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Stanford
University’s origins trace themselves back to a dream. It wasn’t a
dream about money and the happiness it can bring. No, this was a
nightmare teaching how it is that no amount of money can ever fill the
void present in the heart of a person who believes that money can buy
happiness.
Leland Stanford
was a 19th-century
California business tycoon who made his fortune as an entrepreneur and
railroad CEO. One of the “Big Four” who built California's Central
Pacific railroad, Leland Stanford brought his sweeping political
influence to his business partnerships insuring that his
privately-financed projects would enjoy all the advantages of public
funding. His immense wealth enabled Stanford, his wife, and their
son to live lavishly. A popular civic leader whose biographer has
called “a California colossus,” Leland Stanford served as the eighth
Governor of California from 1861-1863 and subsequently was elected to
the United States Senate in 1885 where he served until his death in
1893.
It was at the
zenith of Stanford’s financial and political power that tragedy cut
straight through Leland Stanford’s heart when his only child died in
1884. The tragedy sent Stanford into the throes of depression and
despair, to the point that Leland Stanford became imprisoned by his vast
wealth, believing he had nothing to live for because he couldn’t buy his
son’s life back.
In the midst of
Stanford’s struggle with depression and despair, his son appeared one
night in a dream. In it, Stanford’s son told his father that living
solely for himself and his own comfort wouldn’t bring the happiness he
sought. Instead, Stanford’s son told his father that the elder Stanford
needed to live for other people and their children.
When Leland
Stanford awoke from his dream, he decided to become a philanthropist and
to use his vast wealth to provide for the needs of the poor and,
especially, to educate impoverished children. Stanford University
stands today as the symbol of Leland Stanford’s new priority in life
where money was Leland Stanford’s servant not his master.
In today’s
Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples, “You cannot serve both God and
mammon.” Oftentimes translated as “You cannot serve both God and
money”—indicating how the desire for money can enslave people, making
them its servants rather than its masters—the word “mammon” doesn’t
single out money as the only culprit. No, mammon suggests everything
and anything that distracts people from pursuing the type of moral and
spiritual growth which strengthens them to be capable of making wise
decisions that reflect a personal character rooted in loving and serving
God by doing good. The allure of mammon—whether that stems from the
desire for money, material comforts and possessions, or power and
prestige—seduces human beings into believing that happiness comes from
the acquiring and possessing of these things rather than from engaging
in the moral and spiritual growth it takes to become a person capable of
making wise decisions that reflect a personal character rooted in loving
and serving God by doing good.
Rather than focus
upon money and how money, in particular, seduces people to sacrifice
their personal character to acquire or achieve things having very
little, if anything to do with engaging in moral and spiritual growth to
become capable of making wise decisions reflecting a personal character
rooted in loving and serving God by doing good, I’d like to focus upon
two things we take for granted—two things that really are mammon—which
seduce us into sacrificing our character by providing us with things
that have very little, if anything to do with moral and spiritual
growth, wise decisions, as well as loving and serving God by doing good.
Let’s think for a
moment about television, movies, and CDs.
Few people today
doubt the overwhelming power of the entertainment industry to shape how
many people view what constitutes “normal” behavior. Just think about
how the images of marriage, of parenthood, and of teenage behavior
presented by the entertainment industry have changed over the past four
decades. Can you remember a time when parental controls weren’t needed
on televisions sets because parents didn’t have to worry about the
content of most television shows? Can you remember a time when the
difference between G-, R- and X- rated movies was absolutely clear?
Consider also the language that proliferates today on television,
movies, and CDs. Can you remember a time when using that language
caused a mother to wash her child’s mouth out with soap? I sure
do, and from personal experience!
While all of this
should disturb us as religious people, what is more disturbing is
research indicating that people who identify themselves as “religious”
are just as likely as those who identify themselves as “non-religious”
to watch “trash TV,” to attend R- and X- rated movies, and to purchase
CDs featuring rude, crude, lewd, and profane language and behavior.
This hypocrisy, in fact, encourages entertainment executives to develop
more television programs, movies, and CDs that are even less sensitive
to spiritual and moral values. Why? Because religious people don’t take
their faith seriously when it comes to watching television, going to the
movies, or purchasing CDs.
What is truly
ironic about this situation is that, just like non-religious people,
most religious people today are more worried about the food they are
putting into their mouths and its effects upon their bodies and health
than they are concerned about the media images and messages they are
absorbing into their minds and souls. People today worry more about
cholesterol, carbohydrates, and getting fat than they worry about the
effects that sin will have on their souls.
As our culture
have slowly but steadily redefined the boundaries of what constitutes
social propriety over the past four decades, it has become even easier
for religious people to serve mammon and to forget about God. How? The
widening of the boundaries of social propriety has allowed popular
culture to distract religious people more than ever from doing they know
is required in order to make decisions which reflect a character rooted
in loving and serving God by doing good. It’s one thing to demand
executives in the entertainment industry to take religious faith more
seriously; it’s an entirely different matter for religious people to
take their faith more seriously themselves. That means according first
place moral and spiritual values when determining what we and our
children will watch on television, the movies we and our children will
attend, and the CDs we and our children will purchase.
