For this week’s homily please watch the video below.

( I preached this homily today at the Maritime Academy in Kings Point, NY)

For the last four Sundays our readings from St. Luke describe the journey Jesus takes from Galilee to Jerusalem where he’ll suffer and die and rise again. 

He calls people to follow him, some don’t want to follow him at all. Some don’t understand what following him means.

Two weeks ago in our Sunday gospel, for example, a teacher of the law asks Jesus 

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus tells him to love God and love his neighbor.

You get the impression the teacher of the law isn’t really interested in Jesus’ answer. Rather he’s trying to make a point. He wants to discredit Jesus, or perhaps he just wants to show off what he knows. Some people today are like him.

Today’s gospel is about another person who approaches Jesus: “Someone in the crowd said to Jesus “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” 

He’s not interested in following Jesus either, he just wants Jesus to back him up. He’s interested in money. He’s fighting with his brother over an inheritance–not an unusual story, by the way. A lot of families fight about money.

Jesus tells the man “I’m not here as your lawyer or financial advisor.” Then, he cautions him about greed. “Life is not about all the things you have.”

He continues with the story of a rich farmer feverishly building barns for storing his wealth and his harvest:  “This will do it! I can eat, drink and be merry for the rest of my life.”

“You fool,” God says. “You and your wealth can go in a night.”

The rich farmer only thinks about himself, not about others or the land he farms.

Now, suppose the parable became a parable about a fisherman who makes his living on the sea, or about someone like you pursuing a career on the sea. How do you look at your role as maritime people. Just a job? The sea just a place to make money?

Or do you have a call to care for the sea?

Tomorrow some friends and I are going up to Auriesville and Fonda, two towns along the Mohawk River that centuries ago were Indian villages. Auriesville was where a Jesuit priest, Isaac Jogues, and three companions were martyred in the 17th century. St. Kateri Takakwitha was born in the Indian village of Auriesville and lived for 24 years in nearby Fonda. 

The native peoples in those villages on the Mohawk River centuries ago likely came to fish and trade in the waters here around New York City. The waters teemed with fish then. New York Harbor was home to some of the largest oyster beds on the planet. The early European explorers marveled at our harbor, its rivers and waterways, a place of paradise.

What are its waters like now? Mostly polluted. Still a trading place for ships great and small, but no fish and or oysters worth eating. Greed and human ignorance have taken away valuable water resources from our city. We made water a commodity. 

Greed and human ignorance threaten the waters of our world today. So many regard them only as commodity to be plundered for whatever minerals we need.  

“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” 

Is God’s word meant for you? Today’s psalm says it is. The native peoples long ago delighted in the waters you look at every day. They cared for them better than we do.  

Your life is more than making money and eating, drinking and making merry. Learn about the waters of the earth.  Care for them. They need caring for.