy Land, South Sudan, the Congo and all the rest, he felt like Mary watching her Son being crucified. But Mary wasn’t idle beneath the Cross. She prayed. She comforted others, surely. Can we help when there is so much political complication, so much violence and corruption on the ground? Will anything we give actually get through? The Church expresses her Mary-like motherhood through Caritas Internationalis. I wouldn’t understand its power to help effectively. SCIAF is its Scottish arm. If you go on to their website, you will see their Holy Land Crisis Appeal. I put this to you.
Brothers and Sisters, through him, with him, in him, as a community of faith, strengthened by the sacraments, we go with Jesus to the Father. We pilgrim in hope, and we’re called to offer hope. The man in the Gospel wanted something from his brother, for himself. May today’s Eucharist turn this attitude around. May we answer the needs of our brothers and sisters!
St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 3 August 2025