As people of
religious faith, this enslavement to the mammon produced by the
entertainment industry is a grievous evil that many of us participate
actively in yet entirely overlook. Jesus said, “No servant can serve
two masters. He will either hate on and love the other, or be devoted
to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.”
Television, movies, and CDs cannot fill the void present in the heart of
any person who believes these things will bring true and abiding
happiness.
Let’s also think
for a moment about the proliferation of carefully nuanced language in
our nation.
How often do
people twist their words to mean everything other than God’s simple,
unvarnished truth? From the deceitful corporate titans at Enron to
WorldCom and President Clinton’s “it depends upon what ‘is’ means” to
Cardinal Law’s less-than-forthcoming statement concerning the abuse of
children by priests in the Archdiocese of Boston, a tidal wave of
carefully nuanced language has swept across our nation washing away
God’s simple, unvarnished truth and, with it, human dignity.
Unfortunately, it’s becoming harder and harder to find people who are
charged with leading, governing, protecting, and instructing us who
don’t actively work to sidestep God’s simple, unvarnished truth by
carefully nuancing their words.
Words have
meaning because they have a strange way of etching themselves into the
fabric of the human soul. When Leland Stanford’s son told his father in
that dream about his misguided belief system, those words cut straight
to Leland Stanford’s soul and compelled him to change. When God’s
simple, unvarnished truth isn’t etched into one’s heart, this is when
people begin to nuance their words and phrases carefully, to utter
half-truths and non-truths, and to convince other people of the nonsense
they are propagating. The sad part of all this twisting of God’s
simple, unvarnished truth is that religious people, for the most part,
don’t really appear to care all that much about that it is happening not
only around them but that they are doing it themselves.
For example, many
of our fellow citizens and perhaps many of us assert that Catholics—and
especially the bishops—should refrain from discussing important national
policies and political candidates through the lens of faith. Twisting
God’s simple, unvarnished truth, these people also assert that it is
neither sensitive nor inclusive to use the content of the faith to
render judgment upon national policies as well as those who are running
for political office.
When Catholics
deny the relevance of faith when making national policy decisions and
when selecting public officials, they are feeding themselves upon the
mammon which deceives people into believing that happiness is found by
adopting the “I’m okay, you’re okay” mentality which asks “Can’t we all
just get along?” What Catholics forget about when they feed upon this
mammon is that they soon become its servant. So, instead of contesting
public opinion that is at odds with Church teaching in the public arena,
many Catholics forget about the fact that they once asked to receive the
Sacrament of Confirmation and, instead, equivocate, bend, and stretch
the God’s simple, unvarnished truth to mean just about anything and
everything. Or, worse yet, they decide to remain silent.
Even more
perniciously, when Catholics “think that religion consists in acts of
worship alone…” and when Catholics further “imagine [they] can plunge
into earthly affairs in such a way as to imply that these are altogether
divorced from the religious life. This split between the faith which
many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more
serious errors of our age.” These are pretty harsh words. They’re not
my words nor do they represent my judgment. No, these are the words and
judgment of the Second Vatican Council, the highest form of infallibly
binding Church teaching.
Jesus said: “No
servant can serve two masters. He will either hate on and love the
other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve
both God and mammon.” There is nothing un-American about relating faith
and public policy. Public policy and political choices have
consequences. What’s required of us not only as people of faith, but
more especially so as Catholics, is what St. Paul said to Timothy, that
is, “…God our savior…wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge
of the truth.”
It is our role,
as Roman Catholics citizens of a pluralistic democratic republic, to
assist their fellow citizens to hear God’s simple, unvarnished truth so
that they might form their consciences properly. Important national
issues like war, the sanctity of marriage, educating young persons, the
boundaries of scientific research, and the limits of medical practice
require Catholics not to equivocate, to bend, to twist, and to stretch
God’s simple, unvarnished truth to mean just about anything and
everything to anybody and everybody.
As we Catholics
serve God rather than mammon, then, we stand up in the public square and
defend God’s simple, unvarnished truth. We fearlessly carry the power
of God’s simple, unvarnished beyond the parish walls into the public
square so that people can “be saved and…come to knowledge of the
truth.” Only then will our fellow citizens make wise decisions about
public policy and political candidates.
Mammon’s
allure—whether that stems from having money, material comforts and
possessions, or power and prestige—seduces human beings into believing
that happiness comes from acquiring and possessing these kinds of things
rather than from doing good by loving and serving God.
Like Leland
Stanford discovered in the tragic death of his son, no amount of mammon
can ever fill the void present in the heart of any person who believes
that mammon can purchase happiness. Living solely for ourselves and our
personal comfort will not bring the happiness we seek. Instead,
Stanford’s son told his father that the elder Stanford needed to live
for other people and their children. As the prophet Amos noted in
today’s first reading:
“Hear this, you who
trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land….The Lord has
sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have
done.”
To achieve the
true and abiding happiness we seek, God must take first place in our
lives. Jesus urges us today to do this by seeking our true and lasting
happiness in loving and serving God not mammon. |
HOMILY
