Readings: Proverbs 3:15-18 and Matthew 6:24-30
The first commandment given by God to Moses in the book of Exodus reads, “You shall have no other gods before me,” which aligns with the greatest commandment—to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and to love your neighbour as yourself—words spoken by Jesus, putting God and humanity at the heart of our longing, and of our very existence as we journey as pilgrims on the way.
Our Gospel reading today begins with Jesus telling us that we cannot serve both God and mammon. Mammon comes directly from the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus, having been left untranslated to preserve its theological depth. The word mammon, meaning wealth, riches, or profit, is also related to the root meaning reliable, or possessions as that upon which we depend. Therefore, the use of the word here sets the possessions of the world—things in the world—in direct opposition to God. To love mammon is to have the love of things in the world as our telos, or the end to which we are directed. God, on the other hand, is not just another thing in the world, something alien and out there among the stars. No, as St. Thomas Aquinas states, God is subsistent being itself (ipsum esse subsistens). He is the sheer act of being, meaning God is independent of creation and self-sufficient.
God is the source of all being, He is the mind from without, a transcendent reality. We, in His image, are able to transcend what is in the world, in order to have a relationship with Him.
Nature’s relationality and its interdependence exist independently of our thoughts about it. Apprehending the reality of that which exists beyond us requires a “being still” rather than thought’s active, dialectical motion. An object’s representation, lifted out of the immediate event of being in the world and placed upon a stage within our mind, becomes a moment of nearness, of coexistence, the meaning of which, in its simplest form, is created by the attention given to it.
This is as we are now: I’m standing here, looking at you over there with direct line of sight and dialogue. This moment of attention is a work we are both doing—actively listening and processing the words to understand them, or perhaps later to challenge them. But in contemplation, in stillness, we can be with that moment, as we are with each other, perceiving that we are here with presence, not like an actor on a stage, or a puppet master controlling objects at will, but grasping gently at it like a river flows and giving to it whatever stirs in the well of our hearts.
What does this mean for us? Well, things without life—possessions in themselves—are not the greatest end to which our lives are directed. Their value is whatever we choose to give them, and this changes with the shifting sands of time. Yet, our life, our souls as being here, are precious, unique and irreplaceable. St. Anselm says God is beyond whatever is the greatest thing we can think of: “God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived”—therefore, He is life beyond all finitude, beyond all perception of time and space, priceless, and beyond all comparison.
So what is the treasure that does have value? Proverbs 3 tells us it is divine wisdom: “more precious than any rubies, nothing you desire can compare with her.” “Wisdom is radiant and unfading, more mobile than any motion; she is a breath of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty” (Wisdom of Solomon 6:12, 7:24-25). Wisdom comes out of God, just as Eve came out of Adam. Therefore, Wisdom, the divine feminine, is a representation of that same continuous nature of God. The divine feminine is the soul of mankind, that precious part of us which continues on from this life to the next—a breath of the power of God that pervades all things, like God’s fingerprint over all of creation. To love wisdom, to desire her as King Solomon did, or to be like her is to be like the Queen of the South, an allegory of the divine feminine, who makes her ear attentive to the King, always seeking the one she loves (Matthew 12:42, Song of Songs 3:3).
Therefore, “Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold” (Proverbs 3:13-14).
The universal value of the human being comes by way of existing. To be human—existing in time—carries an inherent worth, independent of circumstance. This dignity is always present and unaffected by suffering or status. To see this is to see people as souls, of infinite value, more precious than things in the world, like territory that we may start wars, differences of opinion so that we might argue, having gold, or many jewels. Yet in a fallen world where we give and we take away, work is essential for affirming our human dignity, for meeting our basic needs. So when we toil, when we go to work, we are fulfilling a need—for ourselves and often also for our neighbour.
So, the point Jesus is making is about what the mind gives its attention to—what we hold on to, what we claim or strive for. We desire a heart like God’s: to care for others, to feed the hungry, heal the sick—to be with others, to see them, know them, but not to possess. When we cultivate the values of life, love, truth, and wisdom in our hearts, we store up not the things that will rot, break down, or that which cannot be taken with us from the world. We instead store up the treasures of heaven.
The thief steals or claims what was not given to them, like the locusts that come and eat what they did not sow or work for. Yet, we are to recognise that God’s creation provides for the birds: material for their nests, insects for food, all that is needed according to the niche or habitat to which they have adapted for survival, and the behaviours that maximise flourishing from one generation to the next.
We ourselves recognise our belonging as a part of this nature, with the privilege of life, each one of us is a necessary being, whom God knew before we were born. We are each of us a part of God’s movement in the world, without need to covet our neighbour’s property or what someone else can do that we cannot. Let us instead focus on our being and becoming in the world—focus on who we are and what we can do, rather than by comparison what we cannot, or have not been motivated to do.
Mary, Mother of God, is also herself a sign of divine Wisdom that goes beyond human reasoning, when at the Wedding of Cana she says, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). That she is called “woman” recalls the continuity of all creation, and that by her, as St. Anselm says, she becomes the mother of all “recreation.”
“The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender” (Proverbs 22:7). With the advent of AI hyper-personalisation we need to change our relationship with things, with material goods, and therefore with money. The prioritisation of pleasure and self-gratification, the reduction of novelty, and increasing individualism—these add constraints to our freedom, limiting our exposure to the unknown, to challenge, and to connection with others. Control through customisation further erodes critical-thinking skills, and the danger of perpetuating biases is heightened. This risks deepening the mental health crisis and fuelling consumerist societies. This technology and our relationship with material goods versus our needs have profound implications for the fate of humanity.
It is our common humanity that serves as the unchanging bridge between individuals and the collective. Our beauty lies not in outward appearances but flows out from our depths, in our thoughts, words, and deeds. Let us fill our hearts with the Lord, and we will see the beautiful in every place that we are.
By letting go of the desire to possess for its own sake—for we are merely stewards of all that is now—we begin to depend upon the source of our being. We begin to have that water flow from the springs of heaven into the wells of our hearts. We need to disrupt the flow of waters coming through man-made pipes and sources, depending upon Him who clothes the lilies of the field, who set the spirals of flowers and shells patterned also in the stars. This same beauty is in each and every soul, and God—Jesus, fully God, fully man—desires to have us drink from His well of living water, so that we may have life, walking along the paths of peace to live that life to the full.
Amen.